Please review Alpha-american.net

sin0cide's picture

He has: 17 posts

Joined: Oct 2007

I just wanted to know how you guys feel about the layout and content direction. Is it easy to navigate is there something I should incoperate? Any good ideas on seo?

Link: Alpha-American

Brian(Webdesigner/SEO)

pr0gr4mm3r's picture

He has: 1,502 posts

Joined: Sep 2006

The site has an all-around nice and clean design. It's easy to navigate and easy to find information.

Couple things to consider:
* Although I'm not an SEO expert, I'm thinking that your Home link should point to your root instead of home.htm to avoid duplicate content getting indexed.
* The Google Checkout sort of clashes with your footer's background because it has a white one. I would move it to a white-background area or change it to a set of CC logos that will blend with your footer.

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

This looks nice overall. The first thing I was struck with was the plainness of the logo. I think it would be better to have a graphical logo here. The plain text reminded me of all those spammy domain squatter sites.

The design does look a little grey to me. I think it would look better if the outer background was a really dark grey-ish blue colour. That would provide more contrast.

In Opera 9/Linux the Lowest Prices graphic on the bottom of the navbar is cut off. This is because font sizes are a little smaller in Opera and the body isn't long enough to go past the bottom of the navbar.

Otherwise everything looks good. Make sure your headers are always done as headers (there's some on the "Learn About COpyrights" page. Also make sure that the page headers match the navbar link. This page has a different header and it could be confusing to users.

sin0cide's picture

He has: 17 posts

Joined: Oct 2007

Cool yah I didn't even notice the learn about copyrights page thanks... I was stuck in a position where they almost wanted it the way it looks. if I had my way it would be totally different and in fact I still have a img of the design I wanted... Site Redesign but you really have to listen to the customer I guess.

Brian(Webdesigner/SEO)

He has: 15 posts

Joined: Sep 2004

Overall very nice design. Clean, easy to read, and I knew what you were selling within 5 seconds.

One thing I did notice is in your header image. The man standing in front of the flag needs a bit more Photoshop work, his head is a bit choppy compared to the overall smoothness of the rest of the image.

He has: 8 posts

Joined: Nov 2007

your website is clean and tidy. good job

mfdc's picture

They have: 160 posts

Joined: Aug 2004

Its nice, (coffee and cream I beleive!?), good navigation , its nice that it all fits on the screen with no scrolling

They have: 16 posts

Joined: Nov 2007

Not sure if it was my browser, but the Add to Cart images were missing.

They have: 10 posts

Joined: Dec 2007

The site is very nice Smiling

I think, you need replace the favicon of Hostmonter.

Bigu,

They have: 16 posts

Joined: May 2007

Simple to navigate. Easy to see what you're about. Easy to find what you want.

They have: 10 posts

Joined: May 2007

It didn't take me long to figure out what this site was for. But the title "Alpha-American" threw me for a moment. I would not intuitively link that phrase with intellectual property. I was surprised to see "Hours." I don't think I've ever seen that on a website apart from a store or a restaurant. My first thought was that the website is only up from 9 - 9 EST M-F. But I doubt that's true. I assume that's the hours you process orders. Does that need to be on the homepage? That information could be put a little deeper in the site, since the hours shouldn't affect your webpage. Also, it's not clear to me why you have "866.405.COPY (2679)" and "888.499.MARK (6275)" on the side menu. I assume they're references to the respective laws, but they're not links, so I don't understand their purpose.

Deeper in the site, the steps to trademark and copyright are very helpful and clear. In fact, everything apart from what I said above seems very helpful and clear. The site also seems to have no navigational issues whatsoever. Overall, it's a very nicely designed and easy to use site. But I did stare at the man on the header. His hair is pixellated and he looks confused about something in the sky. I think he's supposed to look proud.

Anyway, nice site overall.

Ed Womack
Get Milked

sin0cide's picture

He has: 17 posts

Joined: Oct 2007

Thank you for all the feedback, Yes its coffee and cream unfortinatly I did not make the design just or most of the content but got stuck cleaning it up and make some scripts for the checkout part. If you would like to see my design you can see it here. http://www.sin0cide.com/aai/aai-redesign.jpg

--ewomack I am not sure why they decided to choose Alpha American lol there is a couple other sites called that exact phrase and one is a neon sign company which I don't know why they wanted it either. The hours of operation are on the site per a customer request they where not there originaly and I think they are kinda pointless as well. The numbers you refer to are 800 numbers for people to call in again not sure why they need to be so bright or placed there but I guess nobody will have a problem finding the contact numbers. Thanks for all the info and feedback.

Brian(Webdesigner/SEO)

They have: 21 posts

Joined: Jan 2008

OK I tend to agree with other comments in that the site has a nice feel and look.

Apart from subjective aspects my only real area of expertise is SEO. With that in mind, your page Title is bad. Like many, many other designers you have put the company name at the front which is a bad move. The company name is unique enough to come up if someone asks a search engine for the company name.

By putting the name at the beginning you move the words "Copyright and Trademark Clearance" toward the end of the Title which in search engine terms makes the important part of the title less relevant. You might like to think of rearranging the Title to be "Copyright and Trademark Clearance Centre - Alpha American"

You might like to think of the Meta Keywords tag too and move "Copyright and Trademark Clearance Centre" to the front and do the same with the Description.

One last small thought. The British spell centre as center. You might put that in here and there Smiling

That SEO would make a good site perform better.

Terrible Terry

They have: 3 posts

Joined: Jan 2008

hey that looks really nice - clean and esay to figure out what you're all about. i actually like the color scheme becuase the material you're presenting is professional and all business. you probably don't need your business hours on the first page though since it's a website open 24/7

They have: 4 posts

Joined: Feb 2008

I like the design, very good color scheme, but i think it is too small. I have 1024/768 resolution and it is small for my screen, i don't want to know how this website is seen on a 1280 resolution.

The website is clean and on topic, but i think it need more details to make customers use your service.

They have: 2 posts

Joined: Feb 2008

The size looks perfect on my 800 resolution. I'm sick of seeing sites made for widescreen or whatever so I say keep the size the same.

vitalblogs's picture

They have: 6 posts

Joined: Mar 2008

I like what you have done, but I want to recommend this: Change the color scheme of the site to be red, white and blue. Therefore, your site will match up with your domain name better.

Overall, I like the site.

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