Take a look at my site and please be brutally honest as i'm trying to make a living from doing this so the more help the better

 

www.homewebdevelopment.co.uk

 

Any SEO advice too would be handy as im trying to hit no.1 spot for Glossop web design But always seems to be on page 2?

 

Any advice would be appriciated.

 

Thanks

 

Mike

I know it's probably what your most proud of, but I think the animations are waaay overkill, and makes the site look a bit dated. It is also a real pain to have it load again every time youe visit another page! I think the validation icons on the bottom of the page are never necessary, and can really make a site look tacky.

 

On the plus side, it definately stands out and shows some originality - I see so many standard off-the-shelf portfolio type websites that I'm sick of, it's good to see something different.

 

Sorry to be harsh

get rid of the flash menu and header, and have NO sounds on the page. Flash and sounds are the most annoying parts of any website

On the whole the site looks pretty slick ... and I really like the navigation effects. That's one part I wouldn't want you to get rid of. But the text seems to be very inconsistent in size and spacing. Especially increase the line height in the blue paragraph just below the "welcome". The text lines are so cramped, it is hard to read.

Flash seems to slow the whole site down especially when navigating the site - not a fan, atleast optimise it so it doesnt replay every time you go to a page

Sound effects - no

Text size and spacing is inconsistent - makes it hard to read

Validation icons - not good, use plain text (e.g. W3C Valid) as a link instead if you want to include them

SEO Navigation link is off center (firefox)

 

SEO - get good quality incoming links, use <h1> tags where appropriate, I don't see "glossop web design" anywhere in the home page content

 

 

Wouldn't take much to sort these things out, everything else is generally looking good

text too small

 

a bit too dark for me and i suspect some potential clients

I really don't like the sounds and navigation menu. And it doesn't look like a new site - it does look quite old-fashioned. You also have an extra word in your opening paragraph "We are the a new web design..."

 

Your images seem very large, and your text seems cramped & small. Also, your alignments are a bit out of whack.

 

Plus - I clicked on your portfolio and got bored before the page loaded - it takes too long. You're clearly very talented though - however as impressive as flashy websites can be - they're not great for SEO.

Don't like the flash navigation and sound. The typography could do with improvement, seems quite inconsistent over every page. Also not everyone has the Tahoma font so on my computer everything is in Serif and it looks pretty ugly. Probably worth sticking in another fall-back font into your stylesheet.

If you can convert your flash animation into a javascript slide show and just have a regular nav bar would be a better option. Like what other members said, the flash and sound makes the site loading slower. You'll have to consider some of your target audience may not have a fast internet connection. Thanks

Hey everyone thanks for the advice it has been noted and acted upon!

 

Please recheck my site for more problems....

 

And let me know

to dark for me sorry

Hey everyone thanks for the advice it has been noted and acted upon!

 

Please recheck my site for more problems....

 

And let me know

 

you really did, much better

It's not a bad site; but it could use some work. Just a couple of ideas:

 

• The planet earth header / banner is kind of irrelevant. Maybe make it more design related?
  
• The nav bar looks far too plain. Some graphics would help there.
  
• Seems to be a few too many fonts / text styles. Maybe stick to one or two?