Question

Topic: Website Critique

How Can I Make This Web Site Better?

Posted by Anonymous on 12/27/2009 at 10:29 AM ET 250 Points
I just joined this doctor as a partner. This is his web site at the moment. There are obvious up dates that need to be done like the specials and some type os. What about the music , format and content? I'm overwhelmed. Any input is greatly appreciated!!!
Thanks ,
Lisa
enhancementdoctor.com
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 12/27/2009 at 11:02 AM Member
    I'm not a big fan of websites that start by playing music. Make it obvious how to turn it off.

    From a search engine perspective, you have a problem since the site is written in Flash. The words that people can read are invisible to search engines.

    Here's what Website Grader notes: https://websitegrader.com/site/enhancementdoctor.com
  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 12/27/2009 at 5:08 PM Member
    Dear Lisa,

    Ditch the music and the Flash (which in essence means revamping everything). Then structure your site from your user's viewpoint:

    What are they looking for?
    What do they need?
    What is their dream or vision?

    Then ask yourself "Why do people buy from us?"

    Until you can explain what's in the supplier to customer arrangement
    for your site user you may not have much of value to offer. Too many businesses use the "If we build it, they will come!" approach and often, to no avail.

    Why?

    Because sites in these cases are often written from the point of view of the site owner, not from the point of view of the site user. You must stop selling and get people to buy and the only way to do this is to offer things that people are looking for.

    People don't want to know about you or the doctor; they want to know about themselves and what's in it for them. Figure out what this thing is and then give it to them.

    I hope this helps.

    Gary Bloomer
    Wilmington, DE, USA
  • Posted by michael on 12/28/2009 at 3:07 PM Member
    Lisa,
    Not everyone has fast internet...and you want their business too.

    Go with simple. Before they go deeper, let them choose fast or slow internet speed. I know there's a whole art to providing "loading" artwork and animation but to me it's just frustration. I bailed before it was loaded.



    Michael
  • Posted on 12/29/2009 at 8:15 AM Author
    Thank you everyone for such great and timely responses to my question. I'm very new at this stuff and you guys really helped out. I'm going to take every ones advice and put it into action.

    Thank you so much
    Lisa
  • Posted by NatashaChernavska on 12/29/2009 at 9:03 PM Accepted
    Hi, Lisa

    I always give input from design/usability/accessibility point of view. And here is my input.

    If you asked this question in SEO/SEM forum, you would immediately get: your website is not indexable by search engines. It’s true, there are meta tags, but it’s not all that a modern website should have to be able to break through tons of other websites about similar service.
    First thing that is jumping on you when you enter the website is MUSIC!!! IT SCREAMS IN YOUR EARS!!! Say, I am very sensitive to music I am listening. I have some music already playing on my computer. Here I am looking for Plastic Surgery service in Easton. (Google actually gave me more than 50 results for “plastic surgery” in Easton, PA). When I open the website page, it deafens me with music, which hovers the music I am listening to. It does not sound pretty. Will my first intention to look how I can turn it off? No way. My first and last intention about this business will be “Close Window”. Farewell, you will never hear about me again. But I had to stay and review, so I started looking. It took me several seconds (and I am very fast!) to find the Sound ON (it should be Sound Off) link, which didn’t even look like a link or a button. All this time I heard two songs that were playing simultaneously. Not pretty. Solution: make a clearly visible button “Turn Off the Sound” or remove music completely.

    The site itself looks pretty appealing. I like the artwork, and the colors, but how much more professional it would look if it wasn’t built completely on Flash. Flash – is a very cool technology to be used for web projects that require a lot of interactivity, media contents or have purely advertising objectives. You could use Flash for parts of your site – to animate menu or lady on the right. The green leaf flying around becomes annoying after the third click. Another turn off. You see, you made me want leaving your site twice before I even got to the information you want me to get to. Suggestion: remove flying leaf.

    Let’s go through all the pages and see what can be improved and then I will give general suggestions.

    Home Page.

    Well, it’s a pretty much faceless Homepage. I pretty much don’t care about Dr Scott’s welcoming me. I want to make sure what services you provide and how qualified you are. So far I see an under-worked website, so I think that the service may not be that professional either. Articles at this point? Not interested in.

    In fact, it’s very good to have articles, especially on the website like yours. But you did the worst thing you could do providing some interesting content: you made it least accessible. Not only you need to do 3 clicks to get to the article, but you also have to download a PDF, and there is not a single warning about that. You HAVE TO warn people if there some other software is to be launched. What if those people don’t have Adobe reader? Provide them with a link where they can download it! But listen, each of your articles is so short, that it could be perfectly presented as plain text. In fact, keeping your articles as plain text on your website and allowing other sites to link to them – great way to drag traffic to the website. I suggest presenting article links text instead of images. There 2 there now. What if there are 20? That will make it complicated, I assure you. And last, but not least, do put another menu item there – Articles, - and remove it from the home page.

    Here’s what your Home Page should have
    - You may have a short Welcome message. Short is a keyword.
    - List of provided services. In fact, I would use your services page as a home page and completely remove Home page from the site. And place the kicker “Win FREE Botox for a year” to replace “meaningless” images on Our Services page. There, you saved your customers so much time already!
    - Your phone number, address and licenses information.
    - If I were you, I would use valuable Home Page real estate for all information that may help my customers a decision to try me: all specials information, all call to action buttons. Everything that is valuable.
    About Us
    - Absolutely no “read more”. If you want someone to read that “read more”, place it on the main page. Scrolling is OK.
    Products
    - Frankly, this is a useless page. You carefully choose the products? What are they? I wanna see the products you use, read about them. Besides, why “Complimentary consultation” is on a Products page, not on Specials page? Just wanted to use some real estate you didn’t have in Specials section?

    General Suggestions

    - You may be surprised, but justified copy is actually harder to read. Line height should also be increased, because currently you don’t make it very easy for us to read either.
    - Of when you hover image, an arrow cursor changes to a “link” cursor (a hand), there should be a link. Otherwise cursor HAS TO stay an arrow. Relevant to all your images.
    - Keep the site up to date. Your Specials page mentions Expiration date August 31st, 2009. Very unprofessional.



    Whatever happens

    Good luck!
    Natasha Chernyavskaya
    Artographica
    Los Angeles, CA
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