What do you look for in a website?

[Claire83]

Whilst I'm setting up my site, I thought I'd get a feel for what people like on their websites and what makes a website look professional.

Currently I have got mani/pedi descriptions, nail art, prices, gallery, testimonials, aftercare, contact me.

Anything else I can add? I'm mobile btw.

Thanks

 

[EMMA AT ELITE]

A welcome/ home page, list of qualifications, areas you cover, price per mile outside these areas, cancellation policy, payment taken, treatments coming soon, special offers, links page, packages

I personally dont think web address that have the word "free" in them look that professional to me, or when you see a "how many visits" counter at the bottom, or when websites are not updated that often ie they still display 2 months ago offer! - just my opinion though.

I love to see a professionally designed logo, this is very inexpensive & sticks out a mile to me.

When you website is done, if you put it on here & you will be able to get lots of help & advice - The geeks on here was very helpful with mine

 

[Claire83]

A welcome/ home page, list of qualifications, areas you cover, price per mile outside these areas, cancellation policy, payment taken, treatments coming soon, special offers, links page, packages

I personally dont think web address that have the word "free" in them look that professional to me, or when you see a "how many visits" counter at the bottom, or when websites are not updated that often ie they still display 2 months ago offer! - just my opinion though.

I love to see a professionally designed logo, this is very inexpensive & sticks out a mile to me.

When you website is done, if you put it on here & you will be able to get lots of help & advice - The geeks on here was very helpful with mine

I agree with you with the counters and addresses that have "free" in them. My logo has already been designed by the lovely Carl so I'm really happy with that.

I think I'll end up being too nervous about posting on here, there will be so many faults lol

 

[Verve Designs]

I wouldnt be nervous about putting it on here! Any feedback at all is good, and its better one of us spotting something than a potential client.

Emma makes a fantastic point- nothing worse than out of date content.

With websites, content is king!- people want to get in, get the information they want, and get out again- and hopefully in the meantime you'd have convinved them to contact you. Give them a "call to action"- make sure each page has a reason and a means to contact you.

In terms of design, if you lack the techie skills- just keep it simple!

 

[Claire83]

Cheers Carl. I'm working on it!

 

[Ruth Mills]

Particularly with beauty websites, one thing that annoys me is when the prices on the treatment menu don't line up; my preference is for prices to be right-aligned, so the right hand edge of each price lines up with the other prices above/below it.

Another thing I don't like is when there's a mixture of too many different fonts/font sizes/font colours/font alignments/font styles on the same page; I always prefer a consistent "look" to each page on the website - so my preference is to use the same font(s) consistently across every page of the site - and also to use things like bold text/italic text etc in a consistent way too. As, in my opinion, a mish mash of fonts, font sizes, colours, etc, is *the* one thing that makes an amateur website stand out a mile!

Also, I think it's important to be careful with the spacing around text - I don't like seeing text too close to the edge of the page or border. To my eyes, it definitely looks better if there's a margin of a few pixels between the text and the edge of the page or border.

Think also about the use of space on the page; large expanses of "white space" with nothing of interest make a site look bland in my eyes.

Navigation is crucial to the success of your website too. You want to make it easy for people to be able to find their way around your site, so I think it's a good idea to make your navigation menus consistent across *every* page of your site - generally it's a good idea (within reason) to have every page of your site accessible from within the navigation menu - or at least the most important ones anyway. Drop-down menus can be useful if you want to split your navigation into a hierarchy, e.g. if you have lots of different treatment pages, then you could have a main menu going across the top, with a link called "Treatments", which when you hover over it, brings up a drop-down menu with a link to each of the individual treatment pages.

Also, remember "a picture speaks a thousand words" - while I'd always recommend using your own pictures if at all possible, a lot of people often like to use "stock photos" to jazz up an otherwise bland looking page. Here it's important to be aware of copyright - it's safest to purchase images from a stock photo site such as istockphoto.com or fotolia.com (making sure you read their licence terms and conditions carefully); never be tempted to use random images you like from a Google image search or whatever, as you may find yourself being sued for breach of copyright and end up with a bill for hundreds of pounds in damages!

 

[TheBack&Beyond]

Just two things from me; #1 "Don't make me think!" - make sure you road test your site with your auntie, gran, random 3 year old etc - and ensure it's the easiest and most intuitive you can.

#2 If you put your picture on your site please post one of you smiling! No offence - but your avatar here looks like you're having a really bad day, believe me, even if you are - you don't want to portray that image at all!

best of luck!

Jason

 

[EMMA AT ELITE]

I think I'll end up being too nervous about posting on here, there will be so many faults lol

Dont be nervous, and if there are faults best we help you try to correct them, rather than a potential client seeing them. Also if you add you website address to the bottom of your signature it helps create more traffic to you site win-win! x

Some fantastis points made here, another thing I dont like to see is websites that have no prices. x

 

[Ruth Mills]

Another thing I really don't like is where there's a list of dis-jointed SEO phrases in a line at the top or the bottom of the page, e.g. "Beauty Anytown" "Nail Extensions Anytown" etc - personally I think that looks really tacky, and tends only to be done by those "rip off" SEO companies that I hate with a real vengeance.

I always think it's better to take the effort to write your text in such a way that it will do well on search engines, rather than trying to con the search engines by putting an artificial list of "keywords" at the top of the page or wherever.

 

[Claire83]

Thanks for all your input everyone. I shall put these ideas into practice tomorrow, although I think I have covered most of them having read previous website review threads lol

 

[elliebee]

I would completely agree about keeping it consistent re font type and layout etc. Nothing more amateurish looking that someone who has tried to put in a bit of everything. I think something clean and simple looks so much more professional than a site that has bits of everything.

I don't know if any of you have used the Mr Site Web builder package?

Other that internet shopping I am HOPELESS on the computer. However, I have used the Mr Site package to build a site before and it really is idiot proof!

You have complete control over your own site and you can add content, pages, pictures etc as and when you want. It takes care of all the page links, navigation etc and there are loads of designs to choose from (with the option of having your own logo).

I would thoroughly recommend it. You can have a look on their website to see examples of sites people have created.

www.mrsite.co.uk

Elaine

 

[Ruth Mills]

I would completely agree about keeping it consistent re font type and layout etc. Nothing more amateurish looking that someone who has tried to put in a bit of everything. I think something clean and simple looks so much more professional than a site that has bits of everything.

I don't know if any of you have used the Mr Site Web builder package?

Other that internet shopping I am HOPELESS on the computer. However, I have used the Mr Site package to build a site before and it really is idiot proof!

You have complete control over your own site and you can add content, pages, pictures etc as and when you want. It takes care of all the page links, navigation etc and there are loads of designs to choose from (with the option of having your own logo).

I would thoroughly recommend it. You can have a look on their website to see examples of sites people have created.

www.mrsite.co.uk

Elaine

The only problem being that Mr Site was written by people who don't understand (or blatantly choose to ignore) HTML syntax - as you'll see if you put any Mr Site website through the W3C HTML validator, The W3C Markup Validation Service - they even do things like open tags with capitals and close them in lower case - thankfully most web browsers are lenient enough to cope with the abomination of HTML that Mr Site churns out...

 

[Jolicatellas]

I don't like really busy websites where too much is going on, with too much movement, flashy banners, too many moving pictures - makes me feel like I'm going to have an epileptic fit.

I don't like websites that have no prices or tell me to contact them for more details. I will just go to another site.

I don't like websites that have a big opening picture with 'enter here'. I want to be there straight away.

White websites don't appeal to me much either no matter how colourful or professional the pictures are...
but that is just my 2cents worth :green: