Hello everyone! This is my first post here, it sure looks like a great place. I'll be sure to visit regularly.

 

Ambition Snowskates is a company which was started by a good friend of mine a few years ago. We try to offer a brand new and enhanced experience to our customers and visitors every year, but this year I've set a new standard for our company. By no mean am I implying that it's perfect, simply that it's better than ever. Our focus is the products page for our [potential and current] customers and the media section to show off what the sport is all about.

 

Search engines ranking is a must for the company's expansion. I've tried my best to optimize the site in consequence. I'd like some comments just about everything, from the SEO to the design to the site's functionality, etc. I'm always interested in hearing good criticism and suggestion!

 

 

I'm all hears to what you have to say; thanks in advance,

Quimp

your right its not perfect the site doesn't validate

 

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%...ine&group=0

 

So there is one thing to sort out.

 

As for the design, its clean and simple. Unfortunately in my personal opinion there is nothing that stands out on the page at all and nothing that really gives that wow factor. I think you need to find some way of emphasising the site, and have something that catches peoples eye and makes them want to explore. Sorry if thats not what you want to hear about your site but it is just personal opinion.

 

 

The problem with SEO is doing it correctly, so placing your site in relevant places...for example placing the link on a web design forum isn't helpful as it has nothing to do with your product, its not how many back links you get its how many quality back links you get. So try not to just post the link to your site on multiple forums that have nothing to do with the product the site is about. Also looking at the code you should look at making more of meta tags such as using description tags. It might be useful on an SEO front to have a look around the forum as there is a lot of good information about SEO on here

Hi Dizi!

I don't know why I didn't think of validating the document. I fixed the issues.

 

Sorry if thats not what you want to hear about your site but it is just personal opinion.

No way. I'm glad you bring this on the table. I was rather blinded by the fact that I've been looking at this site for so long. I now feel the header is too bland. I'll see if I can add something in the back of the logo.

 

So try not to just post the link to your site on multiple forums that have nothing to do with the product the site is about.

Correct, I'm well aware of this. I browsed a few web design-related forums until I found this one. It struck me as the best place for advise, which I am trully looking for. The expertise here was much greater than that found in the other places. Your feedback tells me that I made a good choice. My intention was not to throw in a link and leave: I only posted it here. Getting inbound links from related sites is a hard task since the snowskate community is rather small but we're working on it and I understand the fact that it's essential.

 

Also looking at the code you should look at making more of meta tags such as using description tags.

I read somewhere that this tag is irrelevant; so much speculation on the Web. It can't hurt the website, so I added one.

 

 

Thank you for your comments, I really appreciate it.

Agree with Dizi re: the valid code. As for design, I quite like the overall aesthetic -nice and clean. A couple of areas I'd be inclined to polish a bit are:

1) Navigation: doesn't stand out as it is. The top nav gives you one thing, but the bottom nav gives you something else, yet neither feel as though they have any focus.

2) The main image: I'd be inclined to make it the same width as the wist itself and give it more prominence, maybe directly under the header.

3) This is a personal thing, but ditch the scrolling news section. At a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 or below it just gets annoying when it scrolls as your scroll the page.

4) I really like the product info page. The images are well placed and don't clutter up the page. Only thing to consider here is whether you have the stuff that sits behind "More information"link actually on the main product page.

 

Keep up the good work.

Hi Quimp

I think it's quite a nice, tidy site you have there. I'm not sure about a couple of things though. I'm not very keen on having a scrollbar on the page as part of the design, although I can appreciate why you've done it. Postcard style is nice, but I think it works better if all the content fits into the space.

I also wonder if the header could be more attached to the main area? By this I mean I'm unsure if having it separated with the body background showing is working very well. It almost looks like an unintentional margin.

Your about page says that the company focus has so far been mostly about creating products for snowskaters, but you have only 2 products available on your site. This takes away some credibility IMO - if I was a snowskater, why would I be visiting your site?

On the whole I think this is a nicely done site though, and good to see your markup validating!

Google and other search engines use the description tag and display this as the description of your site, so can be very useful as it directly gives the page the description that you want, rather than them just giving you a random snipits from the site I mean after all it's one thing to rank high in a search engine its another to get people to click to the site, and that's where the meta description comes in. It may not directly affect the SEO but it does indirectly and it gives you more control over what people will read when your site pops up in the results

 

 

I think doing something with the header will help the site, as I said before it is well layed out, it just needs that something to turn it from "just another website well laid out" into "wow that looks great". I look forward to seeing what you do

I agree with Dizi. You site is neat and clean it just misses personality. Maybe add an interesting footer or some additional graphics in your header.

 

 

Greetz R-J

I don't want to use a full-width image hence why the news are on the right, and the reason they are in a scrollable block is because we have a tendency to post a lot of news periodically. We posted three just this week and we want our visitors to know right away that there have been updates. I can understand why some of you don't like it though.

 

To bring more life on the homepage, I added an image for the most important updates. We'll be changing it from time to time. Badmotherz suggested that the extra content in the products page be placed directly in the section. Excellent idea, I think it looks more convincing this way.

 

1) Navigation: doesn't stand out as it is. The top nav gives you one thing, but the bottom nav gives you something else, yet neither feel as though they have any focus.

I agree that the bottom links seem lost. Do you have any suggestion on how I could fix this?

 

 

Thanks again for the helpful replies!

Quimp

Just a quicky from me (I really should do some work!):

 

On the products page:

 

There's a typo - 'The ideal size for any type of riding. The lenght assures good'

 

'Ethylene-Vinyl-Acetate' shouldn't be hyphenated (doesn't matter too much but I was a chemist!)

 

'This quality wood is light and especially very durable.' - 'especially very' doesn't make sense consider '...and very durable' or '...and especially durable' or '...and incredibly durable' etc.

 

'We assure a continuous control over quality by developping our products in our province.' - typo in 'developping' and you should drop the 'a' to make it 'We assure continuous control...'.

 

 

I love the site (especially the logo) - but then I know nothing about design!

 

It's just coming up to the snow season here in NZ so maybe I should hang my skis up this season and give snowskating a go? Nah - I'm too old to be kool.

Hey Quimp!

 

I'll be moving to the ski fields in a couple of weeks for the season (NZ) - got a sweet little cottage within sight of 2 ski areas and easy reach of 4 more (it's a place called Geraldine). So getting excited, saw your name in the forum and remembered this site.

 

Found a couple of things to look at on the products page you might want to pass on?:

 

Original:

"Prevents your board from delamination."

Suggest:

"Protects your board from delamination."

"Prevents your board from delaminating."

 

Original:

"A 7 ply horizontal lamination gives the board ideal stifness without any excess weight."

Edit:

"A 7-ply horizontal lamination gives the board ideal stiffness without any excess weight."

 

General point: If something has 'x' layers of ply it's usually hyphenated to 'x-ply'. e.g. 7-ply.

 

Original:

"It is also a very resistant material in winter since its physical proprieties aren't affected by lower temperatures."

Consider:

"A very resistant material ideal for winter due to physical properties that aren't affected by low temperatures."

 

 

 

Oh, and thanks for the new word "flipability" - I've never heard it before and will now try to get it into every conversation I can!

 

Bring on the snow!

I think some funky, dark-red shapes are needed to plume from the sides, get some action going on , bit more personality

Excellent corrections wizely! As you probably have gathered, English isn't our native language. I will correct these as soon as possible.

 

While we're on the subject, are you going to post a topic for 'copy corrections' as you said you might in the Copy Corner topic? My description doesn't feel punchy enough to me, I'd like something more dynamic.

 

Thanks again!

...we have a tendency to post a lot of news periodically. We posted three just this week and we want our visitors to know right away that there have been updates.

 

Hey Quimp,

 

Just a suggestion, but to save on using a scrolling section to display news, you could just show the first 20 words of the three most recent posts, then link each to the full version? See the news section on http://www.ngenlab.com/ That site pulls the information from a news topic in the forum.

 

Hope that helps.

 

EDIT: Other than that, I really like the look of the site. Nothing to say other than whats already been said. Good job!

Excellent corrections wizely! As you probably have gathered, English isn't our native language. I will correct these as soon as possible.

 

While we're on the subject, are you going to post a topic for 'copy corrections' as you said you might in the Copy Corner topic? My description doesn't feel punchy enough to me, I'd like something more dynamic.

 

Thanks again!

 

No problem Quimp - if English isn't your native language then I am very, very impressed! Those corrections were very minor and, in general, your site is better than most native English speaker's sites. Well done.

 

Copy Corner is bring looked at to say where it will fit into the forum now that it's growing, so please be patient a little longer!

 

Cheers

Quimp I'd love to produce some red wing-like shapes to go either side of your header / navigation - I'd do them fre eof charge because I'm really inspired to do it

 

What do you say? Don't have to use 'em

 

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EDIT

- - - - - - - -

 

What can I say, passion took over me and I did it anyway. You can have it if you like Quimp, i'll put it onto PNG or gif, however you like;

 

Will they make the site fly to top ranks, or is it simply going to fly away?

 

Thank you for the offer but I don't think that's the direction we want to go for the business. We're more looking at making this a chill-out place to watch videos/pictures and build a strong link with potential customers. As I said, thank you for taking the time to put it up together! It means that you appreciate the website to a certain extent, so I'm happy.

No probs, best of luck