www.aerin.co.uk

[fisicx]

I would like to offer up my own website for review so that you (hopefully) can see that I practice what I preach.

The website is aimed at a specific audience. I don't do flash, graphics or ecommerce. I build websites for small businesses that are looking for simple designs. So if you want an all-singing and all-danceing interactive piece of theatre then I probably can't help.

Anyway, here it is: www.aerin.co.uk

Graham.

PS: Comments like 'ur design's r cr*p' don't actually help unless you elaborate on your opinion!

[squalid]

well i have just thrown it through the w3c and it doesnt validate.


due to this I have called the internet police and they will be around to arrest you before the day is out................

[squalid]

seriously

you are wasting your page titles having your domain name in them. all of your page titles could do with a revamp.

i note you are in essex.

according to the keyword selector - 235 people last month searched for essex web design

be a big fish in a small pond, searches are becoming more local. looking at your competition it wouldnt take alot of work to come top or near to the top of searches for 'essex web design'

Instead of effective web design being your backlink text - make it essex web design

change your page titles and your paragraph titles to be vartiations of essex web design - without being too spammy. you mention about the importance of page titles - yet dont seem to make the most of yours?

[fisicx]

Good points.

A lot of discussion in various forums about company names in page titles, need to do a little more research methinks.

But you are right, 'essex web design' is another key phrase I could focus on. can you confirm what you mean by 'backlink text', I think it means something other than what you mean...

As to the validation - I my own fault, I added some bloglinks that don't pass muster. But they've gone now.

Thanks

[redcog]

Hi Fisicx
My first impression of your site was that it was very "wordy", and coupled with the bright green, I didn't feel it was a site that I could spend too long looking at. The large fonts will obviously help the visually imparied, but I found them quite difficult to follow.
In terms of useability, I think you have it spot on. It's simple, easy to navigate and you can get to the information without hunting around for it.
As squalid pointed out, I think you're missing a trick with regard to search engine optimisation. I believe that the page title is one of the most important parts of seo, and yours is currently offering no value whatsoever. The first part of your title tag should always include your targeted keyphrase - would people search for "effective web design"? I agree that targeting a local audience by including "Essex" in your keyphrases would be a worthwhile mod, as most people do prefer dealing with a local business for something like web design, and hence will include this in their search phrase.
Hope that helps.
Dean

[fisicx]

Thanks redcog,

Not convinced yet about the inclusion of essex in the titles - but I am warming to the idea.

Maybe 'Essex Web Site Design, Assessment, Help and Advice'?

At least 3 keyphrases in there: Essex Web Design, Web Site Assessment, Web Site Advice. Need to sleep on it.

This is version 4 of the homepage - and I agree that it is a little wordy. I keep cutting bits out and then wanting to put them back in again. But it's always good to get a second opinion. Maybe a shorter version 5 will be online tomorrow.

The green colour has been the subject of much discussion. I wasn't convinced at first but many others like it. Same goes with the font size. It's actually set to 1em - the default browser setting. But what I have done is increase the line-height to 1.2em. Interestingly, the word count per line is right on the button for readability - it should be 10-12 words per line.

squalid, taken out the domain references, put it onto the metatag description instead.

Thanks for the comments.

[A.N.Onym]

Graham, you really need to target local search. I believe you have asked about it somewhere before, right?

I'd at least recommend including full address in your footer (including the country and post code).

What might work is a page on web design services to people from Essex or your smaller region. That'd be a good target for geo traffic.

The site looks alright, but the green colour is a bit bright and 'acid' for me. Did you try using natural (grass) color?

Overall, I think your site structure is very simple and it should help.

[squalid]

if you just go all guns blazing for one phrase to be 'yours' then you will have more success than trying for three.

Assessment, help and advice aren’t really good phrases as they are too wide.

Decide on one phrase, with the goal to get to the top of search engines with that one phrase. when you have succeed - increase your range then.

here is what i done to come to the top of the search engines for my chosen phrase -

backlink text -

ie yours is effective web design - which links to your site.

change to essex web design everywhere, including sites designed

good backlinks to your site -

i have read somewhere on this forum that people shouldnt submit to directories. I totally disagree with this. urltrends.com shows you are not listed in DMOZ, generally considered the most important directory.

Directories with page rank of worthy of your time to submit. It increases your backlinks and also increases your page rank.

There are some local directories in the UK with a big page rank and they cost peanuts to advertise on if you arent in the local area ( free if you are), well worth throwing £20 at just for a decent backlink, never mind any business you may get from it.

Re Page Rank - there is an argument that page rank doesnt matter. Fine. But it matters to me - especially when my competitors haven’t got any or have only got 2/10 etc. It shows customers that my site has been up for a while and well established. Also getting a high page rank - I believe helps my site come above comparable sites that don’t have any. ( ps not entering into any debates re page rank. I love my page rank. If a site is doing well and getting visitors etc without page rank- then a page rank doesn’t matter as much)

On your website, paragraphs should be relevant to the page titles, so if you have essex web design in the page titles, make sure its also in the paragraph heading and also something in the paragraph.

Look at the competition, the top ten sites coming up for essex web design. do a check on msn.co.uk for where their backlinks are and if you can - get listed where they are - only cause its an easy way of finding good places to submit your site.

put up better and more descriptive alt tags - but dont stuff them with keywords. eg ' logo from essex web design'

Put a page up about essex ! I put a page up about my area, no one ever reads it and I don’t care. It helps make my site more relevant to searches about the area. Ensure that the text of page is unique – ie you write it yourself and don’t copy from wilko

Use variations of essex web design on your pages, variations on the keyword selector include -

essex web site design, company design essex site web, company design essex web. try also essex's website designer, essexs web page designs etc

You really have to 're brand' your site as essex web design, just putting up one instance in a page title isnt going to do anything.

You can do all this so subtle that people don’t realise what you are doing.


Re all the above : I didn’t measure each thing for results, everything was done as a campaign in totality, so whether some things had more impact than others - I will never know. I do know that customers who are impressed by page rank, and go on a page rank chasing mission end up with well listed site - anecdotal evidence maybe - but the proof of the pudding etc...

[fisicx]

Thanks for the thoughts.

Adding address to footer. Seen this idea in a few places, I have all the info on the contact page so why not.

Essex focussed web page - yep, I can do that as well.

Green backgrounds. There were 4 alternatives: index1, index2, index3 and index4. My wife liked number 2 so that's what I used. Unless you know better...

I was trying to focus on the Effective Web Design aspect - looking at the competition it's not a difficult area to do well in. But I'm now convinced that concentrating on local searches is the way to go. And I can hopefully do this without a major rewrite of the copy.

As to the directory issue, I'm specifically blocking DMOZ. There are sound reason's for doing so that I am not prepared to discuss here - it took me ages to complete the research and this info isn't for free.

I haven't begin my link building campaign yet. But thanks for the thought on directory inclusion, although I'd rather be on the digg homepage!

Page Rank. Not even going to start a discussion here - too many opposing opinions on the matter.

So thanks once more - always good to have a fresh pair of eyes look over things, one can become blind to the obvious and miss some quite simple tricks.

[squalid]

just for anyone reading this...

its fine to have an opinion that DMOZ and page rank dont matter. but it would be more valid if coming from a site that is top of the search engines.