New Landing Page

[KeithN]

This BV site www.wvnet.co.uk is intended as a 'Landing Page' for genuine enquiries from a soon to be published newspaper advert, with the aim of gathering genuine interest in a franchise opportunity. I have been too close to this for many months, and would welcome third party review.
Cheers
KeithN

[Paulk2]

Re: New Landing Page

I'm fairly new at this myself but here are a couple of things I noticed. 1)
You might want to center your page.
2) Your text at the top is going outside the frame. Either make the text smaller or enlarge the frame.
3) You have some pics of houses that I'm assuming has to do with the windows but I'm not sure. If they are you might want to think about the possibility of clicking on them and bring up a closeup of the window (another pic).
4) The lettering in your header shows to be a bit wavy. You might want to try another font.

Again, I'm no expert but these jumped out at me.

good luck!

Paul

[KeithN]

Re: New Landing Page

Many thanks, Paul. A fresh view is always valuable. Your point about the photos is interesting. The idea is to get interested parties to apply for more information, where the detail will be revealed. It's a complicated product with a wide product range. I was aiming to keep the landing page simple.

[KeithN]

Re: New Landing Page

Now centrered and resized. I think it certainly looks better, and you've given me some ideas on how to draw viewers in. Back to the drawing board!
Thanks Paul.

[Paulk2]

Re: New Landing Page

Hi Keith,
Your index page (home) is still not centered - the others are. Your first nav bar however (more...) comes up with a 404 error. Also, the nav bars are the basic ones - you might want to try something a little more decorative. Click on your nav bar and look under the tab "style".
I would still recommend changing the font on your Header. I'm using Firefox and it looks wavy.

[nzbr]

Re: New Landing Page

Hi there,
too much going on on the left. Why don't you create a page only for the 'comments'?

Cheers,

[KeithN]

Re: New Landing Page

Aaaah... Got my hands full at the moment. I made some changes, and the e-mail response no longer works. Can't see why. Fixing that is a priority right now. Changed the 'more' buttons, and they've come up purple instead of the tasteful pale shade that I chose.
Thanks for your comments nzbr, but I'm not clear what you mean. There's not much going on on the left apart from the small amount of text in the green. Or did you mean something else?
I'm beginning to think the index page looks garish. I want impact for what is a complex message, but it needs to be inviting.

[Sunchaser]

Re: New Landing Page

Hey there

Sounds like a fantastic product!

These were my thoughts:

1. I'd choose two or three colours at the most for this type of site. (I'd probably choose the misty green in the graphic at the left-hand side of your page & blue as the main colours. No yellow, pink, or other shades of green.

2. The colours & graphics overpower the photos and the text.

3. I'd choose the best couple of quotes and lead in strongly with these 'above the fold' (what you see without having to scroll) and add in the other quotes under the fold.

4. I would definitely have the "tell me more" form above the fold. As this is the landing page for a newspaper advert - people arriving at the site from this advert already have some interest, so it would be good to show them where to sign up for more info straight away.

5. The photos are great but are not of professional quality. I'd have them at the best quality possible (while keeping KBs down as far as possible) Use a photo cruncher such as Pix Resizer.

6. Both the header & logo have jagged edges, which doesn't lend a professional look.

7. I'd have a menu carried through all of your pages. If people are quickly looking for information, they might not want to read the quotes - and there's no way of getting back to the home page or any other page.



These are the 2 quotes I'd personally choose to have 'above the fold'
...SupaWOOD windows doors and conservatories are made from the WONDER MATERIAL OF THE 21st CENTURY

"Every so often in life something comes along out of the blue that totally turns your beliefs upside down and puts your head in a spin......they are superb..."

Those are great quotes! As I said - it sounds like a great product - one that many people will be interested in.

[KeithN]

Re: New Landing Page

Great stuff, sunchaser. Many thanks. You will see I have already concluded it was too busy and bright. Trouble is, I copied the "timber" file and renamed it "index". It works OK in BV, but when it's in the browser, the title still shows up as "timber". (Damned if I can find out why). It seems to have confused the server, which has published a load of gobbledygook at the top of the page. I thought I would clean the file out using FTP, but it doesn't work like FrontPage, and I think I've made things worse.

[KeithN]

Re: New Landing Page

Right! Your advice gratefully received and acted upon. The main picture (the only one from a professional studio) has been re-scanned at a higher resolution, and the others dumped. (They can be seen elsewhere later, once the hook is taken). I have remembered to add the registered leaf logo, and centred all of the headers. I don't see any jagged edges in MS Explorer. Is this a problem with Firefox or others? I don't have these other browsers loaded.
I hope that BV will clear the junk out of the index page tomorrow. Any comments gratefully received. but tomorrow I have to go and do a day's work.

[Sunchaser]

Re: New Landing Page

I think this looks great. I'm amazed you changed the design so quickly.
The green and grey work well together - and the message is clear.
I think the quotes and the font/colour you used for the quotes is very eye-catching without being distracting.

1. Your form is creating the gobbedegook at the top of your screen. Try re-doing the form - even deleting it & starting again.

2. Naming this page 'index' while you see the word 'timber' in your browser is not causing conflict.

When you copied the 'timber' file and renamed it 'index' you were creating a new home page. Calling a page 'index' is the correct thing to do when you want to create a home page.
It says 'timber' in the browser because you must have typed this into the page properties on the previous 'timber' page - and it simply copied over when you copied that page.
The word 'timber' is what will come up as the title of that page in a search engine result - so it's very important.
If you want to change it - go to View, Page Properties - and change the title there.

3. I personally think there are still too many greens on the page. To me, all looks great - except for the logo.

Can you match the colour of the leaf graphic to your logo? Even with that, there's still going to be three very different shades of green (four if you count the gradient on the lefthand side)
Is the shade of green of your logo is an established colour?

4. What I mean by 'jagged' is that the logo & the arc of the graphic are not totally smooth. You have to look closely though. I think the slightly jagged bit on the arc is ok, but a logo shouldn't have this.
I'm using IE as my browser.

[KeithN]

Re: New Landing Page

Hi Sunchaser. Your comments are very helpful. Many thanks. Making the changes is easy. I've got the hang of the basics. It's the irritating glitches that slow me down. I removed the form, and BINGO, the gobbledegook disappeared. I then recreated the form which appeared in the preview, but it is not there when published. I have deleted and recreated it several times now, to no effect. What on earth is going on?
You will see I have changed the page title - thanks for that. It's so easy when you know your way around the menus.

[KeithN]

Re: New Landing Page

Phew! Fixed it. It seems the gobbledegook was caused by me changing the index page from .php to .html. Once I worked that one out, I was able to fix the problem from the control panel. That put the correct index page at the front. Then I had to change all the back buttons. I am not sure I've got the mail forwarding buttons working yet, but at least I'm back where I was two days ago, tho' the site looks a darn sight better.

[KeithN]

Re: New Landing Page

Almost there! I have learned that the "send" button has to be set to "submit" to get a result. Problem is, it immediately returns a 404 error and I have to use the browser back button to get to the home page. I can see no way of fixing it. Any suggestions, anyone?

[KeithN]

Re: New Landing Page

It took me some time for the penny to drop, but I eventually worked out that the "success" button has to go somewhere. I have put in a new acknowledgement page with different picture and a link to another site.
I would appreciate a third-party opinion. Does it work for you?
Cheers
Keith