SITE REVIEW: Web Design Company

This is my company. Let me know what you think! Thanks.

http://www.rhwebsolutions.com

Rick

Well first of all your code has 28 validation errors. You can view them here
I know that chasing down validation errors can be annoying and on many sites it can probably be argued that its a waste of time, but a company that practices web design and development should have a valid site.

As for the site design itself, I think you have a good start but there are several tweaks you could do to make it much better.

Starting in the upper left corner: I expected clicking on the globe to take me back to the home page (yes I know there's a home link but thats standard practice) Instead I received a popup that doesn't look styled at all and I have no idea what that list of links is supposed to mean to me. I would ditch that link all together and find a place inside the site for that content to live.

The menu is a bit hard to read with white text over the lightest part of the gradient. I would look at ways to increase the contrast since thats probably the most important text on your site. Also the "blank" spot on the right side of the menu makes it look somewhat unfinished. I think you could easily stretch the buttons to all take the same amount of space and make the menu loom more finished. Finally, I had a bit of a hard time noticing the mouseovers on the menu items. A simple underline isn't very obvious in a menu system like that. I think you might want to consider changing the entire menu background on mouseover.

The slide show is a nice feature, but the content isn't serving you very well. There are so many sites using cheesy business concept stock photography that doesn't really mean anything, and doesn't really even relate to the services offered. (Guy at a computer would related better than a guy smiling at the camera). I think you should fill that area with images that are more personal. Things that inspire you, images of your area, your work space, etc. Make the site somewhat personal and when your next potential client mentions the pictures on your site you'll have something to discuss, break the ice, etc in your next pitch.

Featured services: It doesn't seem right that your featuring ALL of your services. I think you should focus on one or two at a time and give a little bit more information about them. Tell site visitors why those services matter to them and then let them click to find out what your company does in each of those areas.

You are totally right about the validation errors and I take them seriously. I recently noticed I have some validation errors in my sites. I've been concentrating on fixing them in my clients sites first. My clients come first! and that's part of the reason my site is incomplete as well. The design I did for my site uses an ajax menu with mouse overs. I haven't had time to implement that because I've been too busy (I guess that's a good thing....) So, in the interim I implemented a quick CSS inline menu. I try to work on my own site at least a few hours a week. There are too many web designers out there with "Coming soon" web sites and that's one of my pet peeves. Anyways, thanks for the feedback. These are all very good comments.

Rick

I hear ya on the "coming soon" and client work first (both issues I struggle with as well), but I also wonder about how many people are put off and become missed opportunities because of "temporary place holders". I'm not really pointing out problems with your process. Just throwing that out there since its something I've ended up thinking about since my own site isn't what I wish it could be.

Anyway I'm glad the crit was useful. Good luck.

nice clean professional page. many people will have modern browsers and flash anyways. you can always change to AJAX

I have to learn ajax. It's essential. Thanks alot for the feedback.

Rick

Nice clean site. Quick reference to your portfolio. You might want to do a little work on styling your contact form, not to mention hiding your contact email from spam harvesters. Maybe a quick JavaScript.

One thing in regards to your portfolio page. I would make the click on the image of the site a nice ajax, or scriptaculous effect, then the text link, link that to the site. I have found a much better response to that then immediately linking to the site. I think it would add a nice finished touch to it.

Hey looks pretty good. Two things I would change, not sure if someone mentioned these, but the stock photos, not a big fan. I would either use samples of your work or something a little more personal. And that gradient thing on the navigation, I think I would get rid of that too. Just a little cliche-ish. Not a real word, but that effect is so overused.

Yeah I would have to agree with Z in regards to the stock image slideshow. Those images are for corporate boiler plate, and aren't really relevant in regards to your work.

Hi,
Your site is awesome in respect to colours, but please concentrate more on W3 Standards and validation..as yours' is a web designing company.. also, i want you to change the link of the logo to index.htm or something which makes sense instead of taking it to domains.html...... please change this and rest is excellent...

It does look very good - clean, smooth, nice colors, easy to read. But frankly for a web design site, I'd like to see a little more character.... something more unique. If I want someone to make my website, I want them to make something that will represent me uniquely. My first judgment of whether they can do that is based on how uniquely they have represented themselves........

Looks very pretty though. good luck!!

It looks very nice, after it's loaded, i know most people have Hi-speed but some of us including me have dialup and i hate visiting a website that takes a very long time to load. And this one takes forever. I have a 56K Modem and my speed is 45, it took about 5 minutes to load and it still is not done loading, maybe you should find a way to make it eye catching but, doesn't take so long to load, in the long run though, very good job!

It looks good
Buy there are some minor things I don't really like:
First of all: the contrast between the text color and the background in the menu is not very high (white on light-blue) Some people don't have a really good screen (or eyes) and they can have trouble with reading it..

Your background can be a bit annoying. The stripes are so close together that it's "moves". You know what I mean? It's like an optical illusion.

On the services page is a special deal button that doesn't fit the design (and the color sheme) at all. The orange doesn't fit in the design and the blue is just too light. I don't really like the menu on the left either..

Good job though

Your contact us form is extremly spammer friendly, all you need is "any input" in all fields and click refresh after posting.

thats kinda bad for a Company "With 18 years of experience in the industry"?

not that the average yoe notice that, but still, form validation is not that hard? can a email be one char? I dont think so.

other than that and the fact that it don't follow the standards. It gives a professional impression, with the pictures and all.

SEO Analysis :
PR : 0
Google index : 8
Yahoo links : 42
MSN index : 0

Create your target keyword
your keyword : Web design
my suggestion : Massachusetts web design

and then put your keyword in the first of TITLE

Create sitemap and then upload to google webmaster