A london plumber site http://www.london-plumber.eu

TerribleTerry wrote: I would be interested in hearing though if the overall look is just TOO amateur ?

Yes, the little handyman to the left of the page looks like a cartoon strip, the animated image in the center of the page looks VERY bad (from a designer or user-perspective) and secondly, animated images are *usually* just bad practice.

Take those away, give the site a WHITE background and that's sorted already.

TerribleTerry wrote: Do you actually believe what the guy is trying to say ?

Yes and no... the design makes me wonder about the professionalism and quality of service and whether the owner is actually serious about attracting potential customers via the web. Secondly, there are some grammar mistakes, not many and I believe that they should be fixed and I'll be convinced.

TerribleTerry wrote: If you needed a plumber in London would you call him ? If not, why not ?

Yes, this is what convinces me: http://www.london-plumber.eu/recommendations.html , but many won't go as far as digging that deep because the FONT on the page is waaayyy too small. I can't read it and have to use Opera's built in zoom function to actually read the text (1280x1024 res)

Hope this helps

If you needed a plumber in London would you call him ? If not, why not ?

Personally I would use the Yell.com web site whenever looking for anyone to do some work.

I would say the page definetly looks 'too' amateur to be taken seriously. I can see why the page would rank well in the search engines, but I doubt many of the people who reach it give the plumber a call.

I'm sure with a few modification the design could stay simple but look a bit more professional, perhaps a header picture with some shiny pipes or something? Also, I agree with nin that the animated plumber has to go!

I wouldn't recommend putting customers' emails in plain text as you have on the references page either, as email harvesting bots will get hold of them and the poor customers might end up with a load of spam.

"Normally I try to produce clean professional pages so I asked a friend of mine who is amazing at graphics if he would produce me a site design. His reply was "What the hell for,? He's a f*****g plumber!"

So, it was decided to create what looks like a fairly amateur site."

As soon as I read that I got worried. Any profession no matter how medial sounding generally requires a set of skills that the buyer does not have. If you could do it yourself you wouldnt need a plumber right. To me an amatuer website says an amatuer professional and if I had a nice looking clean site with pictures of them working or some images of fountains etc whatever they are able to do I would choose the later everytime.

Dont want to be harsh but IMO your friend is wrong and you should do a nice site. IN aus we have a plumbing company called reece i would check out their site because if i remember correctly its very nice and its only plumbing

Hi Terry,
You have a nice site in general. When I loaded the pages, my browser (IE6) encountered an error running some scripts of your page. You may need to perform some testing before you go further with several browsers.

I would suggest you place some navigation at the top of you page for user convenience. The links at the bottom of the page are confusing because they are either in text format and/or represented by graphics. Your pages should have a title in H1 or H2 size and that title MUST be the same text as the navigation so as not to be confusing to the user.

I'm not a fan of the animated gifs but the one on your page is not bad. If it is critical you keep him, I urge you to make your page background white instead of the pale blue. That will help make the plumber appear to belong on the page rather than being an after thought.

I like your guarantee graphics but they need to be prominent and not reduced in size. Consider making it a javascript popup.

Define what CORGI registration is on your "about us" page.

I love the SMS form. I wish we had something like that in Canada. Consider putting that on your home page as an "emergency" feature.

I think this is a good start for your site and wish you success. Please keep an eye out for my announcement for site reviews soon.

Cheers.
Jason

TerribleTerry wrote:
I would be interested in hearing though if the overall look is just TOO amateur ?

In my opinion it is too amateur. For starters I have a wide screen monitor and the text overlaps the border on the right side making it hard to read. The plumber animation isn't really needed and I like when the text has some kind of container in order to quickly identify the different parts of the page.

Hi Terry, it does look too amateur but in a way it reinforces the fact that the plumber is doing what he does best, plumbing. The same way that some of the best food in a restaurant is served in a little hole in the wall of a place. Talent/resources are focussed in the business.

I hope I expressed this properly.

Cheers
Jason

Hi,

Here are my suggestion which might help you:
1)Could you replace the cartoon image with a more serious one on the home page and make the waterdrop go down more quick since customers may not have time to watch.
2)The layout of the bottom part becomes a little loose.
3)Anyway I would call since it give me an impression.

szy

To answer the simplest question of "would I contact the plumber?" : I wouldn't.

I agree that the site doesn't need to be a design master piece but I think it needs to look a bit more professional than that.

I created this for a mate of mine : http://www.express-property-maintenance.co.uk/ and it's no master piece either but considering the amount of time it took (not much) it's not bad.

OK everyone,

Firstly, thank you all for so much feedback. Lots of which I had to agree with. It was intended to look like a site put together by the plumber himself but it failed.

I have therefore done a complete redesign of the site taking on board many of your comments and suggestions.

www.london-plumber.eu

I would be very interested in your comments on how it is now.

I am also going to do some response rate calculations and if anyone would like more info on the results, just ask.

I am a little nervous I confess because the site has been so incredibly successful as a hotch-potch.