me interwebsite

[SteveD]

bev has just stuck some more details and phots on my interwebsite ,now i feel it needs a spruce up errrr and a bit more professional or whatever ,so is there anyone local that would be intersted in having a stab at it ,or just give some feedback on it etc ,any pointers

[alexander72]

Tom Frankland to the forum......

[alexander72]

Steve, in your gallery are they Ford mud guards for an old tractor?  or are they Ferguson ones painted Ford blue mate? 

[SteveD]

Steve, in your gallery are they Ford mud guards for an old tractor?  or are they Ferguson ones painted Ford blue mate? 

there off a  3000 i think wuv

[Norman Verona]

Steve, it does not have to be anyone local, it's the internet. I could do it from here, if I was good at that sort of thing.

[alexander72]

Nice mud guards Wuv.... tractor envy here.....

[Norman Verona]

Steve, If you happy with the top logo design I would just take some of the pictures out and leave a gap between them. The wording can be re-written, not due to grammer but to "spice it up". For example on the engine page I think you have said "we offer" at least 4 times, it can be re-written to be more interesting and, maybe, more informative. Best done by a copywriter at an ad agency.

 

Only other thing I would suggest is to put Middlewich on the logo. Maybe "Middlewich Specialist Bodyshop". This tells at a glance what you do and where you are. Forget that, memory span of a gnat, just looked again.

[SteveD]

Nice mud guards Wuv.... tractor envy here.....

 funny thing is wuv my ex partner from my other bodyshop is really big in the tractor scene and has about 20 odd vintage tractors and restors them ,those mudgaurds are his mate's who brought them to me for painting  

[Norman Verona]

Steve, you have an email.

 

OK, ducks.

[Norman Verona]

And another.

[SteveD]

where where

[Norman Verona]

Emails Steve, not PM's

[SteveD]

i know wuver but where the chuff have you sent em ,if you have sent em to the work email address then i wont read em till the morning when i get in , so dont start chuffin moaninmg that i havnt replied

[Wile E. Coyote]

There's a ton of stuff you can do here that will have a quick impact in both visual and search engine terms - just a few initial thoughts, which hopefully are helpful:

 

General wording

The wording is far from the worst I've seen, but it would be worth focusing each page a little more and playing the game around key word optimisation - basically making sure that you have strong, but not spammy, concentration of the keywords you think people might want to search for on each relevant page.

 

You also flip around a bit between "I" and "we" - worth considering standardising on "we" with a section/page telling the Steve D/MAB story of how it came to be/your experience etc?

 

Style

Again, far from the worst I've seen - and I like the fact that it looks like an honest small business - but I do wonder about the benefits of the Sikkens and Dataliner logos/links in the yellow bar.  Are they important (or even recognised) by the majority of your customers?  I'd be tempted to lose them but make sub-pages with more details on them (linked from the "services" page).

 

You could think about buying a template for something like WordPress that would immediately jazz it up - something along the lines of:

http://www.templatemonster.com/wordpress-themes/45685.html

or

http://www.templatemonster.com/wordpress-themes/45390.html

 

(just two examples, and if you want something like this, we can probably find them/similar without messing around with US dollars - and each part of the layout can usually be easily customised (e.g. your pics and colour schemes instead of the standard ones))

 

(Wordpress is a really simple "content management system" that lets you add/edit content and add/delete pages without needing to know the techie stuff - it's also free, and a lot easier to maintain for a small business than doing something that involves a full bespoke style)

 

The marketing "hooks"

I think you could sell yourself more by building out the sections a bit more.  For example, in the specialist section, it would be great to see some links to more detailed page for each of the makes mentioned - what would be really great would be a couple of mini-case studies showing before and after pics of specific cars, along with a bit of text that says what you did to them (perhaps even include testimonials from the owner?)

Why no mention of customers being so impressed that they've commissioned all sorts of special projects from you (like the seats etc)?  To me that people do that says a lot about the standards you work to and your ability to work on things a little bit different.

 

Use of tags

You're not taking full advantage of the way Google reads webpages - I'd be tempted to make the titles take the form "Middlewich Auto Bodies ¦ <interesting subject>".  I had a look at a couple of pages and couldn't see any H1 (heading) tags, which Google also uses to help identify key material.

 

URL structure

The URL structure isn't bad, but you could again do more to help Google out: for example, I'd suggest changing URLs such as:

"http://www.middlewichautobodies.co.uk/special.html" to "www.middlewichautobodies.co.uk/specialist-vehicle-services.html" and;

"http://www.middlewichautobodies.co.uk/engine.html" to "www.middlewichautobodies.co,uk/elise-exige-engine-conversion.html"

 

You could do worse than having sub-pages such as www.middlewichautobodies.co,uk/westfield-accident-repair.html"

 

(similar thoughts too about the way image files are named, but you should also add "alt text" (that describes the image in the tags))

 

Focusing on what people search for

Suspect that people are either going to find you by word of mouth or Google.

 

You rank really highly if you search for "Middlewich bodyshop", but not for terms like "Middlewich accident repair" (you're on the second page for that one), or "Westfield accident repair" (not on first three pages) which people might use to try and find someone able to help them out.  Would be worth adding more references to accident repair or even having a page pretty much dedicated to "accident repair services" or similar.

 

Legal

You're not fully compliant with the requirements of the Companies Act - you need to include your company reg number and registered office address...

 

I know a few people locally who have had sites done and would be more than happy to get details of their techies (the guy who did mine isn't local) but depending on how much time/money you want to throw at it, I'd seriously consider looking at Wordpress (or asking whoever you get to do it to go down that route).  If you/Bev have got things this far, I daresay you could setup/manage Wordpress without any real difficulties.

[Norman Verona]

Steve, sent as a PM now.