Hi all

Barring criticisms of the company name(I have heard them all), would like to get some feedback on the site Auto Smart Systems - Irelands No1 Mobile Smart Repair Company

I am not a full time designer just a hobby with benifits

SEO hints would be appreciated.

Thanks

db

The photo of the car on the main page needs to be resized properly

Since I presume you're not nationwide it would be helpful to actually say where you are based, as I couldn't find the information easily on the site

Your "contact" page does not have an address or telephone number

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I think I heard an ad for this on RTE - it's a great idea for a service.

I understand what you say about not wanting to hear criticisms of your company name, but there's really nothing wrong with it if you didn't point out the initials in your logo. I think the long version is far superior to the shortened form - you can't underestimate the effect this has in a place like Ireland, especially the 'ASS at work' bit. I presume it was a deliberate 'cunning' choice to go with this idea, but it really requires you to give a more than perfect service to overcome this branding.

As to the site itself, I only got as far as your client list page, where I found five text errors, so there may be more further on. I would be glad to point these out to you - you can pm me - presuming that someone one else on here has not already done so.

I also find the particular shade of blue and the site style very conservative considering the branding.

Hmm...

My comments / critisms

The site looks very amateurish and like something I'd expect to have seen in the 90's ...

Why I'm so harsh ? ... because this is your business ? with 9 vans ? which would show a significant amount of business ? yet your website leaves so much to be desired. You'll spend money on radio adverts and so on yet not on the website ?

What don't I like ...
Logo is pixilated around the edges
Font used is bold ? all the time ? EEK (what do you do to highlight a keyword
Background image looks strange to me .. and what really gives it an older feel.
Images ye show are poor quality (small images) and don't really give a good impression
Tables being used for the design and so on.

Again .. why I'm critical ... this is a commercial website of sorts but is being done as a hobby .. I'd have no problem with that if it was a bit cleaner.

Then again maybe the site appeals to your customer base ?

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Hehe. Ass.

ROFL

I hadn't spotted that until now

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Going to agree mostly with Forbairt here.

But then again, I'd like to know if ass's particular customer base actually cares what the website looks like. If its a tech site, its got to be good or its going to die. But a site not aimed at the tech crowd? I know my mother doesn't care what a website looks like. However as Blacknight pointed out earlier, contact stuff should be up to date. That really does matter to the non-tech crowd.

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Never mind the non-tech crowd. I'd find it hard to order / deal with or interact with a company / business that didn't have contact details on their site

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I'll start by saying i like the background.
Maybe the colour is a bit too strong of a blue however, but the collage of images is good.

Header logo seems to be a different shade of blue and so therefore doesn't for into the background....

As for SEO, from what I can see, your site is okay on that front.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to agree with Forbairt. I'm not saying that you're a bad designer, but rather a website like this is to compliment the ads seen on the other forms of media. So if someone is referred from a television advert, onto the website, they will still see a good design.

I, personally, believe you should redesign the website with more consideration put into the website.

I believe you should, to an extent, try to replicate the television advert's colour scheme and design. Then try to inject another sense of originality into the website. Quite a difficult task, but i can assure you, one that would be very worthwhile.

and then begin working on the content. and at the very end, you may want to scrap one thing entirely, and replace it with another. You do that.
You will look at the website and say, what the fúck did i write that in for, and replace it with something else. Keep doing that, then come back here, start a brand new thread, hear our criticisms, fix the problems.

After that, when you are proud of your new build, stamp your name on the bottom, and be proud of what you just did.

Also, please, please, don't use tables. tables are the foundation of a lazy website with bad principles. Use a CSS/(x)HTML website. You don't havwe to learn it all and create it yourself. I would suggest that you go onto a website like (Open Source Web Design - Download free web design templates.). Download a template there, then begin working from that. if you have a good foundation of code in place, it will make the website so much easier to edit.

The content is perfect, just that the design isn't as clean and simple/professional as the television adverts and don't represent the best the company has to offer imo.

As for the contact form, thats perfect, just make sure that when I click the submit button, that it will tell me that the message has either failed, or sent successfully, and of course, say thank you when someone fills in the contact form, it makes them feel more welcome to have done what they have just done. Just one little thing I have found in my experiences.

and don't just think that i'm being hard on you. I was in the same situation myself only about two years ago, when i was 14. I'll hope to dig up the thread on boards.ie tonight when i get bored. But ultimatley, everyone just added comments as to what I had asked them to review, saying, wtf?
I took the criticism and I am now learning html/javascript/php/photoshop/css,etc. and I am in a much better position than ever before.

if you do have any questions what so ever, please feel free to PM me.

Regards,
Nev