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Site redesigned for first time in 3 years


hyphen0

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Hello all and thank you in advance!

 

I am not a programmer, though I've built my site in all its iterations with notepad and patience.

I am not a designer, so I've tried to copy elements from other sites that "feel" good to me.

 

The results are a site that admittedly is not up  to par in terms of code validations and I am concerned that the feel of the site is not as professional as it needs to be.  For years I have focused on SEO, and now think that I have missed the bar in terms of the site as a sales tool.

 

The redesign project was undertaken after years of being dissatisfied with a 60-70% bounce rate for the /index and a comment from a friend who upon seeing the prior version said that it seemed "scammy".  (http://web.archive.org/web/20110423174522/http://pacificvideorepair.com/) (It looked a bit better than the WBM would have you believe...)

 

The goal of my site is to impart confidence and convey professionalism while informing the visitor.  While the site does the job in terms of receiving orders, I'm not sure I've achieved those goals as well as they could be achieved.  Portions of the site still need work in terms of transferring to the new direction, so while usable I consider it a work in progress.

 

Thank you very much for your time!

 

http://www.pacificvideorepair.com/

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Overall, it seems to function well.. Slowly, but I guess it works.

 

My main suggestion would be to find a better color scheme.  Yellow on blue isn't that appealing and it clashes in your menu tabs.

Check out http://colourlovers.com

Select palettes from the Browse menu.

Search for palettes based upon your main color, which seems to be blue.  You can select it from the color grid or enter the hexidecimal code.

Work with that.

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Looks and functions pretty good, possibly adding some borders for the content could help, is a lot of white there.

 

I have added rounded boxes around all above the fold content, I believe it solves the white space issue, and makes the content more usable and organized.

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I like it.  The only suggestion I have is to get rid of the google search in the header.  Why have a google search on your site?  It seems accessible enough without the need of a search feature.

 

This is interesting because I do make the content easy to find, imo. 

 

I paid for and used the search bar with the prior website as a way to take up some white space and to try make the site seem more upscale-  the search itself was an added bonus if a visitor wanted to use it.  Over the last four months only 0.35% of visitors actually use the search bar, and while the new version has been up for only a few days no one has used it.

 

So, do people (designers and customers) think that a search bar adds anything beyond functionality?  People sure aren't using it, so if it doesn't make the site "feel" more professional I should probably take it out, right?

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Overall, it seems to function well.. Slowly, but I guess it works.

 

My main suggestion would be to find a better color scheme.  Yellow on blue isn't that appealing and it clashes in your menu tabs.

Check out http://colourlovers.com

Select palettes from the Browse menu.

Search for palettes based upon your main color, which seems to be blue.  You can select it from the color grid or enter the hexidecimal code.

Work with that.

 

Many of the images were uncompressed .jpegs created during the design process; there's still efficiency to be found but I have compressed the worst offenders (the banner was 300k!!).

 

I discussed your comment with a number of IRL's and while no one agreed fully, I took their input and yours and changed the highlight color in the nav from gold to dark blue and the heading text in the content boxes from yellow to white.

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IMO, a search only makes sense if you have a lot of content on specific, discrete topics.  Things that would be archived, or naturally left behind due to new content replacing it.  This falls into the "Don't add things just for the hell of it because other sites have them" category. 

 

I think you could remove the FAQ and testimonial links from the body of your main page entirely.  You have links to both in your main navigation, and a handful of testimonials in the right side column, too.

 

I'm not sure that the rounded boxes are the best idea.  It works for the testimonials column, but it really highlights how jumbled the content is.  I'm getting a Tetris vibe from it all right now.  I'm not sure if it's just a matter of there being too many boxes, or the actual layout of the content.  Play with it, see if you can make it a bit less chaotic.  Maybe see if you can consolidate some of the boxes into one.

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IMO, a search only makes sense if you have a lot of content on specific, discrete topics.  Things that would be archived, or naturally left behind due to new content replacing it.  This falls into the "Don't add things just for the hell of it because other sites have them" category. 

Removed.  Thank you for the advice!

 

 

I think you could remove the FAQ and testimonial links from the body of your main page entirely.  You have links to both in your main navigation, and a handful of testimonials in the right side column, too.

Visitors who view one page or the other are 30% more likely to convert, according to Analytics.  There are three interpretations of this information that I can think of:

1.  The pages convey extra confidence on their own.

2.  A visitor that is more likely to convert will view more of the site in the first place.

3.  A combination of 1 and 2.

 

IMO, if people convert more often if they view those two pages, why not make them easier to find?

 

I'm not sure that the rounded boxes are the best idea.  It works for the testimonials column, but it really highlights how jumbled the content is.  I'm getting a Tetris vibe from it all right now.  I'm not sure if it's just a matter of there being too many boxes, or the actual layout of the content.  Play with it, see if you can make it a bit less chaotic.  Maybe see if you can consolidate some of the boxes into one.

A box for everything and everything in it's box.

The boxed content has been re-applied to make certain information pop, rather than simply contain all information, thank you!

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