Question

Topic: Website Critique

Please Review Our Site, Be As Honest As Possible!

Posted by Anonymous on 6/24/2011 at 3:42 PM ET 250 Points
Hi,

We have had our new company site online for 6 months or so now and we would really benefit from some honest external reactions to it.

We are a creative agency who specialise in media and events.

What we are interested in is how the site make you feel about us, what conclusions you might draw about what we can offer as a company and what level client we are aiming at?

Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for any feedback you can offer.

Our url is www.pumphouse.co.uk

Kind regards

Spencer
Head of Digital Design
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 6/24/2011 at 8:18 PM Accepted
    From a SEO perspective, the site is basically invisible to search engines. Your text is hidden in Javascript and pictures, so the website won't help your search engine rankings.

    From the text on the home page, I don't have a clear idea of what you do and for whom. You talk all about yourself, but never lay out a clear benefit to your target audience ("Does your business need more clients?....").

    Because of your coding, I'm not sure how your website will look on a smart phone. Do you?

    Why is it news about Openreach's CEO? Did you get them on the TV show? If so, spell it out...
  • Posted on 6/25/2011 at 11:35 PM Accepted
    The problem I have with your website (aside from Jay's comment about being invisible to search engines) is that I don't know who your target audience is or what you want them to do if/when they trip across your website.

    How will your target audience find your website? How will they know they're in the right place? What do you promise them to get them to the site? What's the call to action?

    For that matter, who IS the target audience?

    Which really then raises the question: "What's the purpose of the website?" Why did you spend time and money to create it? How will you know if it's a success? What is the key metric for determining whether the site is "working" for you or not?
  • Posted on 6/26/2011 at 9:30 AM Accepted
    I completely agree with the first two answers, absolutely dead on target. To them I add a couple of secondary poiints:

    1) I found the key team pictures all in a group too small. The expanded size was o.k. when I clicked on one, but then I only saw a general statement. Some clients would prefer to see some kind of paragraph CV.

    2) Very well done is the "contact" -- in fact am considering trying a variation of that for my own website.

    3) The consensus from the Internet gurus is that just about the most powerful sales tool out there is a good, short video -- prominantly featured on the landing page of the website. Apparently videos, correctly multiplied (i.e. linked all over the place, not just to YouTube) help a lot with SEO also.

    4) The short video should make clear to your target market what your USP is.

    5) Testimonials (video testimonials are good) should reinforce that USP.

    Regards,
    JH

  • Posted on 6/26/2011 at 10:41 AM Accepted
    Have you placed the google analytics code into each of the pages? If so, analyze your site from google analitics and look at bounce rate, keywords, geographics etc.

    If you did not, then do it, because it is a great analyzing tool and it''s free.
  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 6/26/2011 at 5:28 PM Accepted
    Doubt.

    The first thing you introduce to first time viewers
    of your site is doubt.

    How? With the statement "We could describe ourselves
    in the traditional language of the communications world, maybe like this ... But, we're not all that fussed about being traditional. ..." and so on.

    Then you tell viewers your aim is to help people become consistently good at communicating effectively.

    This introduces a disconnect where there ought to be alignment.

    Then there's your blog, which isn't hosted through your site. Because you've set your blog up as a domain name VIA Wordpress, you don't own the content: Wordpress does. (Their platform, their control). There's also no visual consistency between your main site and your blog.

    To add insult to injury, your blog's ABOUT page tells the curious reader "This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from."

    This is not good.

    Add all this to the Flash and Java points as outlined above, and chip in a lack of visibility via Facebook, and something's rotten in Denmark.

    I hope this helps.
  • Posted on 6/27/2011 at 5:15 AM Author
    Thanks everyone for your comments and advice.

    Please allow me to answer a few of your questions:

    Smart phone compatibility:
    We've tested our site on our Andriod smartphones and it seems to hold up ok but it's not wap enabled.

    Target audience:
    Mainly large businesses (or blue chips) internal comms managers and CEO's and board level senior mangers for any other internal or external corporate comms.
    Secondly anyone who is interested in video production from small budget jobs (£5k) to meduim budget (£200k).
    Thirdly anyone who is interested in multi-media services at any budget from say £1K upwards.

    Targeting the audience:
    Aside from people landing on the site through search engines which is something we are keen to promote and get working we also will be sending out newsletters and integrating into social media networks through blogging.

    Google analytics and webmaster tools:
    Yes we are on these and it shows poor stats. No bounce rate be the whole site is effectively on one large page which is hidden and animated using javascript.

    I hope the answesr to these questions helps with some further advice and coments.

    One other question I would lik to ask if you don't mind is: what do you think to the look of the site and the animation vehicle? Could anyone list the positives and negatives?

    Thanks again

    Spencer



  • Posted on 6/27/2011 at 4:19 PM Moderator
    Regarding the look and the animation vehicle:

    Interesting/different, but somewhat confusing because it's impossible to know whether you've seen everything or what you've missed. Can't navigate the big page except with the navbar, in which case there are no other pages.

    It looks like clever-for-its-own-sake, not really a functional reason-for-being. If that's the intended message, then probably not a knock-out punch ... as long as you don't care about SEO.

    Maybe the "clever" aspect offsets the SEO problem or the confusion because it's non-traditional.

    Biggest problems are still that (1) not sure who the target audience is ("Am I in the right place? Is this talking to me?"); and (2) no clear and compelling benefit/call to action ("What's in it for me to pay attention to this even if I am in the target audience? What am I supposed to DO?").
  • Posted on 7/5/2011 at 4:24 AM Author
    Thank you all for your helpful and constructive feedback. We are planning to make big changes to the site partly by adding another menu section along the top which will link to more standard html pages that expand on our products and services. The new pages will also improve our visibility to search engines and give us more usefull bouce rates and analytics from google.

    We have altered the text on the homepage so it is more directly descriptive than before, We also intend to amend the rest of the text.

    The current site will effectively be the new homepage where people can get a glimpse or a taste via the animated page mechanism. Also there is now a direct link to our video showreel on the landing page.

    Does anyone have any feedback regarding the changes that are now visible or the plan we have to improve the site?
  • Posted on 7/5/2011 at 7:37 AM Moderator
    Who is the target audience? What's the purpose of the website?

    Until you answer those questions it's impossible to tell if you're moving in the right direction or not.

    If all you want is a web presence and don't care who sees it or what they do as a result, then you don't need to spend any additional effort, time or money on this project.

    If you do have some other objective and know who you want to reach and with what message, then the first step needs to be a clear Creative Brief. Otherwise you'll never know if you're improving, getting farther from the goal, or moving sideways.
  • Posted on 7/5/2011 at 7:53 AM Author
    Hi mgoodman, I believe I did answer these questions further up in the thread. It shows as 'authors response'.

    Are these answers enough to go on?

    Thanks

    Spencer
  • Posted on 7/5/2011 at 8:16 AM Author
    ....sorry, with regards to the purpose of the site we would like to do several things:

    Sell our services which range from digital media and video production services to large scale live events (£50k - £2million ballpark)
    Inspire people with our creativity,
    Assure our capability both technically and from an organistional point of view,
    Appear freindly,
    Appear edgy,
    Persuade customers to contact us and breif us on their project needs or ask for a quote

    I think that's it...
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