Dju Member Website Review

[Gary 0]

Another week, another website review - and your opinion counts.

 

This weeks willing vict participant is Chris of Swingcats. His website has the all important link back to DJs United, which helps both his website and our forum get more search engine notariety, so off we go...

 

Chris' website can be found at www.swingcats.co.uk

 

 

Please take a click over to the Swingcats site, give it a good going over (visually speaking of course) and pop back here to offer your constructive comments.

 

 

 

 

[Bolan-Boogie 0]

Nice site, opening credits very eye catching. Please accept my criticism costructively its not meant as a slur.

The only criticism i have is there is too much going on one one page. How about breaking the site into 3 or 4 pages. eg.

1st page welome to swingcats.

page 2 a little bit of who you are how long you have provided a service, what areas you cover etc.

Page 3 how to contact us eg. phone number, mobile number, email address etc

Page 4 links page.

 

Like i said the graphics and site content are good, but feel the site needs a bit of a restructure.

my post wasnt to be negative, but hopefully helpful

 

Great site otherwise Chris...... Well done !!

 

OOOPS ! just revisited the site and yes you have other pages (Apologies) but i think i missed it first time as your 1st page is a bit busy, think the 1st page needs to focus on welcome / introduction. and highlight the links to other pages more (side menu or similar)

Edited November 27, 2007 by Bolan-Boogie

[Dream Catchers 0]

Only a few things to pick up on.

 

The first I would think is very easy to sort out, the formatting on the page is not all the same, most of it has been manually centred for a page width of 1024 pixels and the rest is automatically centred, on my browser (Firefox) the top half of the page looks as though it is justified to the left where the rest of the page is then centred.

 

The next is the keywords at the bottom of the home page, I think it makes a site look a bit shabby, instead of making them visible put them in the meta tags section.

 

The final point is maybe put the bottom half of the front page on another dedicated links page.

 

All in all, a nice site, I must admit I particularly like the photos.

 

Jim

[Swingcats 0]

Thanks guys for taking the time to review the site, its always good to get other views on things. I will look to see why the centering is off, The site has evolved ad hoc really and a tidy up will do it good.

 

I am of the school of thought that an index/home page should have lots of text with key words repeated in it, not just rely on metatags. I read about many engines ignoring metatags and using text from the page to find your site. I think google is one of them.

 

One problem with explorer is that you can have a lot of wasted space on screen with an extended top bar, how many inches of screen does yours take up? This varies the lengh of page shown, something out of my control.

 

I would not want to take the contact details off the home page. I think a one click see all you need to see page is a good idea.

 

I have other sites which use frames and picture buttons, which look great but make accessability for blind peoples text readers impossible. I think web design is a toss up between fantastic design and practical compromise?

 

The idea is that when you enter the site you only see the top part of the home page and use the links buttons to go elsewhere, If people go straight to the down page scroll bar then I need to re-think it. Make the buttons more visable.

 

Events photos mainly taken with a 2 meg phone with no flash.

 

Thanks, I await more comments :karen:

 

 

 

Only a few things to pick up on.

 

The first I would think is very easy to sort out, the formatting on the page is not all the same, most of it has been manually centred for a page width of 1024 pixels and the rest is automatically centred, on my browser (Firefox) the top half of the page looks as though it is justified to the left where the rest of the page is then centred.

 

 

Jim

 

Hows the centreing look now?

Edited November 28, 2007 by Swingcats

[Dream Catchers 0]

Hows the centreing look now?

Bob on. (that means perfect BTW).

 

Jim

[rictic 0]

quite like the overall look myself. but in the first page where you list your music styles did you mean to spell 'reggie' or reggae?

[Swingcats 0]

quite like the overall look myself. but in the first page where you list your music styles did you mean to spell 'reggie' or reggae?

 

 

Its a new style of dance music played in Suzzmerset! Cheers for spotting it, that's why its good to get reviewed.

[Dukesy 0]

I asked the other half for her opinion of your site, requesting that she place herself into the 'I'm looking to book a DJ' mode!

She too liked the photos on your equipment page (which she thought was an equipment hire page) and felt that these should be promoting your service on the home page, and not reduced in size as on your home page.

As you scroll down, you find links on the home page which could send your potential clients to your competitor, or directory of listed competitors to browse. Regardless of where your fellow DJ services are based, you may wish to place these links on a dedicated links page, perhaps offering the facility of banner exchange html code if you want to generate link exchanges!

 

When your wedding link was clicked, it took her to un-related wedding services and by this time, the interest was gone. At first, this was not the case when I viewed your site. But much of the time when I browse a site, like other millions, if I'm losing interest, I move on too.

 

As a DJ, I totally appreciate disco gear but not all potential clients will. It may not be intended, but this could be construed as being 'product focused' as opposed to 'service focused' in the eyes of the website reader...

 

When you click on [Discos] the link moves to those competitor links! Are you an agent?!

 

The two links [equipment] and [take a look] are not really selling your service to a client in my opinion.

I would place your testimonials on your home page (with photos) and have (at least) dedicated pages for the following:

 

Gallery

Equipment (if you really need it)

Links

Contact

 

At the end of the day, you are effectively offering a service for hire. Sell yourself!!

Other than that, it's a LOT better than other sites and I hope you keep us posted on your updates!!! smile icon

[4zzz 0]

Looks good to me.

 

Agree with a little too much info on one page prefer to read small chunks of info.

 

But a good personalised site.

 

Chris did you do it all yourself?

 

Still working on mine so you are ahead of me

[Swingcats 0]

Thanks for feedback, I've got rid of links on home page, created a dedicated page for them. Yes all my own work, using dreamweaver and photoshop. When I have more time i will start a new page outling services better. Right now my wife has me chained to doing a bathroom refit. I may create some picture roll over buttons when I have more time, for now though its text link buttons. Hopefully the focus is more on my services now. :thanks:

 

I've changed the text links to flash buttons, only on home page at present, tell me what you think?

[Andy Westcott 0]

I like it.

The main page gives the potential customer a good idea of what you offer, where you operate and the ontact details are right there without having to click around - just what is needed.

 

Now the negatives...

 

The text is too dark, and a little on the small side:

I agree entirely with the idea of not having blazing white text on a black background, but I feel your text could come up a bit to a lighter shade of grey. I was struggling a bit to read the text too - I had to lean forward to read it easily so perhaps a 1-point increase may do the trick here.

 

You should perhaps consider removing all that hidden text too;

It has been rumoured that many search engines may reduce the ranking of a page which 'cheats' by stuffing keywoods on a page but with them set to the same colour as the background so as to render them invisible. Maybe someone else could enlighten us as to whether this is still the case?

 

I see you make a lot of using the Mackie SRM 450s, and make this statement:

"The sound quality is second to none."

Strictly speaking this is untrue, as I'm sure many will agree - far too sweeping a statement. They are good little workhorses for genera disco or PA use, but aren't outstanding in any way. If you had a mammoth PA of truly hi-fi quality, then maybe make a point about it, but as for using a pretty standard PA speaker I wouldn't bother mentioning it as the only people who would have any clue as to what it was anyhow woud also possibly disagree with you.

 

As you may be able to tell, I'm not a fan of mentioning specific gear on disco websites! tongue out icon

[RichardP 0]

Generally I quite like the site too. One suggestion I'd add is cropping a strip off the left hand side of your coverage map - just enough to get rid of the Google maps navigation buttons & zoom slider. (Assuming they don't actually function, that is!! They didn't do anything when I clicked on them in Firefox 2.)

[Swingcats 0]

I like it.

The main page gives the potential customer a good idea of what you offer, where you operate and the ontact details are right there without having to click around - just what is needed.

 

Now the negatives...

 

The text is too dark, and a little on the small side:

I agree entirely with the idea of not having blazing white text on a black background, but I feel your text could come up a bit to a lighter shade of grey. I was struggling a bit to read the text too - I had to lean forward to read it easily so perhaps a 1-point increase may do the trick here.

 

You should perhaps consider removing all that hidden text too;

It has been rumoured that many search engines may reduce the ranking of a page which 'cheats' by stuffing keywoods on a page but with them set to the same colour as the background so as to render them invisible. Maybe someone else could enlighten us as to whether this is still the case?

 

I see you make a lot of using the Mackie SRM 450s, and make this statement:

"The sound quality is second to none."

Strictly speaking this is untrue, as I'm sure many will agree - far too sweeping a statement. They are good little workhorses for genera disco or PA use, but aren't outstanding in any way. If you had a mammoth PA of truly hi-fi quality, then maybe make a point about it, but as for using a pretty standard PA speaker I wouldn't bother mentioning it as the only people who would have any clue as to what it was anyhow woud also possibly disagree with you.

 

As you may be able to tell, I'm not a fan of mentioning specific gear on disco websites! tongue out icon

 

Thanks for that, Now this is interesting as the cheats text as you call it is actually in a darker gray, not black on black so you can see it and the main text on my screen looks near white, its only one colour shade away from white in Dreamweaver. Does it show differently on different screens better or worse? I don't think any totally hidden text is on the home page, I too had heard of this years ago as being a no no. Depending on the receivers screen res then the text will seem bigger or smaller? There are still some old computers out there on 800 by 600 res. My page fits 1024 x 768, its the first webpage I have built to do this size, previous web pages I have built have either fitted 800 x 600 screen size or fitted 1024 x768 with favorites bar down, i.e narrower than full screen, see www.fossilwalks.com for an example of my other site.

 

Yes you are right about the sweeping statements on speakers, guess I got carried away as they sound so good compared to my old ones.

 

[Swingcats 0]

Generally I quite like the site too. One suggestion I'd add is cropping a strip off the left hand side of your coverage map - just enough to get rid of the Google maps navigation buttons & zoom slider. (Assuming they don't actually function, that is!! They didn't do anything when I clicked on them in Firefox 2.)

 

 

Thanks for that you have inspired me to knock up a much better map. :thanks:

[Andy Westcott 0]

Regarding the hidden text, I can't see it on my CRT, and yet I can when viewed on an LCD screen. Odd...

 

'Tiz an old monitor, so maybe it is in need of recalibrating?!

 

Anyhow, as the text is indeed a different colour to the background, I'll retract my earlier statement. tongue out icon

 

As for text size, I work with a screen area of 1152 X 864 which is the next step up from yours, so this would result in slightly smaller text. I wonder what others think of the text size? Bear in mind the age of what is possibly your target audience, and their eyesight.

 

By the way, I especially like the blue & green beams in the top right corner - is that a real photo, or a Photoshop creation?

I'm looking for something along those lines myself, but can never seem to get a dark venue, no people and my camera all happening at the same time!

[Swingcats 0]

I did an image search on google images, found a photo and then photoshoped it to create the banner. I have made the text bigger now as it was -1 on dreamweaver which would come out very small on your high res screen :joe:

[Andy Westcott 0]

Text sorted - I can now read it whilst sat back in my old-man's chair. :Thumbup: