Review : sheffieldvipers.co.uk

CaffinePhil · 02-22-2008, 07:32 AM

It seems I didn't read the rules last time so I have left feedback on a few sites for people.

I've just started working on this site, still alot of content to add. Its for a local hockey team in the UK. Any comments are welcome.

www.sheffieldvipers.co.uk

D-Bo · 02-22-2008, 02:30 PM

Looks good so far. Layout seems easy enough on the eyes and I like the color scheme. The roster table looks good. What are you going to add content wise? That may help guide the direction of your design. One thought I had was if you were going to have player info/bios you could do something like make a trading card template, then you could link those into the roster table.

I really like that it's clean and straightforward

Goldjobber · 02-22-2008, 07:43 PM

I enjoy the color scheme. The logo is great, did you recreate that or is that the actual team logo? Your picture up in the corner I hope is an actual team picture I could not tell but the logos look different between the two. Also, and now I am only a humble designer here, but according to W3C your site failed validation.
In fact it could not be validated at all. I would check your coding and see what is up. Hope this helps.

pinkfluffybunny · 02-23-2008, 03:10 PM

Screw W3C - your site needs to pass the IE, Firefox and spider test... "."

the rest is bullshit

get some content up and good links on the home page, work on content (spiders no readie the pics) - let the kiddies worry about W3C

what are they going to come for pretty or info? I'd go with info.

CaffinePhil · 02-25-2008, 07:35 AM

Thanks for the comments.

D-Bo cheers I like the idea about the trading cards. The info is going up as soon as I get it from the team so will start working on that. Would you create a photoshop template of the cards and just change the image/details and use an image per member or how would you approach it with code/css?

Goldjobber - The site does not validate due to not having a DTD - I'm working on this at the minute.

Pinkfluffybunny - Sorry but I'll be working on getting the code right before SEO. I want to be able to write sematic code so will have to pay attention to the details, plus its only for a rec team and for the players ego's and a bit of banter on the forum. Thank you for the comments though.

Now any ideas how I centre this in all browsers?

pinkfluffybunny · 02-25-2008, 10:02 AM

Use this template - http://rapidshare.com/files/94838612/vipers.zip.html

play with the css file, change the text, the colors, background color, borders, etc
I cut the load time more than half for you.

fill in the blanks and change the metas, alts, headers, titles, etc to get your seo for what you want -

the look is not that important as long as it loads fast and the spiders like it - the layout will work well with spiders - play with it.

CaffinePhil · 02-26-2008, 02:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkfluffybunny

Use this template - http://rapidshare.com/files/94838612/vipers.zip.html

play with the css file, change the text, the colors, background color, borders, etc
I cut the load time more than half for you.

fill in the blanks and change the metas, alts, headers, titles, etc to get your seo for what you want -

the look is not that important as long as it loads fast and the spiders like it - the layout will work well with spiders - play with it.

Sorry but the look is important to me, I want to create a visually nice web site. The team are not bothered about being number one in google and I prefer the fact that I can create a good looking site with sematic markup rather than ranking higher in search engines.

Thank you for the work you have done on the template, I will have a look and have a mess around. But PR/SERP isn't my goal here.

pinkfluffybunny · 02-26-2008, 07:26 AM

K,

I keep the same look kid, just fixed your mistakes

have fun kid

thought you might actually want some sponsors -

hear it all the time - sooner or later they lose interest, site becomes stagnant - noone keeps it updated - it just sits there... until they get tired of paying the hosting bill

pinkfluffybunny · 02-26-2008, 08:35 AM

Oh you're a webmonkey - trying to put up a link to get traffic to a site you built for some poor bastard that thought you knew what you were doing. So now you're going to what - show him how much great targeted traffic you got him.....

I was being kind, You fooled me. I thought you were a guy that threw up a home made job -(you know like a 3 year old pointing into the toilet and saying "look what I made")

get a new job - you're ripping people off
You want a real review?
this image

- 41 K

This image -

26k

The banner 46k - you lazy ass optimise.

if's its a non profit why the hell didn't u use a .org

there is so much wrong with this piece of....work - I won't bother going on ....

pinkfluffybunny · 02-26-2008, 09:09 AM

You want reviews on the sheffield vipers hockey club UK, not worried about placement for the sheffieldvipers hockey club, lets see where this thread shows up in the engines for sheffield vipers hockey club in sheffield UK

see now you get some advertising FREE - I'm so so kind

bet you'll work on placement now....... :-(

CaffinePhil · 02-26-2008, 09:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkfluffybunny

Oh you're a webmonkey - trying to put up a link to get traffic to a site you built for some poor bastard that thought you knew what you were doing. So now you're going to what - show him how much great targeted traffic you got him.....

I was being kind, You fooled me. I thought you were a guy that threw up a home made job -(you know like a 3 year old pointing into the toilet and saying "look what I made")

get a new job - you're ripping people off
You want a real review?
this image

- 41 K

This image -

26k

The banner 46k - you lazy ass optimise.

if's its a non profit why the hell didn't u use a .org

there is so much wrong with this piece of....work - I won't bother going on ....

OK - Do you have a problem with me disagreeing with you?
This site was hand coded by myself and I put it up for genuine comments on how I can improve it.
On the image optimisation, what would you reccomend is a suitable file size to download?

Its a .co.uk and not a .org because that is the url the guy wanted and how can I be ripping a guy off when all this work has been done for free?

pinkfluffybunny · 02-26-2008, 10:39 AM

If it's a freebie you have my sincere apology

pinkfluffybunny · 02-26-2008, 09:51 PM

I will bump this down and out in a few days - sorry kid - http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search

Don't worry it won't show up on google.co.uk

mit · 02-26-2008, 10:14 PM

I like your logo and color scheme. It looks very simple and focused but yet incomplete site. Try to include content and some more links.

Sitemap and Bottom navigation would be useful.

Best of luck

CaffinePhil · 02-27-2008, 02:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkfluffybunny

If it's a freebie you have my sincere apology

No harm no foul.

What images sizes would you try to optimise to for usage on such a site?

Thanks again for all the comments.

pinkfluffybunny · 02-27-2008, 08:15 AM

In the UK broadband usage is about 23%. (the US is a bit lower or higher depending on which study you like) - all the studies differ but the percentage is still low.

Meaning 77% of the sites vistors (more or less) will be using a 56K modem
probably getting somewhere around 46K.

How long would you wait for a site to load - how much browsing would you do on a slow loading site with a 46K connection?

with a 19 sec load time about 80% of the visitors will leave before the page loads...

Here's an example - Up intil a few weeks ago one of my clients was a financial client. When daddy was running the business he hired people that would look him in the eye and say nope "I won't do that because".

So here's what happened when his 24 year old kid was put in charge of a multi-million a month business.

The domain names Markettraders.com and forextips.com both pointed to one site - the goal of the site was only one thing "collect leads" not look pretty, just collect leads.

The kid got to sit behind daddy's desk and lost track of the goal - Pretty is important now. I said "no, you want pretty go build your own site". Daddy steps in and tells him what I say goes.

They take the markettraders.com domain name and build this site (hired a webmonkey)- http://www.markettraders.com/ - the kids theory "I think" being, We'll refer people to it from the lead collection site and get more sales - sounds good right? (I'm kinda lost on the theory because they have a sales staff that actually call these people on the phone) They refer people there also -(other media sources)

Nope - 85% of all the people referred to this site leave before the first page loads (and these are visitors that signed up for more info on the lead collection site or actually typed in the url or clicked an ad (landing pages are slow also) - so they are really interested)

So what happens? the lead collection site outsells the sales (landing site) 10 to 1. But looks are more important than actually metting your goals- right?

Fast load time!!!!

When I meet with a CEO the first time I always ask what the goals are, then ask if I put up a blank page with nothing on it and it obtains those goals - do you care.

Only one ever said yes - I told him to hire someone else.

What's the goal of your site? looks or to provide useful information to club members, pick up a few sponsors, and maybe a few new people interested in joining the club.

The way the site looks can be adjusted, but it should never interfere with the goals