During this Christmas break I have intensively spent my time on working on my new website in joomla. I have finally chosen the template and I decided to use one from website http://themekat.com/ . I have configured the header except the logo (I must work more on it) and partly on footer. I have made menu already and I have started to fill website with articles (before I created all categories). I still don't understand all philosophy of joomla so I must practise more.
I visited your website and its really good but i would suggest you to make it more colorful and put some more images...
Hi, Happy New Year to everyone here and may all of your challenges be greeted with success - especially getting loads of traffic to your sites. Cheers http://fastriches2u.com/blog/
Firstly, it's a lovely site, simple, love the before and after animation, an attention grabber although not too hard on the eye, and also complies with the attention grabber part of AIDA (Attention Interest Desire Action - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDA_%28marketing%29) I also like the "we provide a very reliable service" as this provides reassurance and will hopefully stop people clicking out of the site. And the title "Welcome to Our Photo Restoration Website", you immidiately know what you do (although I would change Our to Your). I believe that you should use the word "you" whereever possible to make it personal to the visitor. So We Provide "You" a very reliable service 8) CBDM Process You may find the CBDM (consumer buying decision making process) useful - have a look here rohan.sdsu.edu/~renglish/370/notes/chapt05/. * So basically make sure people will quickly see the benefit of your service and that it's what they need. * You'll need visitors to be able to quickly order as they may be further down the CBDM process, they may just want to immediately order your service. Jacob Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics: I personally also find that Jacob Nielsen's simple 10 Usability Heuristics are very useful when considering website design and structure - take a look at the Nielsen Group's site below: nngroup com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/ So bearing in mind these heuristics, I clicked on the words in your banner thinking they may be links (yep, I'm a doughnut but good to have a doughnut testing you site as you may have other doughnut customers) Jacob Neilsen also discussed "recognition" so I like to use metaphor icons, like email graphics. Above the "Fold" I've also been told that you should put the most important information above the "fold", so visitors don't have to scroll down for it. So they'll need to be able to quickly get their attention grabbed, see your sevice fills their need, and order quickly. SEO Think about the names of your pages and links and use of keywords - check out Google Keyword tool - adwords google com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__c=1000000000&__u=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS Additional Menu How about using another menu for your links Photo Restoration, Photo Retouching, Photo Coloring, etc? Entice people to click on these and to be able to navigate to them whereever they are in the site. You could really entice them with contrasting colours or images, and say something like "Restore Your Treasured Photos", I'm sure you can think of something better than that but you see what I mean. Or, "Retouch and Improve Photo Quality" I can see that you have the links under a top nav menu but I really like these links and would want to find out about them and I think your visitors will also want to be able to get to them quickly and navigate back to them wherever they are. Only my opinion though, you know your visitors best. Reassurance Again, I like the reassurance aspect so keep using this throughout the buying process "we'll look after you", "we'll help you with any queries", "please give us feedback we want to keep improving", etc Just remember that people don't like scanning around for things. I've been told that you have 7 seconds before people click away so make things easy to find, relevant and obvious; try not to bury links within the site. Couple of last things I also believe it's good to make logos and company names in banners clickable, directed back to the homepage. Not sure where I heard that but I believe it's a good thing to do. And Google Analytics - I think this is brilliant to see how your site is doing and what keywords are working - * google co uk/analytics/ SEO - I really like the SEO an Hour a Day book, really easy to read and put things into practice. - * look at yourseoplan com / Oh, just thought about Colours - colours play an important part too - read this, I only just googled this site so only briefly scanned the information * colour-affects.co.uk/psychological-properties-of-colours Very wise words I once read, you may not like the colour but if it works for your niche and visitor use it. And also contrast to "Grab Attention" I'm just about to improve my husbands old website (long, long, long overdue), I just hope I can put my money where my mouth is. Good luck with your venture. Michelle
Thank you Michelle for so nice and valuable comment. I will read everything and I will try to use your advice.
I still learn about joomla and I have been building my new website in this CMS system. Just before New Year Eve I bought good book Steven Burge "Joomla!Explained:Step-by-Step Guide" and I have read half of it already. This book is very good for beginners.
Very nice job! You have done very well. Interesting site, and photos! Keep it up....and as always, making changes to your site here and there is always a good thing...it keeps people coming back for the fresh content, as well as seeing the new changes. Good Luck!
not bad. Altough it takes some time to load some pictures, but I guess is the sytem that is causing that. Good luck with your website.