Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

The site loads quickly for me. But having music automatically play is bad. Imagine some visits from their office - circus music is not going to be welcome. There's not really very much content to help with SEO. The navigation and UI are not so great - for example when I click on services I don't really feel like you are clearly saying what you do - ie is it by the hour? Does it depend on X number of kids. Also, I'm using a large screen and some of the type is a little too small and will not be easily readable if a visitor has the brightness or contrast on their monitor turned down. The reason why website grader rates the content as advanced/doctoral is because a large portion of the text that search engines can find is about legal compliance. All the bullets Karen points out from the Website Grader report are all issues that sites in flash will have. This also means your webpage will likely not load on ANY mobile devices. Your meta tags are okay - but they could be improved - your metatags focus on Hawaii and your website says Hawaii-Nationwide. Are you really providing facepainting on the mainland? My understanding of the population in Hawaii is that it is quite international and many people who learn English outside the US learn British spellings. I would consider buying the URL www.colourwhim.com and using a 301 redirect so that you capture both. :) Hope that's helpful.

K

If what you have works for you/your business, then improve the SEO-side of your side by following these tips for flash SEO optimization: https://www.toprankblog.com/2009/11/seo-for-flash-tips/ and https://www.getelastic.com/seo-for-flash/

Mahalo! Let me start by saying I was pleasantly surprised with the unique design which I believe is 100% needed with your particular services. I was so happy to see that you were not using a cookie-cutter site design.

That being said, the suggestions for SEO above are very good. Although Flash files, if built properly, can still index in search engines, Flash still doesn't index as well as simple html code. You can use the cool elements like the balloon burst into confetti as smaller flash elements in a site that is a hybrid of easily-indexed code and fun flash.

I agree with all the statements above as far as your verbiage goes. FAQs needs to be real FAQs, not just the same screen as another.

Also, the navigation is a little confusing at times -- when you click on the "it's easy" button on the gallery page, you're taken to the faqs(?) page, and when you click on services page, then family services, then the "it's easy" button you're taken to a pop-up of services that is kind of smushed together and not very easy to navigate or read. (just a note, ALL CAPS IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO READ IN THE ONLINE MEDIUM BECAUSE IT ALL RUNS TOGETHER AND IT ALSO MAKES IT SEEM LIKE YELLING AND I KNOW THAT IS NOT YOUR INTENTION BUT YOU CAN ACHIEVE THE SAME KIND OF HIERARCHY WITH UPPER AND LOWER CASE, FONT CHOICE, FONT SIZE AND SPACING) (sorry, guess I took that illustration a little far, eh?)

It took me a while of clicking around to even find that list of options -- which I think should be easier to access from your main page.

If you are redesigning your site, I highly recommend the following be addressed:

1) Use an XHTML / Flash hybrid redesign, being true to your branding efforts on your website (I hope your business cards and flyers match -- this is a very strong look for you guys!).

2) Navigation -- need to be able to find the actual services easier; the gallery shots are awesome and easy to find, make sure that stays top billing.

3) Verbiage -- address the verbiage issues others mentions and be sure to fix your FAQs page to be a real FAQs page.

Hope this helps!

Tofa,

Jennifer
XPRT Creative