updated site, please critique - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

artisanstone · 06-16-2008, 10:39 AM

I am slowly updating my site in kind of a blog format. Please let me know what you think of it. It's really basic and I'm learning as I go. One thing I'm concerned about is the main page being to big and loading slowly.
www.artisanstoneworks.net

**genecarp** · 06-16-2008, 10:54 AM

your workmanship as shown in your photos is quality, and proffessional, your website however is not. would you hire a webdesigner to build a chimney?. leave it to the pros. thats my 2 cents, best of luck.

artisanstone · 06-16-2008, 11:15 AM

May I ask what you don't like about it?

**genecarp** · 06-16-2008, 12:57 PM

it just does not have any style, look at my website and compare the two, maybe someone else can add there comments, i mean no disrespect, i am trying to give you honest feedback. i guess very simply, your site does not show off your work in the best possible way. type is to small, i hit photos or portfolio, one photo came up. i just doesnt look proffesional....

**genecarp** · 06-16-2008, 12:58 PM

i cant even read ABOUT US its to smalllll.

kevjob · 06-16-2008, 01:03 PM

His advice about hiring a pro is spot on. No dis-respect meant but you can't do what my web guy can do, as he cannot do what you do. Your website needs to stand out from the other 30,000 templated webistes out there. The other aspect is SEO and that cannot be learned overnight. Nice work BTW!

artisanstone · 06-16-2008, 04:27 PM

No offence taken. I'm currently working on the main page. I know the others need work too. Right now, hiring a web designer is not in the picture.

kevjob · 06-16-2008, 04:35 PM

my web guy cost me 125 a month to design the webiste and host email, newsletters, designs bus cards postcards etc... you can't afford not to hire one. the internet age is here.

tinner666 · 06-16-2008, 04:47 PM

WAyyyyyyyy too long to load. After 1 minute, I closed the browser. Never got a look a much of anything as it said 23 more items loading.
Font size way too small to read.

Use thumbnails for your pics. If you're using FP, just R.click the pic and select 'auto-thumbnail'. Most of my album pages, if not all are thumbnailed.

Use a lower resolution camera. Hi-res pics are for printing. 480 x 640 pics load FAST.

Use font 4 or even 5. 4 is probably best.

carlsore · 06-16-2008, 05:44 PM

Hi Bill,

You do some really nice stone work! Beautiful stuff.

#1. Your page loads slow because you're using .bmp (bitmap) files for your images. Your first image was 9MB in size!!! You need to resize your photos properly and convert them to a .JPG format to reduce the file size.

#2. The blog format is okay but without using proper blog software you're going to cause yourself management headaches down the road as you add content to your site. It will become increasingly harder to organize.

#3. Your site is about 2 pages right now (not counting gallery). This is not enough content to effectively "bait" the search engines. You should consider adding more pages such as "services, testimonials, contact form, etc...

With the quality of photos you have taken someone with graphic skills could make you a really nice looking webpage. Something that reflects your craftsmanship.

Carl Sorensen

Susan Betz · 06-17-2008, 06:28 AM

The craftsmanship of your work is spectacular. But even with a cable modem, it took too long to load the site.

Your website needs to be broken into modules. You can tell your story any way you want, but people take in information in little bundles. One to two pictures is enough for one page. Then you tell the story with text along with the pictures. Google doesn't care how beautiful your pictures are, Google cares about the story behind them. Your potential clients will never see your work if Google doesn't index your site, and the only way Google will index you is if your tell Google exactly what it is "seeing".

I am with everybody else telling you to pay a web designer. Get somebody who can do some quick and dirty SEO work for you too. There are some web "designers" out there who know nothing about getting you found by the search engines, but will put together a beautiful web site. You need both the SEO and the pretty work. You have great potential here. But right now you're like the homeowner doing his own plumbing.

threaderman · 06-17-2008, 08:14 AM

Your web-page does not do your work justice.Look at my site,I paid 500.00 for the template and filled in the pics and verbage myself[my wife and me].Lots of hours teaching ourselves how to do this.We hired a college kid for 25.00 a hour to help us with the tougher areas.[less than 150.00 total for him to date].So ,there is my 650.00 site.It's not as nice as many web-pages on here but I think it is respectable.
As far as your site goes,the writing is too small and the main page is way long.You almost have to be a tradesman to appreciate the scope of your work looking at it in this format.When you finally get it fine tuned though I bet it will be the bomb.

Hammer_Nail · 06-17-2008, 10:32 AM

Do you know anything about SEO, Search Engine Optimization? Uing Keywords, and phrases to increase your visibility on the Net? Your site looks good, but the SEO needs some improvement..all good intentions intended.Let me know if you need some help.

Vince_B · 06-17-2008, 08:30 PM

It loaded in less than a second in Firefox 2.0.

Great stone work!

The_Game · 06-17-2008, 09:12 PM

no problem loading the site whit firefox, got to love mac.
it is some beautifull work , if you spend the money for you're web site you will benefit from it, you web site kind a tell the costumer what kind of company you are . so if you don't spend a dollars on you web site that does'nt look good .you wont gain new custumer , update it up to date .2008 i think it is yep we in 2008 ,you don't want a web site who look like the one on line in the 1970 ,spend a grand this money will comeback 100 times.

Susan Betz · 06-18-2008, 02:06 PM

It's not the browser you're using, it's your connection speed and the size of the files.

Varg · 06-18-2008, 02:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by artisanstone

I am slowly updating my site in kind of a blog format. Please let me know what you think of it. It's really basic and I'm learning as I go. One thing I'm concerned about is the main page being to big and loading slowly.

Hi, I agree with a lot of what the guys here are saying. The site needs a little more graphically. I see what you are doing with the minimalism but it's just too minimal. The photo gallery is very clever but it took me a while to realize the photo on the side were clickable, even with the instructions.

For good search engine optimization, you need some header tags, these are words in the html of your page that communicate with search engine's and tell them what your site is about. You may also look to get linked by (and link to) some other sites in your area - suppliers, orgs, partners. The more linked you are the more search engines view you as a relevant site. Also, make the title of your page longer and include descriptions of all the services you supply to your clients. Might as well submit it to Google and Yahoo as well. The other search engines feed off those two mainly.

As far as the design, it looks like from your filter effects that you own a copy of Photoshop. Mess around with it and create some different backgrounds for your tables, something subdued that will look good with text over it.

I'm not sure if you have a logo but you may want to toss that up on the site as well to establish some branding for your business. Branding doesn't always give you results you can hold in your hand but customers admire it.

Your pictures are awesome and they are so important to potential customers. That they are as large as they are is even better so visitors to the site can see all the details.

The one thing about the large photos is that they can reek havok on a site's design. A solution is too just upload the photos to your Web server and link directly to them using an html tag called "target='blank'" after the link. This will open the photo in a new window while leaving your site open in the background. After the visitor is done looking at the photo, they simply close the window and your site will still be open.

I guess I would come up with a masthead across the top with a graphic of what you consider your best work along with a logo. Run a nav bar along the bottom and leave everything under that for your content. Make sure the masthead and the navbar are on every page so the visitors can navigate freely.

However, if I'm ever in SC and need some stone work, I'm callin you dude!

artisanstone · 06-18-2008, 03:09 PM

Thank you all for the helpful criticism. The pictures are loading faster because I learned to downsize them. I am following your advice and having a graphic designer look at it. Hopefully it will get much better.

22rifle · 06-18-2008, 03:17 PM

This thread is a beautiful example of helping a guy out.

Varg · 06-18-2008, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by artisanstone

Thank you all for the helpful criticism. The pictures are loading faster because I learned to downsize them. I am following your advice and having a graphic designer look at it. Hopefully it will get much better.

When he or she is finished make sure you get a hi res copy of the files they used so you can use them for stuff like door magnets, flyers, biz cards and other marketing stuff!