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Can you please review my website and help me develop it further?Business Community Home > Internet and Computing Forum > Review my Website Forum |
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| Original Message Added : 17 Jan 2012 I've just launched this CV Writing and Job Search support business and wanted to get some feedback on its content and some ideas about layout. Click this link to get direct to the website I also want to be able to increase its place in searches. Any tips or advice is most welcome. Thanks in advance for your constructive reviews and advice. It's most welcome. Best Regards IAIN  |
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| Reply : 17 Jan 2012 Had a look at your site and noted the following -
The overall colour scheme and content seems pretty good and if you address at least the issues above then you will have a pretty decent site there. feel free to contact me if you want a more in-depth review of your site - Webrem Best regards, Darren
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| Reply : 17 Jan 2012 - (Edited : 17 Jan 2012) As to search there are a few basic ways you can do this yourself or have someone do it for you that cost very little unless you want to go the full seo route you can contact me if you need more information Regards Andy
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| Reply : 17 Jan 2012 I'll look at them and contact you if I need further support. Regards IAIN |
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| Reply : 18 Jan 2012 - (Edited : 18 Jan 2012) Reviewed your website and my thoughts:- 1. Nice clean site and fairly easy to navigate and my observations and suggested improvements in no particular order of priority:- 1. I would move the Privacy and Data Protection tab from the main menu to the footer, freeing up space for more important items. 2. I would include some form of T&C's and maybe copyright statement in the footer 3. You appear to have built the whole website in flash and I'm not sure why as suggest it would have been better in css/html/php. Even though search engines and high end readers for the visually impaired can read flash websites they can find it difficult to fully understand and this may impact on search rankings. 4. I would suggest it would improve the navigation if the menu items were highlighted when you hover the mouse over them and when clicked are permanently highlighted to indicate the main menu item the sub page belongs to or maybe even use the 'bread crumb' format at the top of the sub page. 5. If you hover the mouse over the 'Contact Us' main menu item it displays the two sub pages but when you move the mouse away it doesn't retract. 6. if you click on 'Free Information' and then navigate to the 'Interviews' page the sales@ button is not wide enough and does not appear to work. 7. On the 'Our Services' 'Purchase Now' page I would suggest using actual PayPal buttons so you immediately indicate the payment platform you are using. 8. Some of the buttons that open the forms are not wide enough and mask the .co.uk. 9. In the 'About Us' I would have expected a business address and at least one named person. 10. The optimisation of the pages and titles could be improved Hope you find the feedback of use. Regards SteveB |
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| Reply : 18 Jan 2012 I'll take them on board and adjust. Regards IAIN |
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| Reply : 20 Jan 2012 Its not immediately clear what the message is that you are trying to get across. I would suggest on large header statement, with a call to action. Reduce the amount of text, or break it up into different areas / coloured sections etc. There are also two blank areas when i view the page, one on the right and another at the bottom of the page, are these supposed to be there? With regards search rankings and promoting your site, you may find this article useful regarding promoting your website: http://blog.suremedia.co.uk/promoting-your-website/ The above deals with lots of free techniques for boosting visibility, however the first and foremost factor that you need to consider to rank higher and get more hits is generating quality backlins baqck to your site. Now you can pay an seo company to do this for you, or you can try and do it yourself. Its not difficult at all, it just requires a bit of time... The most common technique to use is something called article marketing. Rather than go into it in detail here, i recommend looking at this you tube video from a company from melbourne: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeAodmRuh6Y That video cuts off after 9 mins, but if you search around you tube using the authors name etc you can find the full video broken down into different parts. Hope this helps Sure Media www.suremedia.co.uk |
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| Reply : 25 Jan 2012 I tried to post my comments yesterday and either the system was not working or I jammed it with my extremely long reply. So, here goes. This is part one. Part two on SEO in another reply. A lot of good advice has already been given yet I cannot believe I still find things to say... I know it looks a little overwhelming but it is all important stuff... The above forum contributors have already mentioned what was missing so I will not go that way. First of all, I have to congratulate you on your website. It contains a lot of information which must have taken ages to gather and put together. I know it is not easy to do, so well done! The colour scheme is simple but it is clean and I think is right for what you do. However, I would add at least another colour, an accent colour. I quite like the "winner" icon you use so maybe a colour in it, either the strong orange or the orangey-yellow, which you can use for headers or links, as you prefer. It would lift up the feeling of "boredom" mentioned by Dean. Although I do not have Dean's concern about your home page being cluttered, I feel that you provide far too much information at that point and I agree that you should only stick to capturing the users' mind - try to use some bullet points to help make the sentences shorter and more readable - and incite them to navigate through your website, directing them directly to the right pages for them, such as Creating a CV from scratch, Having your CV reviewed... Once you have your customers on the right page for them, then you should provide not only the "Call for Action" but also the possibility to purchase that service straight from that page, whenever it applies, so that the users do not need to navigate further if they are ready and only want one product. If you think that the users would also benefit from other services, you should include these links. You can still leave the "Purchase Now" page if you want as there will be some users who will find it useful. You must make sure that you have a call for action on every page for your services, there are none on "Job Search Help" and "Cover Letters". Your "Purchase Now" page shows the prices for each service. I would include a short description to why these services are different in terms of why the users should go for a more expensive service. I was a little confused at that point. I found the links on that page to be inconsistent and hard to find: the first three items for purchase, only the price is linked, as for the last 5 it is the whole sentence. You must be consistent. Additionally, the convention for links is to underline them and, if you want, either colour them differently or make them bold. Whichever way you do it, it means that anything that is not a link should not look like one otherwise it confuses the users and confused users leave. "What is a CV?" should be before "Why have a CV?" - just common sense. "Cancellation Charges" should be before "Purchase Now" - will make you look upfront and open. It would be better to delete your "Links" page and include the information within the "Contact Us" page. If you cannot, then rename "Links" to something more meaningful. "Links" could be about anything and few users will go and see if it is of interest to them. "Home" page uses headers on blue background. However, there is some inconsistencies about the use of the bold font. Your website sub-pages do not look like your "Home" page but rather like windows on top of the website background. You loose your banner and although your URL is displayed in the header on the top left, it is written dark blue on medium blue, making it difficult to read. You should never loose your business name or your logo - you should invest in a logo - these are your business identity. In addition, the windows are not of the same size and that is annoying. Could you make them all the same size, or anchor them at the same point so that the top of the window does not jump on the screen? I could not see if you were using some kind of analytics on your website, whether Google or another one. Analytics can provide you with loads of information about your users navigation and interest which help you improve your page contents and services. I use Google Analytics and it has proved to be very useful over the years. I see you provide a lot of very useful and free information about CV writing, job search and interviews. I would have thought that it would have made more sense to ask people to give you their names and email addresses or telephone numbers before you do as it would enable you to contact them soon afterwards and find out how they got on with the reading and if they needed any clarification. You could find out why they came to your site (curiosity or need) and then "market" them appropriately. There is nothing wrong in doing so when people volunteer to give you their contact information and you have everything to gain. Now, you were asked why you used flash to create your website. Another reason I also recommend to avoid flash is the fact that Google, which is used by the majority of users, provides an arrow next to your listing to show the home page. This facility is being provided for users to decide at first glance whether they like or not your website. If they don't like what they see, they will not click. If you google "abespokecv.co.uk" to display the list of pages Google has cached - which are available to your potential customers - and you click on the greyed double arrows on the right of your listing, you will see that Google flattens your flash pages and make them look very different from your actual website. This should be of concern as it could cut down the number of users coming to your site. Have you put your business on Google Places? It would help putting you on the map locally, then you could concentrate on widening your market on your website. I hope this will help. Cheers for now and good luck, Isabelle McInally |
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| Reply : 25 Jan 2012 - (Edited : 25 Jan 2012) You are going to have to do something quick about your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). At the moment, you are nowhere to be found in your area. I will give you a head start and you can research the rest... Having the right keywords is crucial to success. At the moment, your Google listing for you home page looks like: ABespokeCV www.abespokecv.co.uk CV professionally written for you and help with your job search. and Why have a CV? - www.abespokecv.co.uk www.abespokecv.co.uk/why-have-a-cv/4554517494 CV professionally written for you and help with your job search. (same sentence for all website pages) To find you, your customers need to type the very same words and the way you are set up right now, you are practically invisible to a wide range of customers. Concerning Metatags, the guidelines are:
In addition,
This is only an overview but done right, it will give you a defending position on the market because with unique pages, you maximise your marketing power (keywords) and your internet presence (visibility). In other words, choosing different sets of keywords on each page means that you do not just rely on 4 keywords to drive all your customers to you. It will also make you more Google friendly and it will be a step towards being ranked better (current ranking = 0), along with other comments provided by the many forum providers. Google will take around one to three weeks to cache you. Do a weekly search on your top keywords and see where you are listed. If not enough, work on your SEO, there is more you can do, implement, and test again weekly, and so on. It quickly becomes a routine and much easier to do. I hope this will help you kick start your position. Wow, the spell checked stopped at nearly every word, even though they were spellt right! Kind Regards, Isabelle McInally
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| Reply : 25 Jan 2012 Thanks very much for this insight. I've got loads to work on over the next few days!!! Regards Iain |
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| Reply : 3 Feb 2012 I think you will have more success by developing a niche business. Seeing your website, it seems you are trying to do too much which send a confusing message. Perhaps separate into two businesses for CV Writing and Job Search. To increase your website's ranking, set a goal to become an SEO expert. My website designer is providing SEO training which I am happy to pay for. |
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| Reply : 7 Jul 2012 There have already been a lot of SEO tips given to help increase your page rankings and help your website get found but there are other ways to get found beyound just page rankings. As LinkedIn is a Job/recruitment site (mainly although also used for NEtworking), i would do a lot on their. Good Profile, your own group, join other group and use their advertising. YOu can also use Google, Yahoo and Bng adword campaigns as well as CReate a Blog and blog (good content) about your service and anything related to CV's. Encorporating the blog in to your site will help with your page rankings. Especiaslly if you blog regularly. You can also get people with recruitment websites and blogs to write about your service and link to your site. Hope this helps. Mr Viral Marketer http://www.mrviralmarketer.co.uk |
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