WE'VE MOVED!

We are proud to announce our NEW community destination. Engage with resident experts and fellow entrepreneurs, and learn everything you need to start your business. Check out the new home of StartupNation Community at startupnation.mn.co

Yikes! My first try, have a look..

ZoomsterZoomster subscriber Posts: 2
edited November 2006 in Website Critique
My business is just getting started and I was hoping for some feedback from all the helpful people here, give my site a look and please be honest!  Thanks
ices
Kurt

Comments

  • espeedespeed subscriber Posts: 3 Member
    Hi Kurt,
       I like it so far. It is a nice business niche that has a lot of possibilities if marketed right.  Who are your potential clients?  Your site should be geared towards them.  So if I was to guess it would be towards senior citizens with the bigger fonts and 10% discount offered.  Maybe you could include a Google mashup w/ hurricane data etc.  I think that you could get someone to create one for you fairly cheap.  Hope this helps.
  • ZoomsterZoomster subscriber Posts: 2
    Good points and thanks for taking a look.  It is a work in progress and is done on my free site provided by my internet service so the format is somewhat limited.  I would love to have more options but I will try and tweak what I have to make it better, thanks for the input.
     
    Kurt
  • SolidGrndSolidGrnd subscriber Posts: 11
    Kurt,
    If you have $13-15 a month...sign onto Network Solutions and get your own domain and a more substantial web editing ability. Or anyone of the other million out there that cost pennies a month to run a site (just look at mine...it costs me $13 a month at the moment thru Network Solutions).
    I agree with jonese...the columns are killing the flow of the pages...and the picture on the home page takes up the whole first page...so unless I scroll...I miss the text all-together. For your services...think about a filing system when you design something like this. Columns and boxes are okay...but when I open a filing drawer I have 1 file with a heading and in that file I have all this information. Then I have file 2 with a heading and all that information in it. What you have right now is three files laying open on a table....not good for finding information quickly!
    Great first go though! You have a good niche...if I were in hurricane area I would be interested.
  • Dan1013Dan1013 subscriber Posts: 0
    Kurt, congrats on getting this far and on seeking feedback. I feel the Home page needs lots of work. This is the most important page in your site and it needs to catch people`s attention. I would recommend the following:-Get rid of the striped background. It`s overpowering the entire page and making it harder to make out your message- Reduce the size of the hurricane satellite image. It`s simply too big and you`re forcing people to scroll down to know what your business is all about. Remember: make it as easy as possible on your visitors because they are always a click away from leaving your site.- Get rid of the sound effects. It`s neat, sure, but does nothing to get you closer to the sale. Also, what if someone is in a workplace environment and that noise comes, on? Not good.- Get your own domain name and hosting account. Don`t use Verizon, get a simple domain name that your customers can easily remember and type in. Having your own domain also gives you added professionalism. Registering a domain is less than $10 per year and hosting less than $10/month. It`s a no-brainer.- "Are You Ready for Hurrican Season" is not a good eneough headline. Instead use the headline to underscore the #1 reason people should hire you.- Implement a "Call to action" you have to prompt your visitors to take action. I can`t overstate the importance of that. Ask them to sign up for something, a newsletter, a FREE consultation, for a FREE gift, anything that will catch the attention of your target market. Ask them to take the first step and get them that much closer to the sale.Hope that helps!-Danny
  • newbiesecuritynewbiesecurity subscriber Posts: 1
    I really like the niche.  I really dislike the sound effects, however.  I had to turn down my speakers because I got tired of listening to it loop as I was reviewing your site.  I would recommend either showing pictures of hurricane damage or the types of pictures that you will be taking for customers on the main page.  The pictures of CDs doesn`t help sell what you are offering.On your "About Us" page, I would include how long you have been doing this type of work, if you have any experience.  I assume that you have actually contacted insurance companies to find out what type of documentation they need in the event of hurricane disaster, so include information about how you have consulted with insurance companies to determine the appropriate documentation.There is a free program called NVu that you can use to create your web pages.  You can also find quite a few free web page templates on the internet.Good luck.
Sign In or Register to comment.