Site Review Plse - don't hold back !!!

[RuralWeb]

Thanks mike
Kate I'm sorry for my remarks as I have a particular dislike for gypsy designers on the forum. I'm out at the moment but will take a look at your site and post some comments for you.

[RuralWeb]

Ok as promised a few ideas after looking at a few of your competitors:

Your design is using a standard template which is ok but you could make it fit your market a little better by making it black and white to fit in with the older film conversion.

Get a banner made that illustrates your product - you have miliseconds to get your message over so a banner with a black and white grainy image slowly fading to the right to show a colour clear image would do that.

Build a custom buy button to fit in with your theme - make it big and red

You have external links on the other services page which open in the same window taking visitors away from your site - make them open in a new window.

Get a video made showing what you do eg youtube - you are a moving picture site so get some movement going on.

Setup a links page and link to relevant sites eg forums, image librarys etc

Put testimonials on the product pages they relate to

[Sean Williams]

Hi Kate
on a product page, I agree that what one is actually buying isn't clear enough - pehaps put the word minutes after the Quantity box.

I'd put in the link to the minutes calculation after the Product title, rather than at the bottom - customers can be hopeless about seeing information - I always try to put the most important stuff where they trip over it.

Maybe add 'per minute' or 'per minute of transfer' immediately after the Price £1.00.

Regarding what to do with the old films - is there a charge for returning them? If so, I'd mention it here too.
Also, I'd put as the default first choice what in your experience most customers want you to do.
It does occur to me that maybe returning the films should be the default as this would avoid a customer coming back at a later date and wanting films that have been destroyed. To choose anything other than receiving their old films back automatically, the customer has to make an active opt-out, thereby putting you in the clear - no nasty legal disagreements at a later date.

I agree about the vat - I have a feeling it may be a legal requirement that the vat status has to be displayed.
I'm pretty sure that prices including vat have to be displayed if your site is a retail, rather than trade, site.

HTH

[Kate (newbie)]

Massive Thanks !

Hi Guy's,

Thanks a million for the response. Hope I haven't upset the Forum.

Firstly I'm NOT a designer (wish I was) - please see my very first thread to prove it ! http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?p=248484

Quote: "Hello Everyone,
I've must have read every post on here in last 2 months. You old pro's probably forgot how hard it is starting up and thus prob don't appreciate how helpful this forum really is to Actinic Virgins like me. Superb forum!

I'm setting up several websites to bring my old dad into 2008 (the exciting world of transferring cine and video's onto DVD ! LOL) I've tested and I'm buying Business Plus."

No problem though Mal. I do see where you're coming from! I may have misled you. Yes I am "doing it for a client" (my DAD - LOL !) but he does employ me part time as I go to college (family business). But I've never made a website before, honest LOL

Anyway - you all have made too many suggestions to comment on (thanks) so I am just going ahead and amending our site.

QUICKIE: Is it the done thing to make all these changes and then come back for a final review ???

Finally: I do like the T-Shirt idea ! but .... if I'm and Actinic Virgin, and you are Actinic Sluts, does that make the Designers Here "actinic whores !!!"
Not that I'm calling you a whore Mal - tee heee

[RuralWeb]

I would make more money if I was!!

Feel free to come back as you do changes. Best to keep it all on this thread though as people will have the full story behind the site then - best of luck.

[Kate (newbie)]

Explanation: Paranoia

I think the text metioned in the previous post has been copied from other sites as a quick search of google will show.

Hi Darren,

Getting paranoid now so thought I explain a bit more ....

We have been using a co. called www.VT.TV to advertise our services on their site. We not getting much business from them now so want to do a site of our own.

We'll keep it on vt.tv as we may get dribs n drabs from them but we aiming at getting our own site up - where SEO is all about Cine-to-DVD and hopefully people searching that term will find us. Currently it's being diluted within vt.tv website.

Hope this explains it all.

[Duncan Rounding]

It does, but you stand the risk of some of your pages not being listed because of duplicated content. You may not get listed in favour of vt.tv if google considers you have duplicated the content from that site.

[RuralWeb]

where SEO is all about Cine-to-DVD and hopefully people searching that term will find us

You have to do more than hope these days! - tbh I would not be using the search term "cine" I would be looking for old film, 8mm etc.

You need to use the google keyword tool and see what people are actually searching for and optimise each page for a single phrase. Look at your competitors and what they have in thier title tags to get some idea of what you should be targeting.

You have analytics fitted so you need to be looking at this every day and aiming to see an increase in traffic every day. Take your top 10 keywords/phrases and start tracking them

[TraceyHand]

Finally: I do like the T-Shirt idea ! but .... if I'm and Actinic Virgin, and you are Actinic Sluts, does that make the Designers Here "actinic whores !!!"

hahahahahaha

*takes the 5th*

[RuralWeb]

Just had a quick look for you and perhaps an index tile of 8mm cine to dvd transfer wouldbe a better place to start. You have most of these words in the homepage text so just group them a bit better.

Make sure you repeat them but no more than about 5% and make your Transfer your Old Cine Films into the keyword text and make it an H1 tag. Remember we told you not to make your banner text an H1 tag - well this is the reason ie you make each page heading the h1 tag and so you target each page. If you had made your banner text and h1 tage then you would have been penalised for 2 h1 tags on a page.

[Kate (newbie)]

Superb - thanks Mal.
Tracey - keep posting, make sure these boys don't gang up on me !

[RuralWeb]

Now change your signature to match your targeted key phrase ie

8mm cine to dvd transfer

[RuralWeb]

Go to site options and uncheck the compress html box - refresh the site

[RuralWeb]

Now go into each section and the page setting tab. In the page title field enter a UNIQUE page title that matches the H1 tag on that page (no more than 40 characters including spaces)

[RuralWeb]

The webfusion hosting (30 day trial on my website) you have just added will definately help with your seo - I have all my clients websites on it. GOOD MOVE