OK been dreading this.... but target is up

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Ron

Ron

DJ Extraordinaire
Jun 14, 2011
1,783
1,402
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Charleston, South Carolina
www.rcbaudio.com
Website critiques welcome....
www.rcbaudio.com

I know that everyone is going to mention pricing. I recently changed my pricing structure; but if you go to the "Send My Quote" button.. after you check the date available, the pricing is shown. I know I need another page with it broken down.
 
Ron, I'm not nit picking - but a common item I am seeing is spelling and sentence composition errors. I haven't pinpointed them all, but listed some examples.

Example, you say The Ballad Of Curits Lowe .. instead of Curtis Lowe.

On your home page, on top of the pictures, it says 'Misc for Site'. Why?

Another example (from your site):

My name is Cedron S. Swain Sr., but I go by Ron. I am a Charleston, SC native. Born and bred down here in the beautiful lowcountry. (See more information about Charleston, SC under the links section of the website.) I attended Bishop England High School, in downtown Charleston and upon graduating I was accepted at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC. After graduating with a degree in Computer Information Systems, I returned to Charleston and work for a great local company in their Information Technology department. I am a member of Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church and am a very active member in the Knights of Columbus Council #12472.

In the 4th sentence, you say 'see more information about Charleston, SC under the links section of the website' but you link to all these other things - so why not link that too?

Example redone:

My name is Cedron S. Swain Sr., but I go by Ron. I am a Charleston, SC native - born and bred down here in the beautiful low country - see more information about Charleston, SC under the links section of the website. I attended Bishop England High School, located in downtown Charleston, and upon graduating I was accepted at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC. After graduating with a degree in Computer Information Systems, I returned to Charleston and I do work in the Information Technology (IT) department for a great local company. I am a member of the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church and am a very active member in the Knights of Columbus Council #12472.

Another example (from your site):

Our Services
We specialize in providing musical entertainment for your event. Be it background music, music to dance to, karaoke, or a mix of it all we will help to make you event the best it can be. To see information about me, the owner & DJ/KJ check out the Biography page.
We have provided music for all sorts of private events and have donated our time and services to local organizations as well, such as Camp Good Times (see testimonial here), MUSC's Safety Fair.
Music
Our music library is very extensive and updated regularly. Everything thing from older country and big band band classics to the latest in pop, rock & dance. We also have a very large collection of beach and shag favorites, we are on the coast of the Carolina's after all, where the dance was born. We have very anything and everything needed to get people up out their seats and shuffling their shoes on the dance floor. In most places, we can download instantly most any music requested from our subscription service providers that is not in our already extensive libraries.

IMO, it should read something like this / Example redone:

Our Services
We specialize in providing musical entertainment for all types of events. Be it background music, dance music, karaoke or a mix of it all; we will help to make your event the best that it can be. Please check out my & DJ/KJ check out the Biography page to view more information about me (Owner / DJ / KJ). We have also donated time and services to local organizations that are working towards a cause that we connect with, such as Camp Good Times (see testimonial here) and MUSC's Safety Fair.

Music
Our music library is very extensive and is updated regularly, covering everything from older country and big band to the latest in pop, rock and dance. We also have a very large collection of beach and shag favorites .. after all, we are on the coast of the Carolina's - where those dances were born. We have anything and everything needed to get people up out their seats and shuffling their shoes on the dance floor. For music that we do not have, we can download almost any music requested that is available from our subscription service providers via web access.

Those are a few examples I picked - you might want to review each page for spelling, grammar and sentence composition.
 
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Thanks I will certainly go back and proof everything better for grammar, spelling and composition.
As far as the misc for site goes. My site is hosted using google apps and as part of their transition from picassa photo albums to google+ photos they changed the way their sites and app sites handle the photo albums. I am exploring the best method to handle to that. I can display the photo albums another way, but then they do not show up on mobile phones. But thanks for the review and notes; I will start re-working this evening using your noted examples and doing a better review of the other pages.
 
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1) The main call to action ("check availability") doesn't even appear when the page opens up. Move it from the bottom-middle to top-right and make it more compact.

2) Drop "navigation", not needed. Change the navigation links to a menu with dropdowns.

3) "Visit our mobile friendly site". No way. You can do a bit of redirect scripting to auto-redirect but you're much better using a web tool that handles mobile-friendly. Keep in mind also that mobile will constitute probably 60%+ of your traffic, as of now. Your site should be mobile-friendly first, desktop-friendly second.

4) Drop the "Like us on Facebook" and put all the icons together in one, neat spot.

5) You're got an awful lot of dead space in the top border. Move the search box/button towards the bottom of the page if you need to.

6) Why is a Mary Kay ad on your site?

7) I like the facebook plug-in (bottom-right) more than I like the text on the middle-right. I'd probably move it up and put the text below the slideshow. Reformat the text to be less gawdy and more readable (don't bold, no centering and smaller font).

8) A call-to-action button usually gets better respond in orange. Also, there needs to be some kind of phrase or wording that actually urges the reader to move on to request info or a quote.

9) While I didn't read enough to find the "My name is Cedron S. Swain Sr." paragraph listed above, it's my opinion that is an anti-selling paragraph. Prospects don't care about you, your name or your past. They care about what you can do for them. The focus of your site should never be "Here I am. Let me introduce myself." It should be more of "Here is my service and here is how it can put your event over the top. You should click here, right now, to get a quote from me."

Ron, I hope you won't think I'm just being cruel. I respect you and what you and am only trying to help in my usual "subtle as an anvil" manner. Keep working on it. Keeping a website fresh always pays off. I believe the process of improvement is a continual one and never stops. Good luck with it.
 
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rickryan.com said:
Good luck with it.
Click to expand...
Thanks Rick, I do appreciate the feedback! I am thinking I might have to get away from using Google Apps to host my site, but love the way it integrates with my email and photos, etc... Have not done any stand alone sites from scratch in over 10 years. Going to have to do some research and make this a longer term project than I first planned. I did some research on WIX and I have found so many DJ's in the Charleston that have moved to them a lot of the sites look alike. I do not want it to look like similar to that.
 
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Ron said:
Thanks Rick, I do appreciate the feedback! I am thinking I might have to get away from using Google Apps to host my site, but love the way it integrates with my email and photos, etc... Have not done any stand alone sites from scratch in over 10 years. Going to have to do some research and make this a longer term project than I first planned. I did some research on WIX and I have found so many DJ's in the Charleston that have moved to them a lot of the sites look alike. I do not want it to look like similar to that.
Click to expand...

That look alike thing is coming from those guys just taking the templates, as-is. Obviously, I'm getting to be a big fan of wix and have converted several sites to it and starting to show some good results. Until a couple of weeks ago when I really started looking through the analytics I didn't realize how the majority of my prospects are browing on smartphones. That's the main strength I see with wix. It's a completely seamless to either platform and no delays (auto-redirects) or hyperlinks.
 
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Just curious, why would anyone need to know about your religious beliefs or what church (if any) you attend? How is this something that would/should matter to a client?
 
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They shouldn't .. unless you're dealing maybe with some Orthodox clients. It may help, where religion and tradition collide, such as in Jewish Bar/Bat Mitzvahs or the Amish (I guess you'd have to sing, unamplified :) ) or maybe even for some devout Christians. Religion might imply a knowledge of customs and tradition used in the event.
 
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DJ_MJ said:
Just curious, why would anyone need to know about your religious beliefs or what church (if any) you attend? How is this something that would/should matter to a client?
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This is why I told the OP that the bio info was anti-selling for him. In the case of Mitzvahs, I see clearly where my Jewish partner has the leg up on getting these gigs. His being bar-Mitzvahed as a boy is something I've heard prospects mention. Since I'm now giving the option of having him or going with me as the DJ on Mitzvahs, it's a point of discussion at every meeting. Bottom line, be aware of what you're communicating with prospects and realize when a point helps you sell or it provides a reason for the prospect to go somewhere else.
 
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rickryan.com said:
That's the main strength I see with wix. It's a completely seamless to either platform and no delays (auto-redirects) or hyperlinks.
Click to expand...

This is -nothing- special or unique to Wix. Any responsive website will do this -- be it Wordpress, Concrete5, Joomla, or a plain html site. Even on the most simple side, like someone installing a free Wordpress theme -- as long as it's responsive, you're good to go. Except I'd recommend Concrete5 over Wordpress any day... but that's a different topic. :p

I just don't see Wix as anything unique. Especially if they go so far as to bill per email address. That's so 1995. (I believe you said they do this, Rick - correct me if I'm wrong)
 
awdj said:
This is -nothing- special or unique to Wix. Any responsive website will do this -- be it Wordpress, Concrete5, Joomla, or a plain html site. Even on the most simple side, like someone installing a free Wordpress theme -- as long as it's responsive, you're good to go. Except I'd recommend Concrete5 over Wordpress any day... but that's a different topic. :p

I just don't see Wix as anything unique. Especially if they go so far as to bill per email address. That's so 1995. (I believe you said they do this, Rick - correct me if I'm wrong)
Click to expand...

I've done wordpress and sorry, but I'll have to disagree strongly, there's a huge difference between putting together a site in WP and Wix. WP was driving me nutz, constantly trying to tweak it out. I agree, Wix isn't anything special but it's just easy, lightning quick to put together and it does a true mobile interface, out of the box. The email they sell is a google email address. I balked at first but then realized I only use one email address for my site and frankly I like that this is google. Makes it easy to toggle between my personal and business email accounts instead of having to remember multiple URLs.
 
Alright not to beat a subject into the ground, but is there any place where I can go play with some of the newer web development tools like WIX or even WP without having to start paying right up front?

I want time to play around with the development tools to make sure it will do everything I want and get the site to look like I want. Minimize the downtime for my clients when it is moved from google sites to wherever I decide to host.

Thanks,
 
Ron said:
Alright not to beat a subject into the ground, but is there any place where I can go play with some of the newer web development tools like WIX or even WP without having to start paying right up front?

I want time to play around with the development tools to make sure it will do everything I want and get the site to look like I want. Minimize the downtime for my clients when it is moved from google sites to wherever I decide to host.

Thanks,
Click to expand...

With wordpress, you'll have to have hosting. The WP package is free however. On wix, you can create your entire site without paying. The freebie site will have ads. If you want to turn the ads off, upgrade to a paid account. I'm telling you, once you see how easy it is and how great the finished product is, in my book it's not even close to a contest.

I forgot to add in a benefit of the google-based email, which wix resells. I moved from a godaddy-hosted site and saw several times where their email server got black-listed. I'm pretty sure I was having a significant amount of my marketing emails going straight to prospects' spam folder (or worse). Since I'm using a google-based email server now, it seems more of my stuff is getting through. I consider it invaluable.
 
rickryan.com said:
With wordpress, you'll have to have hosting. The WP package is free however. On wix, you can create your entire site without paying. The freebie site will have ads. If you want to turn the ads off, upgrade to a paid account. I'm telling you, once you see how easy it is and how great the finished product is, in my book it's not even close to a contest.

I forgot to add in a benefit of the google-based email, which wix resells. I moved from a godaddy-hosted site and saw several times where their email server got black-listed. I'm pretty sure I was having a significant amount of my marketing emails going straight to prospects' spam folder (or worse). Since I'm using a google-based email server now, it seems more of my stuff is getting through. I consider it invaluable.
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Thanks Rick, right after I posted this I found out about free WIX stuff. I figure about 24 hours of hands on and I should have most of site over there and then upgrade. Should be interesting. So far I like it.
 
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