Thread: New to web design, new customer, new web page! Feedback please?

Hi all

Well I've read all the tutorials, searched though this forum when I was stuck, and finally have 'phase 1' of my web site up and running! I'd really appreciate any feedback, suggestions that anyone may have, if you have chance to look at:
www.proshowreel.com.au

I'd appreciate it!

Thanks and kind regards
Zigs

Hi Zigs,
Great start to your site! I would suggest that you shrink the width of your pages and center them. Also, you might want to have a little montage video of the reels you have created so far. I think this would go over very well and bring you much more business than the dancin' dog. I was in the TV and radio industry for quite some time and if I were going to have a company produce a reel for me I would want to get a taste of what you have to offer. Don't make your site too 'cutesy' you want it to WOW your prospective customers just as you promise that the showreels you create will WOW casting directors, etcetera.
I can't wait to see the rest of it!

For a first time website this really isn't too bad at all. Easy to navigate, links appear to work and it has a nice clean feel to it. colours work well together too. well done and keep it up!

I agree with the above, it shows the hards work that you have done. Great job for the first time.

Thanks Sharon, Mook & Dori!
I really appreciate you taking the time to look at my site and for your encouragement! I have centered the pages now (found how to do that!), plus I removed all the flash files, except from the home page for the moment. I agree Dori, it looked a bit 'cutesy'. My next step is to add some examples clips as suggested, plus take some pics of some packaging examples. I also do a bit a filming, particlarly for dance colleges, so that will be another page too.
I also have searched some forum tips re google optimisation, have followed instructions, but not sure if I've done it right. But I suppose this issue is for a different forum.
Thanks again
Zigs
www.proshowreel.com.au

Be careful Zigs.... you are going to be considered 'spam' with your key words. There are two fabulous people on this forum that really know SEO; Bethers and Motoxxx. I have learned so much from both of them since joining. They will both tell you that you should only use one phrase or word once in your keywords. Make sure the keywords you use for a page show up on that particular page. Also, make sure that you name your page appropriately.
These are the keywords you are using on your home page.
'showreel,showreel production,produce showreel,video editing,show reel,show reel production,show real,show reel,VHS conversion,pro showreel,professional showreel,showreels,DVD creation,editing home video,editing video,editing services,convert VHS,VHS conversion,VHS to DVD,VHS to DVD conversion,video conversion'
You should do something like this:
'showreel production,entertainment industry professionals,video editing, VHS conversion, DVD creation, editing home video services, VHS to DVD conversion,video conversion'

Less and specific keywords are better. Check out the SEO forum. Bethers gives a free download of an ebook on SEO. Check out the other posts in that forum too!
Your site is looking great... can't wait to see your clips.

Thanks Dori
I really appreciate your help, I had no idea to be careful with the key words, I'm learning so much as I go along. I've taken your advise and changed them.
I'll post a message on the SEO forum as you suggested for further feedback, can't wait till I 'google' & my page and it is listed! I was thrilled enough when my email page worked!
I'm also going through some of the showreels I've done, most of them are for singers and dancers, so I'll have to be careful with music copyright, I'll check out the legal implications before I load them.
Can't thank you enough!
Zigs
www.proshowreel.com.au

Excellent start - and your SEO has a great start, too.

Zigs,
Another helpful hint with SEO is to google your competition and check out what keywords they are using. If you choose to use some of the same keywords remember you must have those particular words on the page you are optimizing.

Hi Zigs: Great job on your website. Ditto to all the fine comments above from Dori and others. The only negative I felt was your logo name. The edges appear very jagged and blurred to me and therefore somewhat unprofessional. I tried to recreate it here for you, so that you can see what I mean.



I know it's not the same font, but it is as close as I could find, without spending a lot of time. I think you need very ***** images on your site to give people a look at how ***** you are! You may want to check out this link and play around with it. http://www.cooltext.com

Other than that, I look forward to seeing the samples!

I like the metal look... good choice DreamLady!
I was thinking about whipping something up myself this weekend....

Wow! I can't believe you did that for me Dream lady!
Looks fantastic! I wasn't that happy with my logo either, a friend of mine said they would make me a logo, but yet to come up with it!
Thank's for the link, I'll have a look, but doubt whether I could come up with anything as good!
Can I just ask one question Dori, how do you see other web pages key words?

Thanks again
Zigs

www.proshowreel.com.au

Zigs,
You can look at the view source on pages and see what they "claim" are their keywords - but the best way to do it - is to find keywords that are being used in searches to find your type of product. Then put those keywords into your browsers search feature and see the websites that are on the first page. Now, click on them and find out what and how they used those terms to get to the top of the listings.

Also, though, remember, that they might get there also by having these keywords used as the anchor text coming back to them from outside links. But you need to look at their sites, and do better than them.

Doing this without knowing that the words/phrases are being used to search - is futile, though - as you could easily put in something no one searches for - and find others optimized for it - optimize for it yourself - and get no traffic. So it all has to work together.

Hi Zigs... listen to Bethers she is the reining Queen of SEO and if motoxxx jumps in... he is the reining King!

Hi Dori, Zigs and Bethers...been a bit busy this last week but glad to chime in a bit here...

Zigs, targeting your competions keywords is always a good place to start but once you see exactly what they are, you need to seriously study HOW your potential customers look for exactly what it is you do. This is how you can grab the most targeted customers and usually dig out niche markets that your competion is missing completely.The biggest and hardest lesson I ever had to learn about SEO is this...

"What you think you know about your target market.....IS NOT TRUE!"

The only way to know for sure how your customers search for what you do is to use a good keyword tool and start with your beginning phrases and then dig into the longer tail searches or the less popular ones. Usually most people try to optimize only for the top two or three keyword phrases and there is literally a TON of business that can be had from targeting less popular exact search phrases even if those search phrases don't amount to very large numbers. I took one of my first sites recently and just completley started over my whole SEO campaign with search phrases that were all less than 1000 queries per month and my income has now gone up aboout 300% just by targeting less popular, but more specific keyword phrases.

When you are in the inside of any industry it is very easy to take even the smallest terminology for granted assuming that even your most uneducated potenital customers will be looking for what you do using some basic terminolgy from inside your industry....this is not the case! If you can find out how these types of potential customers search for what you do, and design some pages that speak to them EXACTLY how they were searching for you, two things happen:

1. You have built an immediate element of trust with that customer because your page is speaking to them using THEIR terminology. This will help you massively increase your sales to a much smaller customer base that maybe your competition is completely overlooking

and 2...These customers will now see you as the "Authority Site" on their subject matter becaue you spoke to them exactly the way they were searching for you. This increases referrals and repeat business quickly.


If I confused you, let me know and I wil try to clarify further....

LOL - Motoxx - I think you just repeated what I said- with a better explanation of why.

I'm not sure how I feel about being "Queen" - but it's nice to share the royal status with you as "King".

My crown hurts my head sometimes.......and it keeps slipping!

Ya know Bethers, you and I seem to go back and forth with our clarifications..... Usually it is you correcting me for mis typing or mispeaking something...ARRRGGHHH I just found more of my own typos in my last post......Beth, I wish I could type like you do!

I suck.....

:) - I make my share of mistakes! And staying up this late is one of them today- when I have to be up early tomorrow.

off to bed I go . . . .

Well, I'm really nervous now that I there's royalty reviewing my site! So much so, I've redesigned my pages to look cleaner (I think!?)
I've read both Bethers and Motoxxx (thank you!) information , and I've looked at Googles info regarding key word searching, plus had a look at my competition.
Please be as critical as possible - I still have more pages to add, but I want to make sure the pages are the best they can be before I continue. Please note that I'm not too technical when it comes to anything 'internet-ish', but I can follow instructions!
Thanks again
Zigs

www.proshowreel.com.au

You've done a great job with the changes. Just had a quick glance - as my eyes are drooping - very impressed with the changes.

yeah!! Thanks Beth! I've learnt so much my head hurts, still a long way to go tho!
Zigs

www.proshowreel.com.au