Critique my new website

[manlymatt83]

http://rendereffect.com/matt/ is about to be launched soon under "bit lancer dot com"

Also, I need non-buzz-wordy headers for:

http://rendereffect.com/matt/pricing.html (to replace Transparent Pricing & Round the Clock Services)
http://rendereffect.com/matt/contact.html (to replace Call us anytime for any need. We're available to help.)

Any suggestions for those?

 

[Cogman]

Some of the links are broken
http://www.bitlancer.com/blog
Also, it felt like there was TONS of buzz-words thrown into this thing.

Some of the text just doesn't read very well. For example
" Matt has worked on numerous small and large-scale MySQL database projects, and where appropriate, has engineered web products using NoSQL database technology such as MongoDB."
That just seems like an overly long sentence that should probably be broken up and possibly reworded. Something like
"Matt has worked on numerous small and large-scale SQL database projects. He has also engineered several products using NoSQL technology such as MongoDB."
Just flows better to me.

The layout itself looks alright. You might want a better picture for Brain (he looks like he is 12).

I guess the real question is, who is your target? For a tech savvy guy, this site just seems more like a whole listing of "Oh, we've used C++, and Java, and MySQL, and Perl, and the cloud..." I would like more focus on the portfolio and less talk about the tech that you are using. For some manager or HR rep, on the other hand, this might not be bad as they will see the tech words and think "Oh, those are the things we want!".

(This is my personal opinion, I suck at web design so take everything I say with a grain of salt. I could very well be dead wrong.)

 

[manlymatt83]

Some of the links are broken
http://www.bitlancer.com/blog
Also, it felt like there was TONS of buzz-words thrown into this thing.

Some of the text just doesn't read very well. For example
" Matt has worked on numerous small and large-scale MySQL database projects, and where appropriate, has engineered web products using NoSQL database technology such as MongoDB."
That just seems like an overly long sentence that should probably be broken up and possibly reworded. Something like
"Matt has worked on numerous small and large-scale SQL database projects. He has also engineered several products using NoSQL technology such as MongoDB."
Just flows better to me.

The layout itself looks alright. You might want a better picture for Brain (he looks like he is 12).

I guess the real question is, who is your target? For a tech savvy guy, this site just seems more like a whole listing of "Oh, we've used C++, and Java, and MySQL, and Perl, and the cloud..." I would like more focus on the portfolio and less talk about the tech that you are using. For some manager or HR rep, on the other hand, this might not be bad as they will see the tech words and think "Oh, those are the things we want!".

(This is my personal opinion, I suck at web design so take everything I say with a grain of salt. I could very well be dead wrong.)

Thanks for the comments!

 

[Mo0o]

The three large icons on the front page looks really amateurish, especially with those basic gradient fill effects. And maybe have the construction guy face left like the other two. And if youre going in this direction, maye add some detail to the shirts of the first two since the business guy's suit has a fair amt of detail (although he's not wearing tie but wearing a suit...

The text in the menu bar looks kind of blurry

People pictures should be more professional. The old guy is a good example of what to follow i think

On the Projects page, it might be better to make it blog style where someone can quickly scroll down and see multiple projects rather than clicking your little flash applet one by one

 

[halik]

The three large icons on the front page looks really amateurish, especially with those basic gradient fill effects. And maybe have the construction guy face left like the other two. And if youre going in this direction, maye add some detail to the shirts of the first two since the business guy's suit has a fair amt of detail (although he's not wearing tie but wearing a suit...

The text in the menu bar looks kind of blurry

People pictures should be more professional. The old guy is a good example of what to follow i think

On the Projects page, it might be better to make it blog style where someone can quickly scroll down and see multiple projects rather than clicking your little flash applet one by one

This.
You need to replace them with standard corporate stock photography or something.

 

[JJChicken]

My 2c:

The website does nothing for me.

What's in it for the customer? There's nothing on the home page that inspires me to do business with you.

Take a step back, see what your clients want, what you can offer to them and come back with a more tailored message on your home page.

The twitter feed on the home page is irrelevant - I don't go to your website to read about IT news. I go to dailytech for that. It looks like you are just including it as a cool feature to have.

 

[JJChicken]

Also, PM ViviTheMage and ask him to check out your website since he runs a similar type of company.

 

[manlymatt83]

My 2c:

The website does nothing for me.

What's in it for the customer? There's nothing on the home page that inspires me to do business with you.

Take a step back, see what your clients want, what you can offer to them and come back with a more tailored message on your home page.

The twitter feed on the home page is irrelevant - I don't go to your website to read about IT news. I go to dailytech for that. It looks like you are just including it as a cool feature to have.

Perhaps that's where the confusion is. I'm mostly working inbound marketing to gather traffic to my site. Hence, most of my leads will come from blog posts and tweets that are seen. The home page is meant for people who already know they are interested in me. They choose a profile which leads them to connect.

Many people in my industry helped me create the site, including professional inbound marketers, so I'm not too concerned as to whether it will effective. I just have to start creating the content, first, which will mostly be on the blog.

 

[manlymatt83]

Any more opinions/comments?

 

[bigi]

<rendereffect.com>

jCarousel: No width/height set for items. This will cause an infinite loop. Aborting...

 

[Kadarin]

The word "bitlancer" to me brings up a mental image of a doctor lancing boils and removing moles. That and I agree with the comment about replacing the icons with stock corporate photos.

Also, obligatory "it's not very manly" command.

 

[manlymatt83]

<rendereffect.com>

jCarousel: No width/height set for items. This will cause an infinite loop. Aborting...

huh? infinite loop is good.

 

[xanis]

It feels sort of bland, but there are some things that you *could* do to fix it without going too nuts. Here are my suggestions:

1) Cogman brought this up and I agree: You should focus more on the portfolio. What I would do is take most of the text content off of the main page and replace it with a content slider. Make the first slide the "welcome to Bitlancer" text, then have it scroll through your projects. People don't like to read text &#8211; they do, however, like to look at pretty pictures. Also, people generally aren't stupid &#8211; with the crowd that you're catering to, they'll be able to use the navigation easily and efficiently to find the information they need, so you don't need to worry about cramming a ton of stuff onto the pages.

2) The positioning of the Twitter feed feels strange. I'd suggest doing a little re-arranging and putting it in the footer (the dark blue part). The extra horizontal real estate could be put to good use with the slider, and IMO, the two-column layout you have now feels odd. If you really want to keep it, I'd suggest changing the size of the columns to give more pleasing proportions.

3) I'd suggest 3 new icons. The ones you have now look a little out of place. I'd suggest using some simple symbols. Take a look at The Noun Project &#8211; they have a ton of nice, public domain symbols that you could use.

4) You might want to consider some hover effects for the links. It's not really necessary, but it adds a little interest to the site.

<-- graphic designer