website appraisal

[scott0031]

At last I have invested some time getting a web site done.

I would very much appreciate constructive criticism, although the site is pretty much where I want it now, i'm not the one that looks at it and you guys are, hence why your opinions and views are valuable. Anything that is said will be taken on board for future reference and used to improve the site in the future.

The plan was to make a crisp, clean cut, informative, easy to use site, with enough information to keep peoples attention, but not so much it bored people to death. It is pretty imagey (is that a word?) as people do tend to like images, but it is by intent. I know you cant please all of the people all of the time, all you can do is try.


The site is not live but on a test server at the moment

http://wardeng.cloudaccess.net/

If it disappears from that link its because it has gone live and can be found here at its actual domain.

www.wardeng.co.uk


There some issue i'm aware of, but hard to improve to perfection because of the material I have to work with. All comments welcome, even the bad ones.


Kind regards


Scott

 

[Hitch]

Scott........ Welding processes..... Ark Welding....?

 

[rtbcomp]

1st Impression - very nice.

The pictures take a while to load, I'd use smaller thumbnails for the links, the one I downloaded was 664Kb, it would be a much smaller file if you re-sized to the display size.

 

[rtbcomp]

There is a Ward Engineering Ltd out there, could that cause problems?

 

[Paul.]

Just a few typo's I noticed
High quality general and precisions engineers.
Mainstay instead of main stay
Zinc instead of Zink

Pictures a bit large, could be optimised for the web.

 

[madkayaker]

Nice layout and easy to navigate. Your pitching to a wide range of customers and the bigger ones will Possibly want a bit of H&S info before contacting for quotes etc

 

[Chipper]

Good job, nice and clear, but get some key words/phrases into the page title. I.e. instead of "Home" and "welding processes", get some more stuff that's meaningful, might separate you out a bit / help get you found. Srch engines really like that, and also the main page heading - again instead of "home" put something like 'welding and welded structures, machining and metal finishing'. That kind of thing, and for the page TITLE tag as mentioned too.

 

[Dev]

Very nice clean site. I'd like to see contact details on every page, maybe in a strap line at the top or bottom, but that's just me.

 

[mike os]

couple of odd text breaks on home page..
thumbnails are slow to load

other than that decent site, good images ( important and overlooked)

you might want to add a copyright notice in a footer

 

[chunkolini]

Looks good, simple to access and seems to say everything.
ne thought, how about on the processes page a picture of some hunky welder doing his thing. An image that seems popular in that kind of page.

 

[Wozzaaah]

Very nice site but as said, thumbnails are incredibly slow to load and it's riddled with typos and punctuation errors.
Very pleasing to the eye though, nicely laid out, great quality photos and it grabs your attention.

 

[Norm]

Good web site, seems to say what you want it to say without it being over fussy or complicated. Should the word carried, last paragraph on the homepage be carry ?

also you might want to look at the word spacing/font size on home page to eliminate the awkward breaks.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

I like it.

In addition to the above observations [eg pics slow to load etc], in the 'Manual Machining' tab you say "We can work to exacting standards....", I'd drop the word 'can' as it might infer you don't always work to exacting standards........

Otherwise, looks good.

 

[octo0072000]

key words

you might want to get some more key words in there for search engine to get you up the listings but looks good just takes time to load and what others have said

have a look here

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291

might want to have a look here quite a lot of ward engineering
may need to alter the name to ward engineering of

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=+...d97114e097c10e&bpcl=38625945&biw=1120&bih=601

 

[scott0031]

Thank you guys. Its good to hear the actual content/ layout etc is along the right lines and pleasing to most people. It's the best i can hope for really. Please keep the comments coming as they are valuable.

Scott........ Welding processes..... Ark Welding....?

I shall get the name name Noah's inserted in front Thank you Hitch, I shall get it edited.

1st Impression - very nice.

The pictures take a while to load, I'd use smaller thumbnails for the links, the one I downloaded was 664Kb, it would be a much smaller file if you re-sized to the display size.

The images have been a concern, if it is to much for some pcs and connections. At the moment the site is on a test server, so it may be a bit slow to load. I have been told when the site goes live it should be a lot better. I will have to wait and see what its like when it goes live and sort it accordingly. Thanks for the comments

There is a Ward Engineering Ltd out there, could that cause problems?

I'm not sure on that score either. I do know of another ward engineering and im sure they also know of me. I have had this trading name for a very long time and i'm also not limited so the name does not have to be registered. In the technical sense i'm a 'trading as', far as i know it isn't an issue. I guess time will tell on that one.

Just a few typo's I noticed
High quality general and precisions engineers.
Mainstay instead of main stay
Zinc instead of Zink

Pictures a bit large, could be optimised for the web.

Thank you Paul, I have read the site so many times now, I think I have word blindness and i'm not seeing the errors anymore. the images, as above, if its a problem when the site goes live, I will have to look at it.

Nice layout and easy to navigate. Your pitching to a wide range of customers and the bigger ones will Possibly want a bit of H&S info before contacting for quotes etc

Thank you. I'm not overly worried about big co's out there as they don't pay on time and you at there mercy and they can often break you. The site is more for reference for customers I have targeted and a source of information, or for reference. when asked if you have a web site and you say 'no'........... I have discovered it's the wrong answer.

Good job, nice and clear, but get some key words/phrases into the page title. I.e. instead of "Home" and "welding processes", get some more stuff that's meaningful, might separate you out a bit / help get you found. Srch engines really like that, and also the main page heading - again instead of "home" put something like 'welding and welded structures, machining and metal finishing'. That kind of thing, and for the page TITLE tag as mentioned too.

The key words thing is something i'm have no real knowledge of. This is the next thing on the list to learn about when the site goes live. As mentioned i wasn't really expecting random people or companies to find me on the net as such. It was really more for reference for targeted customers/ business cards etc. Still i may have that totally wrong. Thank you for the comments.

Very nice clean site. I'd like to see contact details on every page, maybe in a strap line at the top or bottom, but that's just me.

Noted and thank you.

couple of odd text breaks on home page..
thumbnails are slow to load

other than that decent site, good images ( important and overlooked)

you might want to add a copyright notice in a footer

I know about the text breaks you are talking about. How it was before was a lot worse and blatantly obvious. We have tried to hide it best we can as we were having spacing issues as you rightly picked up. A lot of the text has been written and re written several times for nearly all the pages. I will take another look at it and see what else we can do. Although i'm right out of ideas at the moment.

loading of images as above. The copyright notice will be on the live site.

Thank you.

Looks good, simple to access and seems to say everything.
ne thought, how about on the processes page a picture of some hunky welder doing his thing. An image that seems popular in that kind of page.

Thanks Chunko. I do know what you are saying about that type of image. My problem is, i have to live with what images i have so far. I had a budget to get a site up and operational. In the future as money allows the site will probable be updated with new content and images.

Very nice site but as said, thumbnails are incredibly slow to load and it's riddled with typos and punctuation errors.
Very pleasing to the eye though, nicely laid out, great quality photos and it grabs your attention.

Thank's for the compliments woz. The images, as above. Can you see many more glaringly obvious typos and grammatical errors? Or,are you referring to those already picked up. I'm no English teacher by any standards , if it comes to it I will have to get the site type proofed, if it really is that bad. Thanks again

Good web site, seems to say what you want it to say without it being over fussy or complicated. Should the word carried, last paragraph on the homepage be carry ?

also you might want to look at the word spacing/font size on home page to eliminate the awkward breaks.

That word 'carried' has been a bone of contention. That section was meant to be a brief history of the company. As such history should be a past tense, but i know it can, and maybe doesn't read correctly talking about the past...... I have no real solution to this to this at the moment.

I like it.

In addition to the above observations [eg pics slow to load etc], in the 'Manual Machining' tab you say "We can work to exacting standards....", I'd drop the word 'can' as it might infer you don't always work to exacting standards........

Otherwise, looks good.

Well, it was in a way by design because soon as someone sees those words they think 'expensive, top money'. So in a way leaving it open ended was a way to solve that problem as not all work does require exactly standards, well not but a toolmakers normality anyway. I hoped some of the images would speak for themselves of what can be achieved, if they don't, i will have a rethink on that wording. Thank you for the comments.

you might want to get some more key words in there for search engine to get you up the listings but looks good just takes time to load and what others have said

have a look here

http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291

might want to have a look here quite a lot of ward engineering
may need to alter the name to ward engineering of

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=+...d97114e097c10e&bpcl=38625945&biw=1120&bih=601

As mentioned above, as far as how searches actually work to sift through sites, I'm total idiot and need to go educate myself, which i will be doing soon as the content of the site is out of the way. Thanks for the comments and the link. Much appreciated.



All other criticism welcome.

Thank you Gents


Kind regards,


Scott

 

[Robotstar5]

Home page, work undertaken, should the last item be Sub Contract?

 

[scott0031]

Home page, work undertaken, should the last item be Sub Contract?

You are of course totally correct. I will get it edited. Thank you.


Kind regards,


Scott

 

[Drains]

Scott, you have to change carried to carry. No question. You're saying that you don't do it any more! It's not what you did that matters, it's what you DO!

Edit - you could also change the tense slightly and say "we have always carried out general and precision engineering work for local business, now a mainstay of Ward Engineering"

or something like that...

If I'm going to be picky, after "qualified toolmaker" you should have a semi-colon or a full stop, rather than a comma.

Sorry, I can get heavily into sub-editing text. Blame my missus for writing too much and me looking over her shoulder.

 

[oddbob]

The site looks good and informative, and above all professional (could have a slightly more 'personal' feel using images of company personnel, buildings etc).

Just a couple of things I'd consider though. A few of the internal links open pages in new tabs which is a bit messy... people don't like having to close multi windows to exit a site; and I would always have a contact form, even if you don't really expect people to contact via email, it's proven to make a difference.

 

[BeeJay99]

My first impression is that this is a clean, well laid out site which gives a favourable impression of your business.

Looking more closely there are issues that have been pointed out in that there are typos, bad spelling and iffy grammar in several places. I know from experience that it is well nigh impossible to locate and correct everything you have written yourself and I strongly recommend that you get a third party to read the site critically and to query whether you mean eg "Proto Types or Prototypes", "Sub Contact" or Sub contract" etc. Even give tham a measure of access to a copy of the source HTML, if they have the knowledge, to edit it.

The images are another issue; it is not a good idea to scale a large image to produce a thumbnail; the server has to serve an unneccessarily large file and then the receiving browser has to recalculate and resize the file in order to display it. With one image this doesn't have a huge effect on the observed speed but with a page of thumbnails it slows things significantly. Better to serve thumbnail images of the size they will be displayed at and if visitors to the site want to see a larger version when they click on or hover over the thumbnail, provide a larger image for that purpose.

HTH