give it to me...good or bad!

[rhyski]

Hi

I have recently redesigned my website EasyBudgeting and I'd appreciate some constructive criticism on the look and feel, layout, ease of use etc and whether it is seo friendly.

As a bit of background, I've spent the last 18 months creating various versions of the website with no formal training - just used the help function in Dreamweaver and a few useful tips sourced from the Internet. Therefore, review the site with the knowlegde that I am an absolute amateur web deisgner at best!

I was thinking of creating a video with a run through the functionality and some working examples and was wondering whether any of you thought this may be beneficial?

I want to stop tinkering with the site but every time I look at it, I feel the need to change something!!

All comments (good or bad) will be well received and greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Rhys

[fisicx]

Hi Rhys,

It's pretty good. All the important bits are in place, the design is nice and clean and navigation intutive.

I'd have a play with the page widths. The home page is narrow and the rest of the sire full width. It might be better to narrow the width, long lines are more difficult to read.

Cut down your homepage blurb, add some screen shots and a buy now button.

On your download page you use wingdings - these aren't supported by all borwsers so you might want to save your bullets as an image and tweak the CSS.

You might want to a bit of work on your page titles - you have 60 characters to play with so why not use them all.

Apart from that it's fine

(except you ain't XHTML valid but I'd get rid of the button anyway, nobody really cares)

[rhyski]

Originally Posted by fisicx

Hi Rhys,

It's pretty good. All the important bits are in place, the design is nice and clean and navigation intutive.

I'd have a play with the page widths. The home page is narrow and the rest of the sire full width. It might be better to narrow the width, long lines are more difficult to read.

Cut down your homepage blurb, add some screen shots and a buy now button.

On your download page you use wingdings - these aren't supported by all borwsers so you might want to save your bullets as an image and tweak the CSS.

You might want to a bit of work on your page titles - you have 60 characters to play with so why not use them all.

Apart from that it's fine

(except you ain't XHTML valid but I'd get rid of the button anyway, nobody really cares)

Fisicx

Thanks for your review and suggestions. I have made some adjustments in line with your comments and I think the site looks better for it.

The site was XHTML valid but I made some changes and it lost its validity (if that make senses). I was told this has negative impacts when it comes to search engines scanning the site!

In terms of SEO, do you think the site is SEO friendly. My page rank was at zero for a long time (about a year), then jumped to two where it has stayed (again for about a year). I've heard conflicting arguements as to whether PR effects search engine rankings.

I rank well on google in Australian for keywords but they don't seem to carry to other regions i.e. UK, Europe or US?

Thanks for your feedback.

Cheers
Rhys

[fisicx]

Hi Rhys,

Site validation helps but if the site is fairly well structured then a few small errors won't make the slightest difference to the indexing robots. If you make a complete cock-up and leave open tags all over the place then the indexing robots can get a little confused but your site is fine so I wouldn't stress over this one.

SEO in not a bolt on accessory, it's built into the core or the site and begins with the first line of code. It's all about your page titles, descriptions, headers, content, anchor text and internal linking, alt text and keywords.

Get to work on those page titles, make sure you include all the keywords you want to be found for. If you want the search engines to rank you for 'household budget software' or 'household budget software' then you need to include these words in the page titles. And you also need to include them on the actual page itself and use these words in your internal linking and so on.

Forget all about PR - Google uses the number and quality of inbound links as part of it's indexing algorithm when determining your ranking. Google gives you some idea of this page rank with their Toolbar Page Rank (TBPR) but it really doesn't matter too much - I don't have a clue what mine is and in any case it is not a good measure of your ranking.

As to keywords outside Australia - which search engine are you using? To see how you are doing in the UK you need to use google.co.uk, yahoo.co.uk and so on. But unless we know what you are searching for can't really help.

Site looks much better BTW. Need to work on your copy - it's a bit dry, needs more zing, whizz and sparkle.

[rhyski]

Originally Posted by fisicx

Hi Rhys,

Site validation helps but if the site is fairly well structured then a few small errors won't make the slightest difference to the indexing robots. If you make a complete cock-up and leave open tags all over the place then the indexing robots can get a little confused but your site is fine so I wouldn't stress over this one.

SEO in not a bolt on accessory, it's built into the core or the site and begins with the first line of code. It's all about your page titles, descriptions, headers, content, anchor text and internal linking, alt text and keywords.

Get to work on those page titles, make sure you include all the keywords you want to be found for. If you want the search engines to rank you for 'household budget software' or 'household budget software' then you need to include these words in the page titles. And you also need to include them on the actual page itself and use these words in your internal linking and so on.

Forget all about PR - Google uses the number and quality of inbound links as part of it's indexing algorithm when determining your ranking. Google gives you some idea of this page rank with their Toolbar Page Rank (TBPR) but it really doesn't matter too much - I don't have a clue what mine is and in any case it is not a good measure of your ranking.

As to keywords outside Australia - which search engine are you using? To see how you are doing in the UK you need to use google.co.uk, yahoo.co.uk and so on. But unless we know what you are searching for can't really help.

Site looks much better BTW. Need to work on your copy - it's a bit dry, needs more zing, whizz and sparkle.

fisicx

Once again, some very solid advice that I will digest. Greatly appreciated.

In terms of copy, the current version (approx 2 weeks ago) is returning a conversion ratio of approx. 4.5% on organic search engine visitors, which I have read is fairly good. In your experience, is that true?

I always thought google PR was a bit overrated as I rank first page on google for easy budgeting (no. 1 in australi, 22 on google uk) Excel budget planner, personal budget planner, monthly budget planner and help with budgeting on google australia. Try these keywords in other regions and no good....i think it has something to do where your hosting is located?

Cheers

Rhys

[fisicx]

4.5% is very good - most sites work on 1-2%.

You are quite correct, using a .uk search engine will favour uk websites but since the site is still very new I wouldn't worry too much. It can take up to 6 months for google get a good feel for the site and confirm your ranking. However, just becaue your are #1 now doesn't means you will stay there. The reason for this is that google tends to give new sites a bit of a boost until it has finished the indexing process. Only when it has exhaused all the avenues and found all the links does it do it's business and put your where your really belong - which could still be #1 but it could easily be way down the rankings.

How many people are searching for 'easy budgeting'? I suspect not many, it's not a phrase I would use when discussing money.

Try these guys: www.wordtracker.com. It's well worth the investment.

[idagreenluver]

You stated that you were thinking about adding a video to go over some of the points of intrest. i think this is a good idea, for two reasons. 1- It makes your sire interactive, 2- some people are not good at only reading, they need visuals to get a clear idea of what your product is and why they want it. I think this would be benifical for your site. It's nice to have a little bling bling... (the video) to attract and inform.

CJ

[dependx]

Just go for the sales page with the information you offer. See Clickbank.com for sales page ideas.

Your site isn't a wonder cure for the current economic situation that I face as your prospective client, so make me believe that I will eat better by acquiring the product or just forget it!