Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I just finished uploading my new site, and would like to have any willing community members give it the once over.

Feel free to be as in depth as you care to be.

Please remember that I`m not a professional, and this is my first successful attempt at publishing a website.

I`m aware that the "home" link in the nav areas is not working correctly. I`m trying to figure that one out now.

Thanks in advance.

http://www.industrial-clean-air.com

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~Dave~
Industrial Clean Air

Dgoodin, the home page thing....http://www.industrial-clean-air.com/index/index.htm l is where you send people, take out the middle "index" and your back home.

I don`t know anything about building sites so I don`t know how you can correct it.

Stan 

Your index/home link isn`t working because you have this ....

http://www.industrial-clean-air.com/index/index.html

... where it should be this ....
http://www.industrial-clean-air.com/index.html

Visually, I think the layout is fairly clean and easy to navigate. Nothing overly fancy, which is my preference, but thats just my personal opinion. I think maybe using something besides the standard fonts to spice it up a bit wouldn`t hurt, though. The gray areas don`t really compliment the pages, perhaps stay with white or a lighter shade of blue.

I thought your "About Us" page would give more company background type of information, where you seem instead to stay on the topic of your services. Maybe create separate pages to define both.

For SEO .... you don`t have meta tags that you should, i.e. description and keywords. Your css should be moved to an external file and imported.

"Air Cleaners For Industry And More" is a bit vague to me; include your keywords in a natural way here since this is your H1 area. Put titles in your links.


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M Hall
Website Critique Community
International Society of Curmudgeons

Hey! You`re in ND! I grew up in Bismarck. (I`m now in Atlanta.) That`s fun.

Anyway, for the site, I would suggest using a sans-serif font (Arial or
Verdana or similar). It`s easier on the eyes. (This is opposite of print,
where you *want* to use a serif.) You can apply styles easily with a CSS
stylesheet.

Also, I would lose the COMING SOON pages. Just take them and the links
leading to them completely off. No point in wasting a user`s time with
clicking on links that don`t give them anything.

On the About Us page, I think you could make a better connection by
showing a few names of people in the company (or just yourself, if it`s
only you) and adding a picture. I think that would make your site more
personable and approachable. People will know who they`re dealing with.

Just my $0.02.

Congrats on getting on the web!

And good luck!!

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. Please keep them coming.

I`m working at the changes suggested now.

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~Dave~
Industrial Clean Air

Personally, I think you have the web site upside down. Text is for Search Engines ... picures and images are for visitors.

Web surfers are more visual and respond to images and pictures. When I went to your first page ... I thought ... Boring !! You want me to read all that stuff to try and figure out what you are all about?

Personally, I would spend the money to have a professional design the site.

Why??

You wouldn`t do "brain surgery" on yourself, would you?

Do what you do best and contract out for all the rest.

I think I`d agree with BlondieBlue on the content being a bit uninteresting. I didn`t mind the gray bars, they sort of keep with the simplicity of the site, but the text (copywriting) could use some help. I also tend to agree that generally, a sans serif font is better on the Web.

One thing you can do for sure is to make your pictures have links, as well as the link text below the pictures. In today`s culture, I think most people tend to expect to be able to click a picture itself and get where you want them to go.

Overall, the problem here isn`t Web design, per se. It`s rather about making your product and your company interesting! I read as much as I could take of the site, but never got any sense of *why* should I buy one of your products?

I don`t mean the features and benefits! I mean.....what problem am I having, right now, sitting in my home, foolin` around on the computer....that would make me wish I had an air filter!?

So many sites have this same problem. They think they`re selling a product, but the viewers are looking to solve a problem. Nowhere on the site is there any reference to the immediate problem (I mean generally on problem sites).

Right now, here`s "the problem" you`re focusing my attention on (restated for example clarity):
Even if I was a manufacturer, what does "issues" mean? And how do "issues" have answers? I thought questions have answers, don`t they? Maybe I have air-quality PROBLEMS!....? If so, those aren`t questions either. I want a solution, not an answer.

Look at it differently: One morning, you woke up, leaped out of bed, shouted, "EUREKA! I`m going to solve the world`s bad air problem by selling high-quality air cleaners!" Right?

First off, how many people right now have a burning throat, concerning problems with air quality? Are you targeting them directly? "Sharper Image" is going after medical problems associated with air quality. So is Orek.

How do you separate out your target market? Who are they, and more importantly, who is The Decision-Maker? They`re sitting at their computer: What are they worrying about?

(Just reading Nikole`s post about Techshop, there`s an excellent example of how a viewer`s problem is clearly outlined immediately.)

Site has been reworked a bit, some changes implemented.

I`m still trying to figure out meta tags, keywords & phrases. I`m doing my reasearch here though, and starting to find some answers.

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~Dave~
Industrial Clean Air

Here, try this:

Note that I inserted the thing about HAZMAT and OSHA for several reasons. It`s one thing to build a problem on air quality, which is indeed a health and safety issue. But it`s even better to demonstrate the ROI (return on investment) to your potential client.

To that end, I would suggest adding to your site a FAQ or Articles page. There you can put in summary paragraphs with links to white papers that discuss the types of lawsuits (and damages awarded) centering around bad air quality.

This puts together real numbers for factory owners who don`t think they want to spend the money up front. You`ll know a whole lot more about this than I do, I`m only putting out a "navigational" pathway that links a) air quality, b) health and safety, c) regulatory bodies involved with that, d) potential lawsuits and money problems, e) how you can save lots of money by purchasing our systems.

:-)

Nice clean looking site. The only thing I would do is play with the fonts a little to not make it look so plan and cookie cutter.

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china business card / Wall Street Journal Reader