6 months and no sales on my website (pr 3/10), please have a look.

I would assume that you are talking about this website ? Web Design Edinburgh | Home - Design Promote for business and if so, let me point something out. I'm not going to say that you suck however there are many BETTER websites that provide what you offer for a lot less in pricing and a lot higher in quality. Maybe this is not your best work, but you do have to keep in mind that when people visit your website you are giving them a first impression of your work. I would recommend redoing the entire website honestly. There are also LOTS of resources on the internet to help you better understand the joint venture of graphic design and web development when putting the two together.

John

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DesignPromote

13 years ago

Yes it is the website. Thank you for your feedback. I could have probably used wordpress and with some photos, but I tried to be a difference, and it didn't work.

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Michael71

13 years ago

Don't worry mate...

The problem with your site is:

- no design at all, it is not visually appealing for visitors.
- bad code, 15 Errors ([Invalid] Markup Validation of http://www.designpromote.co.uk/ - W3C Markup Validator)
- no clear structure

I am sorry to say, but even my bad landing pages look much better, and I really know how to code HTML/CSS/jQuery.

You could learn a lot from me

The thing is this:

If a visitor comes to your website and he is looking at a website that you have done... he can expect exactly that.

If a visitor comes to your website and he is looking at a premium wordpress theme (not a free one, but maybe from elegantthemes or themeforest)... he can expect exactly that... you only sell premium themes.

I hope you get what I mean.

Take care

Originally Posted by DesignPromote

Yes it is the website. Thank you for your feedback. I could have probably used wordpress and with some photos, but I tried to be a difference, and it didn't work.

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DesignPromote 13 years ago

1. Cost to hire a designer
Do you know how much i should pay for the design with matched color, layout and fonts, and changes for approve (no coding though), i am in in the UK.

2. Regarding to - bad code, 15 Errors ([Invalid] Markup Validation of http://www.designpromote.co.uk/ - W3C Markup Validator) by Michael71, firstly, thanks for check. I checked most (or all?) errors related to <link> or <link/>, they are not errors. i hand coded and tested on 3 main browsers (firefox, chrome, IE, all latest versions though), may one or two typing mistakes.
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tspringfield

13 years ago

I have to say that as far as design goes, this website does need some help. You could use some content as well. I would suggest using a wordpress theme. They are everywhere and add a video to the home page. Then you can showcase your portfolio.

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Greg71 13 years ago

The portfolio looks ok, but your own site needs a revamp.
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DesignPromote

13 years ago

To Michael71, tspringfield, Greg71, thanks for your time and opinions.
It was a learning project at that time, based on my previous knowledge, I tried CSS, some Jquery, php and mysql, and google analytics' data, seo stuffs. I did all by myself in the belief of "only common sense needed to design and develop a website", actually it's another reason to be able to offer price cheaper. Sadly it doesn't work. I am changing it now (still by myself), to make it simple with more contents. Once done i will ask a designer to check, and willing to pay for improvement. I suppose it's what business for, spending and earning, at the moment, most importantly to me is to have customers.

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Istvan Horvath

13 years ago

only common sense needed to design and develop a website

There goes your problem:
Design = talent and imagination!
Developing = knowledge (of programming languages) and precise work.

Most programmers suck at design... and vice-versa.

(P.S. Usually, the review requests of "designers" are deleted; however, I left this one open for discussion because the OP illustrates prominently the general mistake, so characteristic of wannabe designers: see the line I quoted)

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Michael71

13 years ago

100% agreed, but I would like to add one more...

PHP programmers are usually VERY bad at HTML/CSS

They suck in HTML AND design

Most backend-devs just copy&paste the html part

Originally Posted by Istvan Horvath

There goes your problem:
Design = talent and imagination!
Developing = knowledge (of programming languages) and precise work.

Most programmers suck at design... and vice-versa.

(P.S. Usually, the review requests of "designers" are deleted; however, I left this one open for discussion because the OP illustrates prominently the general mistake, so characteristic of wannabe designers: see the line I quoted)

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DesignPromote

13 years ago

Thanks Istvan Horvath. I agree with you about design, good design (it may cost) to me means when I see it I think: wow, i never saw it before. Common sense is referred to be able to do a working website. I am still working on my website, hopefully can complete it over weekend.

After looking at your link, i realize you are wordpress expert focusing on usability. may i ask:
1. why didn't you do a Plugin or template, good for SEO and making money or it's not worth for you to do?
2. After seeing wordpress based website day by day, I am a little fed up to see more. May customers have a different feeling to me as they only occasionally saw one or two?

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Istvan Horvath

13 years ago

Originally Posted by DesignPromote

After looking at your link, i realize you are wordpress expert focusing on usability. may i ask:
1. why didn't you do a Plugin or template, good for SEO and making money or it's not worth for you to do?
2. After seeing wordpress based website day by day, I am a little fed up to see more. May customers have a different feeling to me as they only occasionally saw one or two?

Hmm... This thread wasn't supposed to be about my WP expertize. That just happened, after using it since 2004.

I left the thread to run because your OP and (unfortunately) the following posts revealed a lot of misconceptions that are generally wide-spread among all the wannabe webguys... be it designers, developers, webmasters or any other species.

The site is unsuccessful because its owner is not sure about what he wants to do or what his specialty is.
Web design? - OK, but his own site is not stellar and appealing...
Developer? - What does he develop?
SEO? - What? Another BS snake oil salesman?

Furthermore, trying to carve your own "niche" in the marketplace without having a well-defined knowledge/skill/talent set for a specific, targeted group... is quite difficult.

Why should the potential client choose you and not another designer/developer/webmaster? What is that unique thing that makes you different? USP anyone? (unique selling point)

Are you talented with the graphical look? > go for visual, graphic design. (If not, forget it..)

Are you good with code and programming? > be a developer, code-fixer, "go-to guy" for website owners.

Are you another SEO expert? > then don't post in this forum

Website having rank 3? Cool, except your potential clients don't give a sh*t about it and don't care. Pagerank does NOT make you sales. Period.

No sales? Do you have a irresistible sales copy? Do you have former clients who send you new referrals? Why not?

Who is visiting your website? How do you get traffic (and don't give me the "it isn't too difficult to bring a website to google page 1 or 2..." crap because I hate SEO people and don't trust them!)? So, how do you get targeted traffic? What is your conversion rate? If zero, then look at your traffic's source, at your sales copy, at your offer... Just do not look at page rank

Sorry, man, nothing personal - you just seems to expose all the possible issues a beginner can have.

And to answer your questions; hopefully you'll learn something from it, too...

1. I have made my very first theme in 2005 and till today I got many thousands backlinks although I didn't even require to keep the link in footer... just asked them nicely, if they could do it. Oh, and I gave it away for free

No, it is not worth my time to spend on SEO idiocy (because the majority of seo 'experts' are either ignorant or con men). Good content is the SEO! Later I was making custom (unique) themes, mainly for corporate clients... and for a lot of money. They always referred new customers by word of mouth because they were happy campers. (btw, non of them were IMers!)
Also, please, do not tell me HOW I should make money using my knowledge and expertise. I teach people how to use WP effectively and in smart ways. That's my strength: I am a super WP user (no coder), I know how to do stuff with WP.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of bad and mediocre WP theme "designers". And as many crappy plugin authors. I don't want to be the +1...

I want to be (and I am) the guy who knows WP. And can teach you! (and I never used the word usability in my copy or my book :p)

A last word about seo: when I made a blog or site with WP in any language, I made it for people - not stupid search engines. People used to read my posts, to link back to my posts, to comment on my posts etc. - when I was blogging...

2. It doesn't matter how YOU feel about certain things. You are NOT your own customer! Start to think with your customer's head and you may become successful!

-------------------
So, do you know yet what are you going to be when you grow up?

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cititoru

13 years ago

You shouldn't focus on getting online the clients, but try offline. Local newspapers, flyers, and the likes. I believe this is a pretty hard niche to break into online, and you'd have to be really good with seo and online marketing, not just web development.

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DesignPromote

13 years ago

Originally Posted by cititoru

You shouldn't focus on getting online the clients, but try offline. Local newspapers, flyers, and the likes. I believe this is a pretty hard niche to break into online, and you'd have to be really good with seo and online marketing, not just web development.

I didn't spend money on marketing yet because I was collecting data (google analytics) to give me better understanding about my website. marketing offline is must-have way for business, but online is cheap and quick, SEO sounds very competitive but if you look in deep, they are only for certain types of business, sadly including website design. Once you take time to study seo, you would find it isn't too difficult to bring a website to google page 1 or 2 but it's very hard to be on the top.

Sometimes I wonder why people ask SEO company to bring traffic, it is not traffic count, it's all about sales. It should be web designer's job (or SEO and web designer work together) to make website work. By the way, it's what I am going to offer and my understanding so far.

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abhempire

13 years ago

Look, i've seen some real crappy websites, like one page that looks like it's been made by my grandma, and they were still bringing in money. Design is a big part of a sale, but it's not everything. You say you were collecting data but you don't even have traffic and you don't want to spend money on marketing, so what data are you collecting?! You wasted 6 months focusing on the wrong thing.

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DesignPromote

13 years ago

Originally Posted by abhempire

Look, i've seen some real crappy websites, like one page that looks like it's been made by my grandma, and they were still bringing in money. Design is a big part of a sale, but it's not everything. You say you were collecting data but you don't even have traffic and you don't want to spend money on marketing, so what data are you collecting?! You wasted 6 months focusing on the wrong thing.

1. I agree with you, it's about contents, but have different meanings on each type of business, for example, for restaurants, it's food and service; for my service, it's portfolio, design and coding.
2. I have traffic it's why I didn't spend money on marketing (yet), it's why my PR is 3 now.
3. What do you mean wrong thing: design or collecting data.

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dinga

13 years ago

Originally Posted by DesignPromote

I am currently redesigning it but love to hear your feedback why it doesn't work.

You are a developer and not a designer. Your lack of sales are most likely a direct result of your poorly designed website. The user interface is amateurish and the graphics look to be taken from a 90's website.

I suggest you play on your strengths as a developer. Let someone else do the designing. Either team up with a designer or purchase templates to start your builds.

Few people can develop and design. Good luck on your redesign!

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DesignPromote

13 years ago

Originally Posted by dinga

You are a developer and not a designer. Your lack of sales are most likely a direct result of your poorly designed website. The user interface is amateurish and the graphics look to be taken from a 90's website.

I suggest you play on your strengths as a developer. Let someone else do the designing. Either team up with a designer or purchase templates to start your builds.

Few people can develop and design. Good luck on your redesign!

It's true, good coding and good design all need time to make it work (perfect?). regarding to the previous website(as I have redesigned), i was a little rush to put it online, then i changed head photos when it wasn't working, then waited until now to redesign it. I will focus on quality and put price up to allow me work with designers. Please have a look at my new website.

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DesignPromote

13 years ago

While I am reading IV's post and will reply accordingly, please have a look at my new website, design or develop a website always took longer than I expected.
website: Web Design Edinburgh - Website design, business promote SEO (or click my signature)
service: website design with traffic

Welcome feedbacks

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t0x1c350

13 years ago

If you dont generated any sales in 6 months it means something is really going BAD ! and the fact that your assuming that prices are low is the thing that let you making more mistakes ! Please go around other website's NICHE , and try to find out whats going wrong and make a lot of changes , let your strategy dynamic ! dont wait another 6 months !

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Give a PROFESSIONAL FRESH LOOK TO YOUR PRODUCT ==> Sell it 500% more

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Istvan Horvath

13 years ago

While I am reading IV's post and will reply accordingly...

If you are referring to my post - don't even think to reply and answer to it line by line.

Those were more "rhetorical" questions, mainly to make you to think about those issues.
NO NEED TO ANSWER.

Anyway, this thread outlived its usefulness - as per the rules (sticky post) no more discussion about web designers own website.

Good luck!

EDIT. Do not start a new thread if your thread has been closed!

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6 months and no sales on my website (pr 3/10), please have a look.

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