Care to take a look?

[Dawn*]

Hi all,

If anyone would like to take a look at my website and give me feedback, I'd be very grateful. The website address is www.upturnconsultancy.com

Some objective opinions would be welcome but I would prefer it if the feedback came via PM, if that would be OK.

I will of course share any useful tips.

Many thanks,

Dawn

[Himore]

Hi Dawn.

Just PM-ing you a response now.

cheers.
Nick

[fisicx]

Dawn,

If you post on a forum asking for a review then you should expect responses to be public.

Himore,

Please do not respond with a PM. Reviews are public not private.

[fisicx]

At first glance the site seems very plain. There is very little to attract my interest, most of the information is about you not the customer. There is no call to action on the homepage. You don't have your contact details on every page.

You also need to review your coding:
The navigation is invisible to the robots
You need descriptive titles, descriptions, main header, opening paragraph etc.

Your links page will harm rather than help your ranking - the robots are looking for related links: Bfbgames.com is not a related site.

But more importantly: make your customers feel as if you really care about them.

[Eagle]

I'd agree with the above in that it's certainly plain and doesn't do anything to entice the visitor any further. It needs... 'something'!

[Himore]

Here goes then...

Hi Dawn.

Just had a look at your site, and thought you would appreciate some feedback.

Imagine yourself in the position of one of your prospects. Would they be attracted to your site and want to find out more? Would they immediately connect with you and say "Sure, this woman understands me, and she's the person who will be able to help"?

The reason I ask, is because in my opinion you are not 'connecting' with your target market. In fact, I don't think you're really connecting with anyone. Your web-copy is very factual, but it's not 'pressing any buttons' from what I can see.

Who are you aiming this at? For example...

Let's say a potential customer might be someone who is very busy and unhappy at work, and feels they don't have time to spend with the family at home.

Get some headlines in there, such as:

"Sick of the 12 hours days at work?"
"Have your family forgotten what you look like?"
"Then I can help you redress the balance. Want to know more, then read on..."

OK, so I have no idea whether I've correctly identified one of your potential customers, but can you see what I'm doing? I'm drawing them in by asking questions which 'hit their buttons' of what they are unhappy with.

"Helping clients achieve optimal well-being in life..." is just a label. What does this mean? What are the 'behaviours' you'll address to bring about this change?

"What would you say if I could give you more time at home with your family and help you find fulfillment in your career?"

I'd say - 'where do I sign up!!'

Let me know more about your target market and I'll help where I can. If, of course, you agree with what I'm saying.

Now, the design...

It's a little basic, and is not grabbing my attention. A typical web surfer will give a site between about 3 - 7 seconds before moving on if it's not getting their attention.

I like what you've done with the 'UpTurn' part of the title, but it could be more polished. At the moment it looks like some WordArt. Also, you should have a tag-line. By that, I mean a few words next to your company name which tell the surfer what you do. "Life is on the Up" could be anything - a gambling site, health foods, dieting, etc... "Life Coaching for you work and personal life" (or whatever) would tell me much more at a glance.

Your menu links don't act like links. They should change in appearance when people move their mouse over them, to make it clear that you can indeed click on them. At the moment they act like all the other text on the page.

Get some stock photography images on the front page as well as maybe a photograph of yourself. I don't know about you, but if I was going to trust in someone else to sort out my problems, I'd sure want to know what they looked like! Some photographs of stressed-out people will help a potential client 'connect'. Again, it's all about pushing those buttons! And then maybe a happy person further down the page. I know it all sounds cheesy, but just look at magazine and TV ads. The multi-million pound ad agencies that put those ads together have researched this to the n-th degree so they know what works.

As an example of another consultancy site (albeit an IT focussed one), here's one design I did earlier as they say. (There was originally a lot more pages, but the company are going through a rethink on their products and services!)

http://www.hitexconsulting.co.uk/

Anyway, I'd be happy to help further if you find this advice useful. I also think it would be useful if you'd let me post this directly on the site. People won't be judgemental, but many will find it useful.

Kind regards,
Nick

[fisicx]

Nice post Nick - and far more eloquently put than I could do.

I recommend reading this article: http://www.strategicmarketingmontreal.ca/newsletter-46.htm to understand how important first impression are.

[Dawn*]

Thanks for the feedback.

I do feel that as someone new to this forum, someone could have explained the position or policy. If you had concerns about my request, you should have shared them with me in the first instance.

Dawn

[fisicx]

Fair enough but did you read the sticky advising on how to ask for a review at the top of this sub-forum?

The whole point of forums is their ability to share ideas, to encourage debate and (hopefully) learn from each other. In this respect, if we all send you a PM we won't be able to support or disagree with each other.

Anyway, I hope you stick around, this is a nice place and you will soon get to know who's who.

[Dawn*]

Thanks Fisicx.

It wasn't my intention to be secretive or glean insider information, rather I knew the feedback would be highly critical and as I'm new to this forum I lacked confidence. As it happens, I would have posted the PM on the open forum (cringing admittedly) and to be fair I only asked if it would be OK. If that caused concern, it should have been pointed out to me (by PM) or forum users should have ignored my message. I didn't put pressure on anyone to respond.

In no way did I think this website was in any way complete, although it is on the web obviously, and I am not Computer or Internet savvy and would never claim to be. It was just my attempt to learn because although I will most likely be passing it on to a professional (it has been put out to tender), I feel it would be good for me to try and learn something about this area so that I can gain some understanding of how things work.

I would like to thank you and Himore for the constructive feedback and ask if it would be OK to pass the feedback on?

P.S. I didn't read the sticky (didn't see it), an oversight for which I apologise.

Many thanks,

Dawn