Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Thanks people,
You have actually pointed out everything a developer oversee`s when developing a web site. I guess you get caught up on the coding that you over look simple things.
Thank god the web site is still under construction and will not be released until the mid May.
Please keep going over it with a fine tooth comb. I will just help me develop a well thought out web site, I know the grammar needs to be polished up.
I will sit down today and perhaps go over it.
Mission statement is in the works. As for the Animation, after 4 hours of deliberating with my client, I guess they are very egotistical about their logo and do not want  me to put skip buttons. "Wadda you say about that?" If it was my web site, that would have been the first thing I would have put.

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Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net

The answer to "Whaddya say about that" is easy, unforunately -- let them roll it out, and then track the number of hits the flash page gets versus teh amount of dropoff you see in how many people get to the next page.  They`ll add a skip intro button in a month. :)

If you`ve got the resources, see if they`ll let you A/B test it.  Put the skip button on half the people that see the page, and compare the results.  Demonstrate to them that with a skip button they get more people to the page.




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Personal: http://www.morinfamily.com/blog
Geeky: http://duanesbrain.blogspot.com
Shakespeare: http://suchshakespearestuff.blogspot.com

Here`s a site I created for an auto buying service that in turn provides the co-branded sites to credit unions in CA:

http://autopersonalshopper.com/home.php?pid=16

http://autopersonalshopper.com/home.php?pid=12

To make the site seem fresh everytime there`s a new visitor, I make the car images rotate.

The site is meant to capture information from those who are interested in the service so I made those functions of the site stand out do they can go right to it.  I also used a white backgroud because anything on white stands out. 

I think there are about 20 something credit unions currently using this system and each can set their own bar colors to match their logo.

I know this info is overkill but like to give visuals.

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Peter Nguyen Founder 2Keene Ventures, LLC. www.premiersaver.com "Even heaven has a rainy day"

I forgot to mention.   I didn`t use the brute force security code on those sites but did suggest it to the client.  Ultimately their call.

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Peter Nguyen Founder 2Keene Ventures, LLC. www.premiersaver.com "Even heaven has a rainy day"

from a non profession view, 

I thought over all it was very nice .

During intro  I had to actually look up to my speakers to see  if I had turned them off  , conplete silence  untill ulmost the end.  Sound a bit earlier would of been nice.

2. The music  is a risk. I didn`t see where you could turn it off ,   maybe I wasn`t looking in the  right place,  but it was killing me.  Different types of music has the ability to raise my anxiety   and that was doing the job.

But take away the music, if I had stumbled onto the site  I would of considered it as good as any.

Mike

PS I`m not as picky, meant in a good way, as many.

 

These sites look great and really professional.  Very clean... I like!!!

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calvin1214@hotmail.com

It`s Friday afternoon, so you`re going to get my "no holds barred" critique. 

My first reaction (after waiting through the flash intro) is to question the music.  It`s not iTunes...lose the music.  (even iTunes doesn`t automatically play music on their site)  Music (as well as animation) is fine when it is used to achieve a specific goal...and more specifically, when the visitor opts to listen.   Regardless of whether someone likes the beat, it serves only as a distraction to the main goals of the site. 

It`s unfortunate that the client insists on the Flash splash page.  "Intro" splash pages met the fate of the dinosaurs years ago for professional websites.  Splash pages are most often overdesigned "ego" pages for the company, but serve no purpose for the person visiting the site. BardStuff offers a great solution though.  Track the exit rate from this page...and the client will soon come around.

I`m going contrary to popular opinion in this post and will argue against the animation in the home page content.  A static graphic with strong messaging would be much more effective.  The message "We`ve got you covered" is too ambiguous and vague.  It`s more of a tagline than a message.  I`d prefer to see a couple in-my-face bullets that tell me what Catino Insurance can specifically do for ME and why the heck I`d use them over AAA or Statefarm...etc. 

Take a look at StateFarm`s site and look at what they feature....Get a Quote.

I`d recommend removing "Services" from the top menu altogether and create persistent navigation (def: carried throughout the site) on the left (horizontal black space) that shows each service.  You could then combine "Vision" and "Mission Statement" into 1 About us page and lose the drop-down menu completely.  I`m sure this would clean up some source code and make the page load a bit faster.

Design-wise, the site definitely needs to be cleaned up.  Visit competing sites and understand that Catino is competing with these.  (check out some good insurance site designs here..although some use too much Flash and music)

I`m sure the back-end programming is stellar, but I`d raise the bar on the design.  The wireframe layout isn`t bad at all, but tighten up the messaging and graphics within.

Now....let`s get on with the weekend!

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Brian Cleveland,
Web Producer,
StartupNation

Brian,

Your post looks like what I post on another thread

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Peter Nguyen Founder 2Keene Ventures, LLC. www.premiersaver.com "Even heaven has a rainy day"

I see, Here is the scoop

Although template monster was my first suggestion and thats what I went for. The customer didn`t care for it so I was stuck with the template and they are non-refundable. So now I went from templates to custom sites. I know there is lots of work to be done as far as layout, I will continue to submit as I clean it up

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Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net