REVIEW REQUEST: adhook.com

Do you intend to re-code for this same design/layout later? If not, then it's probably not worth reviewing from a design perspective. And since you'll be re-coding, it might not be worth reviewing from a code perspective either.

But anyway, at the moment, the design is very Frontpage-ish (duh!). You need to escape the template look and use some branding (logo, title, colour scheme, etc). I never actually got down to reading the content because I had no impression as to what the site was all about.

You'll have to work on organising your content for more readability. The structure as it is (no real headings, multicoloured text) just doesn't encourage reading.

I usually have my monitor brightness and contrast set low, so some of the headings and varicoloured texts are hard to read.

The black look doesn't appeal to me. I don't think it suits the content — I might trust a site with a cleaner, more professional white-based look more.

It looks similar in Moz1.4 to IE6. Only difference is some link colours are incongruent.

I don't really see much else to comment on. Why don't you work on a proper design right at the start itself?

I'm afraid I agree with Abhi on this one, to me it screams FP and I've seen those buttons before somewhere! If you are trying to sell advertising campaigns to people who have websites I'm afraid that you'll need a very professional looking website before people will take you seriously and black, dark, unbranded & FP will not cut it for most. You'll also need to work on your search engine optimisation if you want to be found as well as right now your site wont do very well in a very competitive field.

Quote: Originally posted by The Webmistress
I'm afraid I agree with Abhi on this one, to me it screams FP and I've seen those buttons before somewhere! If you are trying to sell advertising campaigns to people who have websites I'm afraid that you'll need a very professional looking website before people will take you seriously and black, dark, unbranded & FP will not cut it for most. You'll also need to work on your search engine optimisation if you want to be found as well as right now your site wont do very well in a very competitive field.

Thanks, the website is not showing up on any search engines because we just registered it a few days ago. We just launched this first version yesterday and are still organizing our ad campaigns for launch.. We have now agreed to completely redesign it. I will post again when we do so... in the meantime I hope to find the time to review some other websites.

Have a read through the Search Engine Challenges forum here for some tips on how to optimise the site for rankings especially with Google as right now the site wouldn't do particularly well so you need to think about this and incorporate things like H1 tags, good titles, meta descriptions, keyword placement, etc within the new design. CSS is also something you should consider.

There is very little else to say at this point....the one thing that I did like is the simple binary numbers running across the top of the screen....it was not too much, but it did bring some live to the page.

no matter what you do, its so difficult to make a site in FrontPage that doesn't look like its been made in FP! The shared borders etc. are great for novices but professionals are gonna find them tedious, limiting and above all unprofessional. Dreamweaver or, preferably, Notepad is the way to go!

I don't agree that this service needs a cutting-edge website (as said above) because its not the web design service they are offering here. All that it needs is an attractive yet to-the-point site which makes it easy for visitors to see what the deal is.

Still need to scrap FrontPage though...

Quote: Originally posted by DaveyBoy
no matter what you do, its so difficult to make a site in FrontPage that doesn't look like its been made in FP! The shared borders etc. are great for novices but professionals are gonna find them tedious, limiting and above all unprofessional. Dreamweaver or, preferably, Notepad is the way to go!

I don't agree that this service needs a cutting-edge website (as said above) because its not the web design service they are offering here. All that it needs is an attractive yet to-the-point site which makes it easy for visitors to see what the deal is.

Still need to scrap FrontPage though...

Thanks everyone again for your comments!!!

We are redoing the entire website. We managed to convince someone to invest some cash into us, so we are busy developing more services as well as our database of advertising companies as we wait for our new site.

It is being done in textpad and from what I have seen so far, it will be stunning and professional, but simple. We also contracted a technical writer today to work on our content... hopefully everything will turn out ok. I will post here when the new website goes up.

We await the new site with baited breath!

I haven't really got anything to add, apart from agree with the others...

Quote: no matter what you do, its so difficult to make a site in FrontPage that doesn't look like its been made in FP! The shared borders etc. are great for novices but professionals are gonna find them tedious, limiting and above all unprofessional. Dreamweaver or, preferably, Notepad is the way to go!

It is possible to create sites in frontpage without using the shared borders and things... I don't believe that writing code in text pad will neccessarily produce a better site, maybe a quicker loading one, but i've seen good sites created in frontpage before (it's just that you very rarely notice that the good ones have been created in frontpage, because they don't use the templates!).

oh yeah i know that man, just even when people don't use the shared borders or templates and themes, there's always just an air of 'frontpage-ness' about them, something i can't really put my finger on.

Quote: Originally posted by andymac50
There is very little else to say at this point....the one thing that I did like is the simple binary numbers running across the top of the screen....it was not too much, but it did bring some live to the page.

I would agree except that tyhe binary numbers don't seem to be directly related to the site topic.

What you need to do here is to create some sort of coherent identity. Use colours and symbols to reinforce your site topic. I would suggest that you go with a white background which will provide a much more professional looking base for your site. You are definitely going to need a good logo - you might want to consider paying a professional to design one for you. Logo design is an art in itself.

Also avoid using too many font styles and colours. A more unified look is always more professional looking. Also use HTML's built-in list elements rather than trying to create them yourself. Again, it will look more professional and pulled together. Always try to keep things as simple and consistent as possible. It may be dull, but it will provide a more professional and reliable impression to your visitors.

You may also want to look at stock photos to add some interest to the design without compromising the businesslike look I talked about earlier. There are lots of places you can get good stock photos for a low price. Just make sure you go for quality over quantity!

There are also great free stock photo sites, just gotta know where to look