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"what do you think?" My friend says, "do you think it will rank well in Google, that's what you do, isn't is. The guy who designed it said it would score well in the search engines". He's a very good friend of mine and I'd do anything to help him. But I think you'll see why I worry.
First warning sign:
It has a splash screen: "this site requires flash 6, please download it here, and is optimised for 1024x768 screen resolution. Click here to enter"
Cue intro:
30 seconds of useless drivel about how "we deliver quality" etc etc.
The site:
When you get onto the site proper (55 seconds on a 56k) you see a blank gray screen with 6 un-labeled buttons for navigation. Only when you hover over the button and click do you get any idea what the buttons mean...
Click on button, click on menu item and you get a cheezy flash iframe thing with the text in it. I didn't see a single good looking image on the whole site...
Did I mention the music?! No? There's music from the get go. Elevator music from hell. Some 16 year-old's MIDI frustrations for the world to hear. I turned off my speakers.
What the hell am I going to say to him?!
<edit> hang on - I forgot to say - ALL the text is center aligned. All of it. All the text... </edit>
Loose a friend or loose your dignity... hope you'll find a solution, and publish it!
Well, one solution is to be scientific, no "good" or "bad", just "not beneficial", "preventing the robots...", "surveys has shown...", that kind of stuff...
Good luck ;)
1) Change the website designer
2) Change the website
Now, you have to find a gentle way to tell him, who has to tell his boss in a very gentle way, who has to get his brother in law to sort it out. Oh dear,...I can see many arguments!
It has a splash screen: "this site requires flash 6, please
download it here, and is optimised for 1024x768 screen resolution.
Click here to enter"
Look on the bright side, at least he has a 'click here' with the flash
intro, many don't even have that ;o)
What the hell am I going to say to him?!
Because "He knows about computers" right?
Jeez, tell him the truth! ;)
Nick
Show him his competitor's site. Or, show him the top ranked site for his keywords.
The images should do all the talking.
Good luck :)
His BOSS'S brother-in-law?
MY brother-in-law is one thing. My FRIEND'S brother-in-law in another thing, but the BOSS's brother-in-law?
I will be interested in the outcome of this...
I spoke to one guy who had a similar sort of site .. in that the products database, the only thing of any value on his site spectacularly failed to open and displayed nothing on his main pages excepting when on some categories when it actually displayed some obviously dubious records making me think it had not even been populated with any valid data at all. The designer was unable to be contacted if I recall right, he wanted me to fix it for almost no money at all.
Navigation was all query string, no straight links on the site, download times (for image heavy backgrounds) required broadband and he had paid a lot of money.
Sorry but a fool and his money are easily parted. Not saying your friend is but perhaps the decision maker who got this site built that you are talking about was in this case.
What happenned when they did their professional supplier evaluation and selection process, had discussions on options with at least 3 potential qualified contractors, received 3 formal quotes, evaluated and then decided to give this chap the contract?
Does not sound to me that it went like that :-)
Tell him the truth, tactfully.
Perhaps also say "time will tell" and when it has 3 months online compare stats with those from a quality business website in a similar sector if possible.
If he is a serious businessman and if the net is a viable communication or sales channel for his operation he will thank you for it in the end.
If you do want to do this though, sounds like you will have a lot of fixing to do. ;-)
Mack.
"Before I comment on the site, I just wanted to ask you, am I on candid camera? Are you joking around or do you really want my professional opinion on the site?"
After that intro, he'll probably be ready to accept a more moderate toned explanation. :)
A short-term employee of his 'redesigned' his functional-though-not-pro-looking business site into a more-pro-looking-image-based-SE-invisible site.
I hadn't seen the site in several years, but happened to cruise through there as a quick way to our chat site (no bookmarks on a new machine)... and commented to him 'hey, like the new look'.
Went back a couple of days later and actually LOOKed at it. *sigh* have now avoided calling him for three months.
Put your money where your mouth is.
Nothing out of pocket for them, and you get to give them a good site, and make extra $$$ on the payment plan.
--
Mac
Tell your friend to go to : this url [webmasterworld.com] to read about your current dilema.
Give him a synopsis of the level of professionalism he might find here and invite him to ask as many pointed questions as he wishes.
If the answers he gets are open and honest, he will make the right decision and leave you out of having to deal with the mess. Its NOT your problem. Put it back on him where it belongs. My guess is that he already knows the answer to the question and is looking for a way out!
Wash your hands of this situation. You don't deserve to have "friends" putting this kind of thing on you! He is trying to diffuse the situation by taking the heat off himself and putting it on you ... "the professional".
<added>
Tell your friend that his boss's brother-in-law would benefit tremendously by joining WebmasterWorld.com and that you will personally help him to take advantage of all the things this site has to offer!
If your friend refuses or ignores the suggestion ... you have done all you could considering that nobody offered to pay for YOUR services! You can lead a horse to water ...
Let's see, we have the boss, the boss's wife, the brother of the boss's wife, and maybe the mother of the boss's wife, and other assorted in-laws and outlaws.
This isn't about business, this is about family. Your friend should stay away or he could become the convenient non-family scapegoat in the story.
Just tell your friend that it's a "courageous" web site design, that you would do it very differently but there's more than one way to skin a cat.
Then sit back and enjoy watching the train wreck.
Suggest that you will review there log files after a few months for a small charge with a report of problems on the site and improvements to be made. This way you may get some business (but only after they realise their site is a failure for capturing visitors) and secondly, the Bosses brother-in-law will have to do the main work of re-building the site to your report. It's a possibility.
The only way they'll completely ignore you is if they do heavy offline advertising and get high visitor numbers.
edit_g
Basically you can excuse personal website who have made the mistakes you have listed - but you can not let a friends business have a site like that.
Thanks to everyone who posted and stickied advice - it is much apprechiated indeed.
I told him the truth. I used laymans language in an hour long phone conversation to tell him the many reasons why the new site is not up to much.
This led to a lunch meeting with his boss, where I explained the same things to him (and he was very open about it considering it was a member of his family who had designed the site), and I've been hired to sort things out, redesign the site and optimise it. Happy bunnies all 'round.
Thanks again everyone.
"Have you had a chance to look at your site in 800x600? Let me show you what at least 45% of the viewers are seeing. Actually, it's really easy to change the screen resolution. I can actually show you how to do that on the phone....See wasn't that easy. In order to make easy for everyone, do you think it would be better to print instructions for changing the screen size on the home page? or should we just optimize for 800x600?"
..."Ok, optimize for 800x600. I think you have an excellent plan!" (you took the words right out of my last sentence!)
"Now let's take a look at the most important page for search result, the homepage. Let's see here...what text are we showing Google. Wait a second...it's all Flash! Well, I guess it looks pretty to the viewer. As I said, why don't we move flash into the ssl area so we can totally secure this powerful application." (permanently)
"I think we should take what your boss's brother-in-law mcreated and make it even better!" (not to mention completely different!)
