Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

Hi, Salman

First, I want to make a comment regarding the last "advise" from Swap. I am really sorry, I don't want to upset anyone, but all those suggestions came from a person, who has no idea about web representation. All of those suggestions will only make it worse for you. By the way, the website design isn't so neat, I will talk about it later.

As Web Expert, here's what I think about previous suggestions:

1. Flash intros are bad. They are so bad, you may loose up to 70% of your clients to the Flash intro. You only can allow yourself to have a Flash intro when you have a lot of media content on your website, and most of it is Flash-based. Also, you can have a Flash-intro if your website is Flash-based, but you should not build your website on Flash, below, I explain why...

2. Flash is good to use for entertainment related websites, for those projects where it's important to "catch an eye" - fashion, movies, show business, fancy products.... If most of your content is strictly business, not a fancy service, please don't use much Flash, I am not saying you should not use Flash at all, but don't overpower your site with Flash and definitely don't build a Flash website, cause you will have problems with SEO.

3. You can put some videos on your website, but only if it's absolutely necessary. Why would you show "how your service guys attend customer call"? You are not teaching anyone to do that, right? Your business is not about that, it's completely irrelevant to your business. In case of your business I am not sure if you need to use any media at all.

4. Videos of testimonials from your clients & customers? Seriously? It's not a good idea. First of all, you will get crazy getting the footage, editing it, getting the signed approval from your clients. Besides, it will look TOO salesy, people just won't value this kind of approach to testimonials. Well-written testimonials in plain copy with first and last name and a company name will be enough. And, yes, having testimonials never hurts. But video? Sorry, too big of investment with very low or now return and a chance of overpowering your website.

5. Background music... Do you make music? Do you sell music? Is your service related to music? If answer to these question is NO, forget about it. You are not making a Myspace page for 15 year old (actually, that's how old previous speaker is, I believe).

6. "Virtual lady on the right hand side corner to give synopsis on each page." You know, I see those synopsis ladies more often these days. I think in some cases it's a very good idea, but only if the lady is someone the website is about, for instance, trainer Gillian. And even she's not on every page of her own website! It would drive her poor followers NUTS! If your lady is some random lady whom no one knows, and who is telling visitors same text that's written on your website - please, don't do that to your business. It's just a very lame addition to a clean, well written content and only will draw your customers away.


Here's some website critique from me.

(I am sorry, I am European, so I will be in your face, but I think this way I can help faster, so please take it easy. ;)

What I like and dislike about the website:

- Right on the main page (https://www.amokaworld.com/testing/sealand/index.php) there is a huge illogicality. You present a graphic menu and keep the same menu items in the left-side menu. This is not acceptable, especially for someone who works with logistics. You should be good at navigation, and the way you are treating your website navigation does not show you are. It's very good to have some graphics, cause, to tell you the truth, the website looks a bit "too gray" without pictures, but don't put any picture just to have them. Especially if it's such badly made graphics like that. What I would suggest is to find a way to incorporate business related imagery in the design. But don't overdo it.

- Grey goes very well with orange, but one of a sudden three other colors jump out: dark red, dark blue, and regular blue. I think you can add an accent color to gray/orange color scheme, for instance, dark red will work here. But blue and dark blue just don't help making it work. In general, for your business I would pick bluish colors. Say, dark blue and beige with some dark teal accents. That would represent sea and air more than gray and orange. But existing colors may work too.

- The logo is good, and the website header (Solution...) is fine. But it feel like the header was made for a letterhead, and was cut out from it, and not even optimized. You see, your logo and header should be separate images in PNG format. At this time it's presented as JPEG with a very low quality, which is reflected in lots of noise. There are just about 30 shades in that image, and PNG would create a nice sharp looking image for both logo and the header.

- The page balance is a bit off. Menu is too wide, you don't need it to be this wide. You could use the space which is now empty for the content.

- I like the fonts and their consistency, I like that you do present links in a different color, however, it's a good practice to underline links (just web ethics), and actually make links active (email link should be actually clickable on this page: https://www.amokaworld.com/testing/sealand/contactus.php )

- In general, the site is not looking bad, just a bit sloppy, and little things like non existing padding on the bottom of the page (© Sealand Logistic Solution...) add to that sloppiness.

Whatever happens, I wish you

GOOD LUCK!

Natasha Chernyavskaya