New website

[doctor Bob]

Hi,
I had my website rejigged before Christmas, the whole thing has been handed over to an IT company, been rewritten and SEO managed by them.
Difficult to tell whether it's worth it as yet.
What do you think.
I am aware there is an issue with the brochure request function.
I think I need to get some better images but thats down to me, we have just put in 2 enormous kitchens which should photograph nicely.

Link below

bespoke kitchens hertfordshire

 

[toysandboats]

Bob, I'm not a web designer but two things struck me.

1) The Home Page doesn't grab me and make me want to look further. I was looking for some compelling words that grabbed me

2). Each time I selected a new topic along the top e.g. About, Testimonials, Contact etc. the main photo reset to the large square table instead of continuing with the sequence. It appeared that this table was the most important thing that your company made - which is not true.

I liked the fact that you have included prices but I certainly don't feel that I know why I should choose your company rather than any competitor that I may look at.

David

 

[Myfordman]

Dr Bob,

Advertising your need for staff on the same website as your customers might browse just says to me that you don't have the staff to fulfil my potential order so I should try elsewhere.

hth

Dave

 

[Chems]

That is an one view, another is that work is so good they are expanding, which is mentioned in other parts of the site. Almost every big company has a careers section on their website.

 

[doctor Bob]

I've changed a few images around.
Thanks for the feed back

 

[jimi43]

Bob...I think it is dreadful!!!

It's so good that my wife now wants a new kitchen just like the featured one with the purple AGA!

I feel that the blatant use of threads like this should come with a **** warning! (Not Safe in Front of WIFE!!)

:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Well....that about says it all....far to blink' attractive for "customers" for my liking!! =D>

Good luck for the New Year my friend.

Jim

 

[mickthetree]

Hi Bob
Did you have stats of the site before they took it over? Unique visitors? Page impressions? I'd expect them to come back with some results but you need something to compare it to.

 

[doctor Bob]

Hi Bob
Did you have stats of the site before they took it over? Unique visitors? Page impressions? I'd expect them to come back with some results but you need something to compare it to.

Hi,
Yes I did and they are increasing in hits and also our rankings, just a slow process, however at the moment enquiries haven't increased much.


Thanks for the comment Jim, appreciated

 

[Anima]

Prices are important. Anyone who is selling something and doesn't put prices up instantly gets ignored by me. It's hard with variable price/bespoke stuff but examples always help. Trying to get a persons details and have a salesman work on them or bombard them with advertising and masking it behind a thin veil of a "personalised quote service" puts me off.

Advertising careers, especially apprenticeships or 'junior' positions goes along way in getting my custom.

The site is iPhone friendly which is good. Making an alternative iPhone native site is bad (if the IT company try selling you one) they rarely have as many features as the main and are generally not as maintained as full sites.

It sounds strange but companies who have a picture of a clean, modern and well maintained work van on their website somewhere tend to impress me (personal opinion). The reason is that there are many tradesman driving dirty bangers around it helps to stand you out as professional and concerned about image, which is no bad thing as anyone who buys a bespoke kitchen is likely also concerned about image.

News sections are great but out of date news sections drive me nuts.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Hi Bob
Nice work, as always. But the first page I clicked to gave me a glaring spelling error.

the curved walnut back panel compliments the walnut handles.
It should read
the curved walnut back panel complements the walnut handles.

Compliment and complement are not the same, and many people who have that kind of money to spend will know the difference and expect you to, as well.
S

 

[doctor Bob]

Hi Bob
Nice work, as always. But the first page I clicked to gave me a glaring spelling error.

the curved walnut back panel compliments the walnut handles.
It should read
the curved walnut back panel complements the walnut handles.

Compliment and complement are not the same, and many people who have that kind of money to spend will know the difference and expect you to, as well.
S

Just had to use a dictionary ..... I now understand the difference. My little font of knowledge has increased fractionally, thank you
I have corrected it.

 

[No skills]

Havent looked at the new site yet, will dig the laptop out later. To echo the van comment earlier, a few pictures around the workshop would help (imo) - clean tidy workshop with happy workforce gives a good impression, selling yourselves as well as the product.

Jmo

 

[Steve Maskery]

Just as a matter of interest Bob, and feel free to tell me to mind my own business, I won't be offended, but...

When you say "cabinetry from 15K", how does that relate to the total cost of the job? I ask because I had a kitchen fitted in 2000 and we paid 12K then. It did include about 2K of appliances and it did include fitting but not tiling. It was not as big as those pictures look, so I'm inclined to think that you offer fantastic value for money, as well as a high-class job.
Unless of course, the devil is in the detail.....
Steve, wishing that he could run such a business.

 

[doctor Bob]

Just as a matter of interest Bob, and feel free to tell me to mind my own business, I won't be offended, but...

When you say "cabinetry from 15K", how does that relate to the total cost of the job? I ask because I had a kitchen fitted in 2000 and we paid 12K then. It did include about 2K of appliances but it did include fitting but not tiling. It was not as big as those pictures look, so I'm inclined to think that you offer fantastic value for money, as well as a high-class job.
Unless of course, the devil is in the detail.....
Steve, wishing that he could run such a business.

Hi Steve,
We definitely offer great value for money, but bear in mind these are really guide prices. We have tried both sides of the coin, prices set very high on the website, £50,000 for the full kitchen, to scare off the riff raff..... and then tried cabinetry from £15,000 to encourage everyone to call.

I think the lower pricing is best as we can usually persuade punters to part with more, the higher price puts to many people off.

I estimate our kitchens come in at half to 2/3 of the price of say a "smallbone" or "mark wilkinson" kitchen, service is better from us as well.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Thank you, that is just the sort of answer I wanted. It puts it into proper perspective.
Best wishes
Steve

 

[doctor Bob]

Thanks for all the replies, I don't suppose any one would care to comment on the wording. Maybe ways to make it more compelling, bearing in mind there are keywords in the text. My main targets being handmade / bespoke kitchens ...... herts, hertfordshire, Essex.

Thanks

 

[andersonec]

Just my tuppence worth........

You have one close up (ish) picture of some dovetails on a drawer, I think you need a few more very close shots showing some fine work, just to show the quality of the work in detail.

Andy

 

[mickthetree]

You have to ask yourself how many people will search on a term like hertfordshire / essex. Personally I always search for a term much less generic, like a town name. You may find you are competing with lots more people with your search term therefore requiring more time / cost to get to the top of the results. And of those who do visit how many will you convert to customers and actually call you compared to those calling from a closer location to you. You could always change the town names every now and then or use multiples.

You can try some A/B testing with both examples on your site and see which ones work better.

I agree with the pictures of quality workmanship as well as more overall images. Shows a level of finish and detail that mass produced stuff cannot replicate.

Are you writing your blog articles with keywords in mind? You should be driving good traffic to your main site from there and as it is well targetted should show good convertion.

A blog article about kitchen manufacturing with your local town names in may show good targetted results.

HTH

 

[RogerBoyle]

Thanks for all the replies, I don't suppose any one would care to comment on the wording. Maybe ways to make it more compelling, bearing in mind there are keywords in the text. My main targets being handmade / bespoke kitchens ...... herts, hertfordshire, Essex.

Thanks

I think it’s a very good designed website and the only little gripes I would have are the following

I would have one of the featured projects with a greatly reduced project time of perhaps 4-6 weeks as opposed to 4 months
Under blogroll everything links back to Wordpress.

As for the wording I actually think its fine and it should work well for you

Roger

 

[doctor Bob]

OK, started to add a few town names, and also altered the project times. Thank you