Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hello gang!  I developed a website through Windows Office Live for my dad`s business.  Please let me know what you think.

www.cleanact.net


Thanks!
GD8N

Well it`s a good effort. The copywriting is pretty good, especially if you`re a novice, and the site isn`t too bad. Besides the basic contact information, a web site is designed to communicate to a prospective customer so that the customer can determine if your product/service is relevant.

With that in mind, you need some before/after photos. People are buying the "after" and clear illustration of the benefit offered by your father is a key to successfully communicating with prospective customers. I think you have done a nice job.

Change the font to Times New Roman and don`t use italics to present all the text. You should also adhere to the common English presentation of paragraphs with ragged right edges. Using centered text for all your paragraphs makes the text much harder to read; people learn how to read English from a young age and have certain expectations.

I don`t get the idea of the green picture in the middle top of the home page. You could probably find a much better picture, I think.

I`d also lose the "Welcome to Clean ACT" and just go with the tagline itself. That`s much stronger, as people already know they`re at the Clean ACT site.

Although I think there`s a good use for having a 100% of window design, it usually involves a lot more complex body of information. For example, if you have many products in a busy store, you need all that screen space to keep it clean, and have some white space too.

But when you`re doing a basic postcard on 1 page, I think there`s more benefit to keeping the left and right borders constrained. Remember, people have peripheral vision and if your text goes too far in both directions, you end up losing the "focus." Especially on a 19" monitor.

So I`d put your message into a table, maybe, around 800 pixels or so wide, and perhaps center the table. You could use CSS for the same thing, but why bother?

Then you`d see everything laid out more "directly," might be a good word. At that point, you can look at perhaps using bullets for the "We clean:" and do some other visual changes.

I agree with CookieMonster that more "before-after" pics would be really helpful. I`d also put an "About" of some sort, explaining what happens. For example:

Thanks guys!  Great Advice. I changed it up a bit.  Have a look if you have time and as always thanks again.

I would suggest changing the all blue font; make it darker, vary it, bolder, something .... make it more readable. Make it more interesting to look at.

JMO .... another picture or two on the main page to fill it in would make it a bit more appealing.

A page with some basic company and service info would help. Who are you? What is your experience? What types of cleaners/chemicals/residual stuff is there, if any?

Testimonials.





-------------------------

M Hall
Website Critique Community
International Society of Curmudgeons

Brilliant. Excellent. You really did an outstanding job implementing those revisions. A few more pics might be nice - but I am very impressed with your work. I am thinking about what I might suggest to improve your call to action.

-------------------------

BusinessWeek Magazine-

"...had no product in 2003 when they pitched their business plan...Mangrove`s partners cut a check for seed funding of $130,000. "We like going against the odds," says Tluszcz."

“While everybody else gives opinions, The Professor provides expertise without failure!”

Opinions don`t count, just expert ones!


The Professor- Marketing to the elite businesses!

ProfessorRainmaker. I hate to break it to you but your posts frequently contain the wrong advice and misinformation - and this post is no exception. Your critique contains a lot of misinformation and suggestions that are completely wrong for the context. "Repositioning the competition as unholy water? Show long term benefits of power washing?" Maybe someone just wants a clear driveway. What do you know about the competition in his market? What do you know about his customers? Clearly you know nothing. Since you don`t know anything about his market, or his customers, most of your post is just nonsense and time wasting. What did you do? Learn about positioning in marketing 101 and decide you`d give the world a taste of your expert knowledge? Barf. "Four frowns for not tapping into your target market?"What does this mean? Answer. Nothing. "The name is generic and won`t get clients to act." What kind of horsecrap is this? It`s a pressure washing company, not Coca Cola.

Your post ( and the others in these forums ) do not position you as an expert and instead simply position you as an idiot.

Ah hah! That`s way better! :-D

To follow up on Webline`s comment, there seems to be a general consensus that a "sans serif" font works better when reading content on a computer, unless the type is very large. Sans serif would typically be Arial, Helvetica, or maybe Verdana.

The problem is that the fonts like Times Roman "seem" lighter, not as heavy, in the same size. I think that`s why the page appears sort of "light" or maybe lacking contrast. Try "Arial, Helvetica, Sans Serif" as your basic starting font, and see what you think.

I`ll add my vote for more pictures on the second page, particularly before-after. That`ll make the page more interesting, fill in the empty space (as opposed to white space), and leave you room for more written content to explain the images.

All in all, though, this version is WAY easier to understand than the previous. Excellent job :-)