12 replies
Hey everybody, I'm new to web building and seo, and was hoping to get a little feedback on my new company Maids a la Mode
I've been in business for about 4 months. My PA is 30 and DA is 16.
Google PageRank is 3
Am I doing ok?
#critique #site
  • Profile picture of the author JHandy
    Nice site. But on first thought as an internet marketer, we all look for whether or not you are building a list for your business. Maybe I missed it, but I don't recall seeing an opt in form on your site. Without that, there is no way to alert your list/subscribers of upcoming specials coming or new services that you may be offering. Just a thought.
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  • Profile picture of the author Raydal
    The website looks like a build-to-make-the-owner
    feel-proud-but-doesn't-sell website. It's all pretty but
    is not set up to sell.

    Your home page has no selling message and when
    you dig deeper for the message it is written in
    light grey font which is difficult on the eyes. Plus,
    you talk too much about "we" and not "them", the
    customers.

    This website may work OK if people who come here
    have already been sold on your service but not as
    an effective marketing piece in my not-so-humble
    opinion.

    You need to bring the message to your front page and
    use black font like you're reading now.

    -Ray Edwards
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    The most powerful and concentrated copywriting training online today bar none! Autoresponder Writing Email SECRETS
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  • Profile picture of the author Bluestarace
    I like the website. It looks fresh and clean. My only suggestion would be to get a few testimonials from your past clients and add that somewhere on your main page. Along with that, tell your customers why they should pick your instead of your competitors.
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    Email me with your content writing needs at awriter4@gmail.comDescramble this word " LPIEKC" and use it as your subject line to earn a 10% discount on your order with me

    Whatever you do, do it well. Do it so well that when people see you do it, they will want to come back and see you do it again and they will want to bring others and show them how well you do what you do.~ Walt Disney.
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  • Profile picture of the author jpweber
    Clean, not overly busy; I like that and the aesthetics. Simple is good (KISS)! Nice job on the structured data (schema markup) ... the microdata looks nice!

    Suggestions:
    Set up a 301 redirect so that the site isn't accessible via
    https://www.maidsalamode.com/ and https://www.maidsalamode.com/index.php (duplicate content). Do this by adding this snippet of code to your root's .htaccess:
    Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews # Turn mod_rewrite on RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?$1 [L,QSA] RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,}\s(.*)/index\.php [NC] RewriteRule ^ /%1 [R=301,L]
    I think that's correct. If not, google around for a more proper .htaccess rule to remove the /index.php and essentially set up a rewrite rule that redirects users and bots that crawl /index.php to your root domain.

    Here are your GTmetrix page speed scores and Yslow scores:


    There are some things you just can't do anything about, since they're things used by 3rd parties (You could leverage browsing caching and decrease your page load time.. Add this into your .htaccess:
    # manual caching - force use of browser cache
    FileETag MTime Size
    <ifmodule mod_expires.c>
    <filesmatch "\.(jpg|gif|png|css|js|ico|pdf|swf)$">
    ExpiresActive on
    ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 year"
    </filesmatch>
    </ifmodule>
    Try to load some of your Javascripts before the closing </body> tag. Not all javascripts work under this condition, but if you can load them later, do so! So take things like:
    <script type="text/javascript" src="scripts/jquery-1.7.1.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="nivo/jquery.nivo.slider.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://use.typekit.net/srr4fov.js"></script>
    <script src="scripts/fancybox/jquery.fancybox.pack.js"></script>

    And try to put them before your closing </body> tag,
    just like your hellobar is. If your nivo slider, or
    fancybox, or whatever doesn't work, then move it back to
    the top.

    It's good you have a rel=publisher link to your google+ page.
    On your Google+ page, don't forget to include a link back pointing
    toward https://www.maidsalamode.com/! Many forget to do that.
    On your Google+ icon, try adding a ?rel=author at the end of your
    Google+ href. So your link will look like:

    <a href="https://plus.google.com/116759868461415471122?rel=author"><img src="google+icon.jpg" alt="google+ icon"></a>

    After it's all done, run your website through Google's Structured
    Data Testing Tool
    to ensure everything is there.

    Just a few ideas. Keep up the good work! Not it's time to work
    on your off-page SEO. Keep linking, and keep using your Social
    Media outlets! Sign up for something like Hootsuite that allows
    you to post to several outlets from 1 location. I use Hootsuite,
    and it's very easy once you get the hang of it.

    And I assume you already submitted your sitemap.xml to
    Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools.

    Hope this helped!
    Signature

    JP
    "Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons" ~ Woody Allen

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    • Profile picture of the author jocosity
      Originally Posted by jpweber View Post

      Clean, not overly busy; I like that and the aesthetics. Simple is good (KISS)! Nice job on the structured data (schema markup) ... the microdata looks nice!

      Hope this helped!
      Wow! Thank you so much for the detailed response. I'm going to look into to making these changes.
      Regarding leverage browser caching - I have this code in my .htaccess file, and am not sure why it isn't working properly.
      ## EXPIRES CACHING ##
      <IfModule mod_expires.c>
      ExpiresActive On
      ExpiresByType image/jpg "access plus 1 year"
      ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access plus 1 year"
      ExpiresByType image/gif "access plus 1 year"
      ExpiresByType image/png "access plus 1 year"
      ExpiresByType text/css "access plus 1 month"
      ExpiresByType application/pdf "access plus 1 month"
      ExpiresByType text/x-javascript "access plus 1 month"
      ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access plus 1 month"
      ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access plus 1 year"
      ExpiresDefault "access plus 2 days"
      </IfModule>
      ## EXPIRES CACHING ##
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      • Profile picture of the author muskyjack
        Originally Posted by jocosity View Post

        Wow! Thank you so much for the detailed response. I'm going to look into to making these changes.
        Regarding leverage browser caching - I have this code in my .htaccess file, and am not sure why it isn't working properly.
        ## EXPIRES CACHING ##
        <IfModule mod_expires.c>
        ExpiresActive On
        ExpiresByType image/jpg &quot;access plus 1 year&quot;
        ExpiresByType image/jpeg &quot;access plus 1 year&quot;
        ExpiresByType image/gif &quot;access plus 1 year&quot;
        ExpiresByType image/png &quot;access plus 1 year&quot;
        ExpiresByType text/css &quot;access plus 1 month&quot;
        ExpiresByType application/pdf &quot;access plus 1 month&quot;
        ExpiresByType text/x-javascript &quot;access plus 1 month&quot;
        ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash &quot;access plus 1 month&quot;
        ExpiresByType image/x-icon &quot;access plus 1 year&quot;
        ExpiresDefault &quot;access plus 2 days&quot;
        </IfModule>
        ## EXPIRES CACHING ##
        You need to make sure mod_expires & mod_headers are on in httpd.conf. A simple way to test is remove and leaving the rest and load up your site, if you get a 500 error then one or both of those are off.
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  • Profile picture of the author asepkomara
    Nice design. Truly cutting-edge.

    But you forgot to provide some ways for capturing visitors data/interest. That will be useful later when you decide to engage with email marketing.
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    • Profile picture of the author jocosity
      Originally Posted by asepkomara View Post

      Nice design. Truly cutting-edge.

      But you forgot to provide some ways for capturing visitors data/interest. That will be useful later when you decide to engage with email marketing.
      Thanks. I'd like to implement something like that. It's a balance between aesthetics and practicality. Hopefully I can come up with a solution.
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  • Profile picture of the author zpoll92
    The website design is pretty, however the texts are grey'ish at some place and its hard to read.
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  • Profile picture of the author muskyjack
    I recommend putting a radius map on the front page, identifying your location in a map form. I understand you will be targeting local visitors to your site but for non-locals a quick glance at your site makes me wonder if your site is a nationwide booking service or a local service.

    Adding a map with radius instantly makes your targeted visitors comfortable and makes them say their first "yes" if they live within your area.
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  • Profile picture of the author sanhal
    Great site and service. Wish we had something like this where I live!

    Apart from what others have said I thought that you could place your share buttons higher up on the page instead of at the bottom. I wondered if you had a facebook page and it took me a while to find the share buttons at the bottom of the page I was on.

    It might help your site to get shared more. Just a thought.

    Good luck with your business you are providing a great service with the eco-friendly products.

    Sandy
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