I know it is wrong

OK here goes fingers crossed and awaiting incoming. (see Mike sat with Pith helmet and hands over ears).

It is my very first venture and a local chap (retired) who set the local village hall up with a site and a couple of his friends offered to do this for under £100 through Heart Internet.

To repeat the old phrase; "funding is tight right now" until some work comes in. It will, I know it will but time is the killer.

Go on then, be destructive or constructive, I'm a big lad now I can take it.

Mike

Redirect page

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Well leave this all to y'all first, I do not want to post from an altruistic position!

Come on fellas, non web designers help mike out here from a clients point of view, also I work closely with one of the UK's biggest H&S companies, so know exactly whats working for them.

"We have used Kip FX design for a variety of design requirements including promotional literature for our health and safety consultancy services, flyer design for our IOSH and NEBOSH courses, and information documents for all our health and safety e-learning courses. The service (and end results) have been absolutely first class. I would personally recommend Kip FX for all of your design requirements."

Nick Higginson MSc CMIOSH Dip2.OSH SpDipEM MIIRSM
Phoenix Health & Safety

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Well I'm a non web designer, so I can have a go

First impressions, when viewed on a 1024 x 768 resolution monitor, your home page doesn't fit, so you have to scroll left and right, instant turn off

1024x768 used to be the internet standard, no idea what the percentage is these days. Just checked our G analytics and can see over last 30 days traffic on My Local Services breaks down as:

1024x768 30%
1280x800 19%
1280x1024 16%
1440x900 8%
Then everything else a mixture.

So maybe worth optimising for those resolutions. We optimise MLS for 1024x768 only but other people have different opinions.

Home page, although I like the header, logo and tabs, below that, it seems to be a mass of text. Now content is great for SEO and things like keywords, but your average web surfer or potential punter is lazy.

A user experience tester who works for the BBC recently told me the average online punter will make a buying decision in 8 seconds. This is the time they need to absorb your message, and consider you a trustworthy resource.

Although general, and prob slightly different for your industry, the principles the same. You want people to contact you for more info, which wil hopefully lead to business. But there is no (to me anyway) obvious call to action.

Maybe a big "contact me now" button to answer all your H&S concerns, or sign up here and get your free H&S risk assesment survey. Then you are inviting people to leave their details so you can then give a gentle sales call, or maybe an info newsletter.

Actual content and about me stuff is great, it's just convincing your audience to stick around long enough to absorb it. Key is inviting them into a conversation.

Actual bones of the site though, to me anyway look fine. Add in a meta description, big juicy call to action and you're halfway there

Biggest thing with any site, especially when it comes to making changes is get a baseline.

Do you get any conversions at the moment? If no, then no worries, you now have a base line. Make some changes, sit back and see if it makes any difference. Didn't notice any Google analytic code, if your not using it, start. Its free, relatively easy to get your head round, and is the best toolset an online business can ask for.

Track your traffic, set up goals for conversions, eg a user downloaded my help guide = 1 conversion. Understand where your traffic goes, do they all arrive on your home page then leave shortly afterwards? Then your content isn't engaging your audience. Do they go to a second page then leave? Why?

Once your analytics are in place, then you can give adwords a crack Save that for another day.

You've been out waffled, so I'll leg it now....

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cheers
Steve

Online Marketing | Free USA Business Directory | My Local Blog | Jobs Vitae

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Thank you both for taking the time to respond. Your comments are being thoroughly digested.

Mike

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By PM still stands Mike, may be a way to combat budget, on a quite random note, its bloody well snowing over here!

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Web Design Portfolio | Social Media beats SEO