Thread: Review of website needed

hi all .. can someone give me a review of the website .. from the opening graphics all the way trough .. and maybe any ideas you may have ..
i look forward to the reveiw so i can better enhance the site ..
www.matesrates-australia.com.au

First of all I would suggest giving people the option of avoiding the graphics at the beginning, although they are impressive - gotta sit down, I'm getting dizzy

I'm a bit confused too, the intro graphics have a title of "Pest Birds of Australia" but all I see are bugs ? Not 100% sure as the graphics are spinning so fast it's hard to get them to stop.

I've had a brief look through and it all looks nice and tidy and informative. However when I get to the bottom of your services _pestinfo_birds.html page (I found the birds) I see that lovely footer with all the flavours of Aussie - yellows, orange, roos and stuff - and I started to think that perhaps your page would look better with either a white background or a light coloured one that complimented your footer. That way your header wouldn't be so "white" as well.

You have a lot of white text on a lot of black background. It gets tiring reading it (hard on the eyes) as opposed to reading black print on white.

ok cool thanks for the input .. ill look into it ... and yeah u r right .. a bit to much writing in one colour thanks again

will also slow down the front flash page ..

I think the site is well thought out and easy to navigate with the exeption of the flash menu index, if you slow it down I guess it might be a bit better but for those with laptops using a touch pad it could make thyem just want to click the back button on there browser. You may want to add a go directly to my site link to bypass the menu. Other than that your site looks great and I hope you do well with it!



Good Luck,
Steve Horbach
www.myhomeneedshelp.com

That hope page got to go. Turn me off completely.

Hi - I think your website has great information for a home owner.
Have you made the "shop" yet? When I first clicked on "Shop" in the menu, I was taken out of your site to a search page with a "did you mean" message, now when I click on it I just get a 404 Error.

Hi,
I think you have great beginning. I agree with the others about your opening page though. It looks fantastic, but I would click away from your site before getting any of your information. If your site is about marketing your business to your community, it is good to remember that when someone looks for an answer to a problem on the net they want the answer now. Your navigation is straight forward and easy once you get into the site but your opening page may make prospects think they have come to the wrong place and they could click away after admiring the effect and photos.
The other thing I would suggest is, having some one edit your copy for you. (I mean a friend who loves reading or language) I know how hard it is to notice typos and mistakes after the first read through and another person looking can only help. On the ventilation page you have transposed the i and e in pier. I also noticed that, although you have used commas, you have not used many full stops. It really shows up on the black - so IMO, I think if you just go through your copy again and add a period at the end of each sentence you may not need to get some one else to edit for you.
Good Luck & Happy Tweaking

thank you everyone for your input about the site ..i will (when i have a chance get all the above fixed up..
thanks again
ohh and the shop that will contracted out to a company (again when i get chance)called rentacoder
really cheap and easy to deal with....

As much as the home page may make you feel impressed with such a flashy show, it really does have to go, I can tell you now you will lose many many many potential clients.

I have to agree with everyone that the Flash intro/nav scheme is serious overkill on this site, especially if you are not considering slowing it down by at least 75% ....... and the underlying issue of an obvious "disconnect" when it comes to Site Identity (mention was made about the index Page Title being not seemingly relevant to the site), and, because the main page is in Flash, total disregard for any optimization values that would normally be attributed to a site of this genre (which IMO seems super-critical, given the competitive nature of your industry).

If you decide to keep the scheme, you may wish to consider 1) slowing down the speed to 20-25% of what it is now, and; 2) rather than use pretty graphics on the selector panes, incorporate clear text on the graphic panes to offer some continuity and visitor-friendly 'tools' to aid in the navigation of the site in general. *For instance, have "Services" big and bold across the Services image rather than a paltry pop-up balloon that visitors may never even see unless they rollover the image according to interest!

This is the major issue regarding "form" and "flow" that we are all trying to illustrate as being central to the overall issue of conformity to convention whilst retaining the utmost in creativity and desirability (which is core to conversion). If every one of your web pages look totally different from each other, then your site will not project the credible continuity you seek, and it is clear why these Flash schemes are usually reserved for Galleries or Portfolios and not eCommerce/Industry websites....

IMO

I took a wild stab at the rapidly spinning menu and got the section on Birds. (entry to your website is like playing the pokies - hit the button and you get....)

Anyway this caught my eye "The Common Indian Minor Bird" spelling but I think "y" not "I"

It all looks very funky and very web 2.0
I understand why you'd want your site looking this way - it's very cool. :)

From a marketing point of view, I agree though with all that is said above.
I would probably make the following changes if it were my site:

Menu
The 'opening menu' seems a bit of a lucky dip - very difficult to manoeuvre. I couldn't easily make it spin around to look at all the options - and I'm wondering if this would be a problem even if it was slowed down.
I agree with all said above and wouldn't have this feature myself.

Background
When there's a lot to read, I find white text on a black background hard to get through. I would change the colour of the text areas to white and the text to black. (Maybe the header could be black?)

Marketing
It took me a while to understand what you were offering. Probably because I didn't land on the home page from the spinning menu!
Is there a special reason the site is called 'mates rates' and not 'Dr Falls Pest Control'?

I think testimonials are always good for something like this - with photos of the 'before and afters' of people's homes.

I'd make more of a feature of the fact you offer termite insurance - as in writing a bold title explaining that you offer this service, with the info underneath. People in termite-prone areas might find this very attractive, but might miss it.

As said above, I'd go though and fix the typos, especially the one beneath your logo ( efficiant to efficient) :)

There's a lot more to do with seo etc, but you've done well with your site so far!