# Honest Opinions Please - Website



## Shiny (Apr 23, 2007)

Our website has been up a couple of years now, so i was thinking about a revamp, maybe even having beans on toast for the next couple of months or so to pay for a professional job.

I'm a novice at the old web design but i do like to have a go at things, hence me originally sitting down over a few evenings and making our valeters/detailers website. But i have a niggle in the back of my mind that, because it was a novice homebrew, that perhaps it doesn't portray the professional image that it should.

It's not like people to hold back, so i would appreciate honest opinions -what is your opinion of the existing site, what can be improved, is there anything that (as a potential customer) you would like to see etc..

One of the things I was considering the possibility of testimonials page to add substance to our level of service, customer satisfaction and so on, but i'm still in two minds.

Website address - http://www.valeters-insurance.co.uk/

Cheers all.


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## fiend (Nov 29, 2009)

I would remove that image of the car - images with inverted colours always look 'tacky', then align your company logo to the left.

I feel it would look alot more professional and fresh with just the company logo in the header.


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## empsburna (Apr 5, 2006)

You have PM


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## Shiny (Apr 23, 2007)

fiend said:


> I would remove that image of the car - images with inverted colours always look 'tacky', then align your company logo to the left.
> 
> I feel it would look alot more professional and fresh with just the company logo in the header.


Cheers Fiend

I agree on the image. I've had a quick play with just the logo, but i think it needs a banner of some kind as it does look a bit bare.


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## scottgm (Dec 27, 2009)

Hello :wave:

Heres my honest opinion (not meaning to offend)

First of all to carry out a proper evaluation, information such as the aims of the site / business, the target audience, etc. So my thoughts will mainly be based on Aesthetics (visual) of the site.

To begin with i think the logo is in an odd position, its the first thing you want your users to see, so they know where they are. Placing it above your side bar would be more effective as Most users tent to read from left to right.

Next up is your image banner at the top, My first thought were that something was wrong then i noticed that the image is suppost to be inverted. It's rather distracting.

The use of blue text in the main body may be confusing to some users for the simple reason that your links are blue aswell, i know that they are underlined but they are too alike.

On the subject of links, you should try to avoid saying 'click here'



> Please click here for details of our EXCLUSIVE Valeters & Detailers Liability scheme.


This could be better expressed to the user my making this whole phrase a link :



> View details of our Exclusive Valeters & Detailers Liability Scheme


It is now a descriptive link that avoids the use of 'Click Here'.

--

Having you website centered in the browser is no problem, however there is no contrast between the white space and the right side of the site, where as on the other side there is the sidebar.

There is some inconsistency in the layout of text aswel, some text is centered, some is aligned right.

The information (address, contact, info, etc) in the bottom of your sidebar would be better placed in your contact page or in your footer.

Adding the information to your footer would make it slightly larger, but this is rather common in modern web design, Many websites also include their social and rss links in their footer aswel.

Hope this information is helpful to you rather than offensive 

how do you currently go about updating your website, looking at the source code i cannot see use of a CMS (Content management system), the construction seems to be in tables?

- Scott


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## Shiny (Apr 23, 2007)

No offense taken at all, all very good points that i am taking on board.

As i mentioned, the website was all my own effort with absolutely no experience. At the time it's intention was purely to be as a presence on the web and was not to be a long term solution.

The image banner, in retrospect, wasn't the best idea. There's a long story attached it that i won't go into, but at the time it was kind of important to me to use the image of my car and this has now served it's purpose. It just didn't look right in normal colours though, hence my tacky inversion. lol!



> how do you currently go about updating your website, looking at the source code i cannot see use of a CMS (Content management system), the construction seems to be in tables?


I think at the time i made the site in Yahoo site builder and didn't even use a proper publishing package. As part of the Franchise arrangement, all our hosting is done through our system providers, i just sent the webpages to them, they converted them from Yahoo to, possibly, Dreamweaver, and then put them on the web. If i need any updates, i let them know and they just sort it out for me. I can't complain, as all this was provided free. They also sort the main Coversure site - www.coversure.co.uk which hopefully has much better coding as they did this themselves!

Cheers for comments, you won't offend me, unless you say "why have you got a Rover on there?"....


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## beany_bot (Oct 6, 2008)

Very functional but a little bland


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## Shiny (Apr 23, 2007)

beany_bot said:


> Very functional but a little bland


Thanks, I am relatively happy with content, and you've echoed my thoughts.


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## RandomlySet (Jul 10, 2007)

done a few websites in the past, and just sorted my own... might even consider doin you a favour  LMAO

drop me a PM if you like fella


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## Spoony (May 28, 2007)

Buy a template and whack the details and and your off to a flyer. the Coversure site looks like its based on a template I've seen many a time. 

The current valeters-insurance does its job withing functionality but in form it is somewhat lacking. Graphics aren't majorly important but a nice header can work wonders.


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