New website, Any Suggestions?

hi and good luck with everything!

Oooooooh black and red - pyschologically speaking they are scary colours. Designed to make your mind reject or not appeal.

Text fonts (thank my GF for this, graphics bod she is) - she recommends keeping them consistent throughout your headers and the main body of text.

The company title font - that script stylee thing you got going on... you got any other options or is this your brand font type? Just a little tricky to read as presented... are you a tatooist or an S&M kit retailer (just playin, but does that make sense?)

Hope this is constructive, i intend it that way! Dont mean to be a basher, I know how personal these things get... took me two months to pull my website together and am still changing loads of things... by doing exactly what you are doing... asking :thumb2
 
Got to agree about colours,very dour. If you want to see web sites with the best colour schemes just have a look at Microsoft. Believe it or not certain colours keep visitors on websites longer. Black is one of the worst followed by red!
Yellows, oranges and blues are best.

Another point is the large buttons on the home page. Far too big and they disappear never to be see again once you move to another page. Either be consistent and have them on all pages or get rid.

When you do go to another page the menu wraps because of the search box. Ditch the search box. They work on big sites but have little value on a small site like yours where there are a minimum of pages.

You've used Wordpress to build it and there are lots of better templates available to choose from to give you a cleaner and lighter image.

Check out these:
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/

Hope you feel this is constructive.
Best of luck!
 
I appreciate all the comments, this is exactly what i wanted

However, the first thing i told my website guy was to not touch the colours, i wanted to keep the black and red, i just love it, its been my colours since i started the business and it has always stood out from other ads when i advertise on sites and magazines etc

The large buttons have been based on the app design, easy to use, simple to click on etc

I see what you mean with the search button, but as i get on, i will be adding a few more bikes to the sale section and i want to keep some sold ones up there as an indication as to what they are being sold/advertised for, search may come in handy then

Thanks again for all the comments
 
minimise the amount of red, there is too much of it. Your colours are red, black and platinum and you should use these as your background. The red is too strong, too in your face. It makes your site seems angry and hostile, and unfriendly.
The buttons are too large. Try to remove the need to scroll down to read all of the page. Rethinking what information you need on your homepage. IMHO a homepage should tell me the very basics of who, what, where and what you offers - who (Platinum Motorcycle), what (Certified BMW motorcycle mechanics), where (Bray, Ireland), what's on offer (buttons/navigation bar to other pages)
The homepage is what users will navigate through to the parts they are interested in - servicing, bikes for sale, who are you, where are you.
 
I don't know if its just my browswer, but I don't the 'hand' when I hover over the buttons on the home page, so its not obvious they are links.
Agree smaller butons and get the About section on the front screen without having to scroll. I would keep the button consistant was with the other screen - the horizontal bar works much better to my eye.

You don't clearly say what you DO. I assume service and selling? Do you do mods/lights/alloy panniers/rebuilds/rtw prep? just a service or all mechnical tasks?

I also think for the photo you should put your basball cap on the right way around. It just scream Yooof to me, and not the sort of person to trust with a gentlemen's transport :)

I rather like the black and red.
 
I know exactly WHY you've put your email addy as " mark at platinummotorcycles dot ie"
BUT....the onus should be on you to stick in a good spam filter on your email, not make your punters copy and paste and edit it........Punters want a CLICKABLE email addy......


If you want to, you can have a button that they click to send an email, and hide your email addy away in the script for it...that will have te same effect for defeating email harvesters, but personally, I'd like to SEE the email addy, and also be able to click it :thumb2

(the reason I like to SEE it is because I know who I'm dealing with then......in your case, it seems totally kosher and it's your domain, but if it was platimum@yahoomail.ie, I'd be far less likely to use it......too cowboy

EDIT....I've just noticed that here on the forum, you have the full version of the email addy....in that case, it makes no sense at all to try and hide it on your own website......get in there now and sort it :D




In your WP admin page, you need to sort out what page is for posts......On any particular page, there is irrelevant/duplicated stuff below what you want to be showing ...You need to sort out ONE page for comments/posts, then have all the fixed pages as statics which don't show any more than you intend.

I'm not too fussed about the colour scheme........My first reaction was that it was bold and strong rather than too red and aggressive :nenau

EDIT AGAIN.....Yeah actually, having read the full thread now (I didn't initially 'cos I wanted to see it rather than be influenced by other's comments) I do agree that the red needs to be toned down a bit......by all means keep it as your identity and style colours, but it is very red.



I'd fekk around with the platinum motorcycles logo a bit....the text itself needs to look more, er, 'platinum' IYSWIM.....I want it shiny and metallic, it's a bit dull.

(just the text though, the rest of the logo is great......I might remove the red gradient from it though so the whole 'badge' (it feels like a tank badge :nenau) is a bit more prominent

Like the Google earth map, but go back to the app and set the initial zoom in to a much more local level, and have a line saying they can zoom it in and out (for the thickies :augie)....Oh, and make it a map view not a satellite view :thumb2

Minor minor detail, but I prefer 'About us' than 'About'.......

Biggest issue for me is the cleanliness of the overall site map.......you do need to get rid of the superfluous stuff whuch has been duplicated because of the incorrect use of the comments/posts in the blog software :thumb

Otherwise, good stuff and good luck :clap
 
And...

Agree with most of the previous comments. Particularly:*
- doesn't matter whether you like the colours or not. Unless of course you built the site to admire it yourself!
- buttons and menus moving around give a horrible user experience. It's a small site, so standardise the ribbon.*

And....
Say a lot more about yourself, your expertise and why I (who doesn't know whether you are a butcher or a qualified BMW mechanic) should allow you to mess with my pride and joy! Why should anybody buy from you? Price, expertise, service, reliability, knowledge, etc. Sell YOUrself. Publicise your brilliance!!!

Why the big twitter button when you only tweet every 90 days on average? Use it or lose it.*

The facebook page (which the dodgy link won't let you see before you like it - and even after you like it you have to go to your timeline to find it) just duplicates the sales info on the website.*

You need to decide what you are using these channels for. If you publish content on the website (perhaps a blog) then you have something to pipe into the social media channels.

Again, meant to be constructive.*
 
Thank you to all who has commented, all taken on board and will slowly be making a few changes over the next while

keep em coming :thumb2
 
As i've only experience with my little blog (less said about content, the better :blush) the only observation i can make is Back + Red = good colour scheme (to my taste anyhow :p ) BUT, i'd make like the BMW style and lots of black and a red 'pinstripe'. :thumb2
Setting up a site is a nightmare to me - unless it involves spanners and a hammer, it's too subtle for my skills. The Guy that did mine, is a genius and made me look quite good online.
It was all done with Wordpress too - so i know it is possible to get very good results with that.

Good Luck to you! :beerjug:
 
Have to agree with most of the points above, although I don't think I'm wonderfully talented I have worked for some people who are and the red/black main colours are a definite no no. By all means if they are the colours you are recognised for then keep them and incorporate them into your logo but the main background colour would be more user friendly if it were white. I checked out the link at the bottom for the designer of the website Road Trooper, it has everything the guys have already suggested would improve yours, better colours, smaller buttons, better menus, more info etc, it's worth a look to see the comparison.

Also, in this day and age where the iPhone/Android is most people's easiest and fastest point of reference for anything online this should be taken into account. When I look at your site on my iPhone the layout of the home page stays fixed but once I click through to the other pages the menu is aligned left causing the text to appear vertically and the rest of the content is also aligned left only using the left half of the screen. This leaves it looking amateur and not the impression I'm sure you were hoping for.

I've designed quite a few websites and know it is easy to take criticism to heart especially when you like what you see but at the end of the day you are not the customer so it doesn't matter if you like it (sorry if that sounds cheeky). If you can let go of the dark bold colours you will end up with a much better looking website which you will be far happier with in the end.
 
Daisy Duke said:
although I don't think I'm wonderfully talented I have worked for some people who are and the red/black main colours are a definite no no. By all means if they are the colours you are recognised for then keep them and incorporate them into your logo but the main background colour would be more user friendly if it were white.
Click to expand...


I have to disagree to a point.....

I do agree (as posted above) that the DOMINATION of red is maybe a bit strong, but I've seen many sites that are gorgeous in red and black (IMO) and not over the top at all......

Defining a set of design colours or style as 'wrong' or a definite 'nono' can be very limiting.....you only have to look at that Lin Lin car lease hire site to see EVERY single design rule not only ignored, but utterly flouted in the most spectacular way.....which is exactly part of its charm and success.

My main work at the moment is on a site which is predominantly Orange and black HERE..... the shop attached to it follows the theme, and it's a deliberate theme based on the LandRover G4 colouring that the business was well established in.....that's more important as an identity to us than it MAYBE not being a liked colour scheme.

I'm not saying the red and black on P-M's site is spot on....i do think it needs a bit of adjustment, but as a theme style colour set, I have no problems with it.

PS I agree with Luke that a couple (or more) endorsements from named individuals will go down well :thumb2
 
Fanum said:
I have to disagree to a point.....

I do agree (as posted above) that the DOMINATION of red is maybe a bit strong, but I've seen many sites that are gorgeous in red and black (IMO) and not over the top at all......

Defining a set of design colours or style as 'wrong' or a definite 'nono' can be very limiting.....you only have to look at that Lin Lin car lease hire site to see EVERY single design rule not only ignored, but utterly flouted in the most spectacular way.....which is exactly part of its charm and success.

My main work at the moment is on a site which is predominantly Orange and black HERE..... the shop attached to it follows the theme, and it's a deliberate theme based on the LandRover G4 colouring that the business was well established in.....that's more important as an identity to us than it MAYBE not being a liked colour scheme.
Click to expand...

I should have been more clear, my issue is with the red as the main colour, I stand by that it is not a great idea but again I stress as the main background colour, it is fine as part of a website. Black is a good bg colour as is white as they aren't overbearing or distracting.

I checked out your website (very nice btw), I think you'd agree it wouldn't look so nice if your main bg colour was the orange, so while you have kept the brand identity you choose the more user friendly way to display it.

I tried to look up the car rental site but it doesn't return in any search results so I can't comment.
 
Daisy Duke said:
I checked out your website (very nice btw)


I tried to look up the car rental site but it doesn't return in any search results so I can't comment.
Click to expand...

Thank you :)


And HERE is the website I was talking about.....just about every single rule of modern web design shattered, including having naff music :blast

Make sure you're sitting down before you click the link :D
 
Fanum said:
Thank you :)


And HERE is the website I was talking about.....just about every single rule of modern web design shattered, including having naff music :blast

Make sure you're sitting down before you click the link :D
Click to expand...

Oh sweet jesus that website should come with a health warning, I was holding the phone about 6 inches from my face when I clicked the link, could have warned me about the psychedelic flashing screen, I feel a bit nauseous :barf :D

Have to say it's as cheesy as cheese comes but that's why it works, if you're going to do it you need to go the whole way :bow
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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