a website to look at

[Shrewsbury]

my website is http://www.bodyelectricmethod.com

and i just put together a small website for my teacher, it doesn't have much yet, but please take a look

http://cleveland-taichi-bagua.com

thank you!

 

[SFC JeffJ]

Cool site. If you'd have me, I'd love to drop in at your school sometime when I visit my parents in Tallmadge.

Jeff

 

[pstarr]

Very nice!

 

[Shrewsbury]

you would be more than welcomed!

 

[Andrew Green]

Now please don't take offense to this, but have you considered getting a professional web designer to put something together for you? Websites can be one of your best promotional devices, and are worth a little investment to get something professional up and running.

 

[Shrewsbury]

No offense taken. I like the sites the way they are and rank in the top 10 of google with my key words.
one day i will take the time to clean things up.
but really thanks for your input and advice, you will find i do not take offense to just about anything.

 

[CL1V3]

great site...love it

 

[funnytiger]

I'm with Andrew on this one. Just because your site is listed amongst the top 10 doesn't mean anything. Especially if you can't keep people there to get the information needed to join the school!

I've been doing web and graphic design professionally for about 5 years and before I got the degree I did web design as a serious hobby.

My professional opinion? It looks very amateurish and I wouldn't take the site (or the school) seriously.

Just some honesty.

- ft

 

[Shrewsbury]

My professional opinion? It looks very amateurish and I wouldn't take the site (or the school) seriously.

Just some honesty

your honesty is always welcomed, but if you think a website shows martial skill, then I suppose you would be all over any high rank advertisement as well, such as Joe Schmoe's grandmaster or 10th dan.

The website is amateurish, I made it, with no training. The site has generated many calls, and I only accept students after a serious interveiw and have turned away way more people than I have accepted.

Again folks this is just the internet, no way to tell a persons skill.

But I do honestly respect your honesty!

 

[Xue Sheng]

Shrewsbury

It is a nice page with a lot of information, and I mean no offense, but I have to agree with Andrew Green and funnytiger. I use to be a web admin and I think you could only benefit from a professional page design.

No advertisements just font type choices, font color choices, background color choices, etc. And once again no offense but the over use of the "?" stands out to me most of all.

The number of font types and sizes as well as the number of colors used for background and font matter and if there are too many users get annoyed if there are to many drastic color changes you can get the same effect on a user. I would hate to see this be not viewed just because of small things that a few simple changes, nothing drastic, could improve.

XS

 

[Shrewsbury]

Thank you, I will certainly consider it!

Again I hope I have not sounded offended, I do appreciate everyones opinions.

 

[funnytiger]

your honesty is always welcomed, but if you think a website shows martial skill, then I suppose you would be all over any high rank advertisement as well, such as Joe Schmoe's grandmaster or 10th dan.

The website is amateurish, I made it, with no training. The site has generated many calls, and I only accept students after a serious interveiw and have turned away way more people than I have accepted.

Again folks this is just the internet, no way to tell a persons skill.

But I do honestly respect your honesty!

You are absolutely right Shrewsberry. A website can not show martial skill. Although, you never know, it may be in the near future! I suspect you wouldn't have a website if you weren't interested in getting students. Your selection process is inconsequential.

It all boils down to being able to "sell" yourself to the public. If that is not your intention then there is no need to have a website. Whether that website is there for information or selling a product it has to be "sold" to the end user. The longer that person stays on your website, the better chance you have of someone calling that number.

If a website is visually offensive (and I'm not talking nude pics of Rosanne Barr here) or if the navigation is frustrating or if the text is hard to read (as Xue Sheng pointed out) then you are losing potential students!

But it is your choice and your website. You asked for feedback and you've gotten some really good advice from people who are either have professional experience with websites or people who can objectively tell you whether they think your website is doing its job.


- ft

 

[Shrewsbury]

I really do appreciate your input, and must honestly say you have me thinking. the website was originally just for fun and to put out some info I thought was quality and might help others, but you have made some good points.

Thank you!

 

[Andrew Green]

A clean website is like a clean school, nothing to do with skill, but it does make that important first impression.

 

[bignick]

Andrew has nailed on the head, I'm also a professional developer, although most of the work I do isn't "design". Web design isn't easy, even for the professionals, so don't feel bad.

When it comes to the look and feel it's all about personal taste, really. But although you can decorate your house any way you feel, if the outside is painted gaudy and badly decorated, people may complain to the Homeowner's assocation it's an eyesore. Although it's your website, and you really can do whatever you damned well please, remember that it's still a public front and considerations have to be made in the design to appeal to the "average" person. Nothing has to be fancy, really a simple clean look is all you need to portray professionalism. No one expects martial artists to have great computer skills, so you don't really have to have an eye-candy popping site.

My only recommendations would be to drop the lightning background, repeating images that don't blend to form a seamless pattern always look a little tacky, and drop the sound. That's just my personal preference, I never want to be greeted by sound on a webpage unless I specifically know it's a video link or something. Can be an interruption, especially if someone is viewing the site in a library, office, or someplace else where the thunder noises could be an interruption.

Peace,
Big Nick

 

[ArmorOfGod]

I have to say something about Shrewsbury: he can take criticism very well. We should all strive to be so humble.

Shrewsbury, the one thing that bugs me about your site is at the very bottom, you have links where people can click and find more about your style on google and yahoo. Not only is that unnecessary, but it could lead them to other schools.

AoG

 

[funnytiger]

I completely agree with you AoG. Humility is something that is hard to come by now a days. Shrewsbury has definitely been a good sport.

Andrew has nailed on the head, I'm also a professional developer, although most of the work I do isn't "design". Web design isn't easy, even for the professionals, so don't feel bad.

I appreciate you making the distinction there. Always been a pet peeve of mine. Web design and development are two completely different positions with different duties. I haven't met too many developers who could design their way out of a paper box and my programming skills suck. lol

- ft

 

[Shrewsbury]

Thank you for your wonderful comments.


Do you think I should get rid of my back ground (lightning)? the sound effects? and perhaps use just a white background, and a smaller image. I obviously need to clean things up all around, but perhaps this will be a good step in the right direction.

I really do appreciate all the time you all have put into looking at my site and giving advice, and being a bagua person, I am always up for positive change.

 

[bignick]

You don't have to go for plain white, just make sure it's pleasing to the eye and easy to read.

 

[HKphooey]

Thank you for your wonderful comments.

Do you think I should get rid of my back ground (lightning)? the sound effects? and perhaps use just a white background, and a smaller image. I obviously need to clean things up all around, but perhaps this will be a good step in the right direction.

I really do appreciate all the time you all have put into looking at my site and giving advice, and being a bagua person, I am always up for positive change.

At least you have done step one...got a website. Many school owners/teachers are still not accepting this form of marketing. It is (and has been) one of the martial arts best forms of proliferation. It will be one of the smartest business moves yet. About half of the our schools new students are coming from the web. Everyone has offered some great advice and you have taken their feedabck very well. Keep in mind, they (fellow martial artists) are your userbase.

Background images and sound tend to distract the user (and sometimes drive the user away) from the important information. Try a basic white or maybe a parchment background.

I conduct user interface studies on a monthly basis for work (Business & Web Development). Users are looking for information in a concise, clean and easy to read format.

Creating a professional website may not represent your MA skills, but it will lend itself to your credibility as a business or offering. Just something as simple as adding a photo of yourself adds "credibility" to your website. One of the biggest fears of the web is deception/fraud, so one needs to put their best foot forward.

Just like Andrew mentioned a school does not need to be flashy and have top of the line equipment, but it must be clean and professional.

Do a search on the same words you have incorporated on your site. See what other sites come up. See how they lay out their pages, what info they offer, etc. Checkout some of the other MT user websites out there.

They are some many free template websites out their where you can get free layout designs. Many cheap hosting companies offer easy to use templates as part of their programs.

Just like MA training, keep at it!