Thread: Please review

Hi all,

I could really do with an extra set of eyes or two to give me guidance on how I can further improve this website. This job I took on on a voluntary basis, for a charity organisation who in short run a support service for parents of disabled children. Well initially, the job was just to take over hosting but there previous website was very poor and hard on eyes/to navigate so I offered to redesign.

I've enjoyed working on this project but can't help feeling my site is not working effectively as it should. I spent a lot of time trying to construct the source so it would be as SEO friendly as possible, i.e. use of headers, my content comes before navigation and footer content etc but for obivous search terms I would have expected to my site in the SERP, its not showing..

So any further advice you guys may have would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

What is the goal for the website? Is it looking to drive donation? Raise awareness? Is it for the families?

Design wise. On the homepage I think it would be nice if the navigation was the same width as the main content area. For me at least it looks a little odd that these are different widths.

Can you control the facebook link at the bottom of the content area? The one with the children in it? You have this square box with a cut up logo in it. Looks a bit messy.

Why is the Registered Address: bottom aligned in the footer when everything else is top aligned?

The 'Find us on' section looks like it has just been tacked onto the bottom .

Finally, on your menu, the top and bottom items have rounded corners in Chrome which don't seem to make sense. I would have thought the bottom 2 corners at the bottom of the menu may be rounded. Instead the 2 right corners of the bottom item and 2 left corners of the top item are rounded. Looks a bit strange.

On the whole though I think it is good. The design is tidy and you make good use of white space. It is difficult to say much more without knowing what the measures of success are for the site.

Thanks Jason.

The primary goal of the site, is support. There is a lot of reference material and a busy forum which make of the website. For the majority of the members of the forum, the website really is a lifeline for them when things get tough, and from what I've come to learn, things get really really tough so they come onto the forum to chat and find comfort with others who are in the same situation.

What I'm slightly miffed at is the fact that despite the facelift and SEO groundwork I laid in, it doesn't seem to have made the difference I was really hoping for in terms of being there in the SERPs

I'd never really thought about the nav being a different width from the content until you mention it but yes makes sense so I'll have a look at that.

Re' the facebook section, I think I'm going to get rid of it altogether, I thought it might make the home page more personal..

The registered address I wanted to put to the side to keep it seperate from the footer nav, but as you suggest it would fit nicely top align with the nav.

Can you show me tomorrow what you mean in Chrome? I just cranked it up and not quite certain what you're referring to...

Thanks for having a good look, appreciate it ! :-)

Example attached. Look at top and bottom nav items and the rounded corners.