site feedback please

[thompom]

Hi - just discovered this forum [only been on TT 3 years!!]

this is my latest project and my first 'consumer' site - if you're bored the [constructive] feedback would be appreciated

http://www.sewardcars.com

 

[Foamcow]

I don't know where the site is hosted or whether I am having some kind of network glitch but it is taking an extremely long time for anything to happen when I visit the site.

Been upwards of 30 seconds now and still nothing.

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<honk>*:O)</honk>

Tyres: Mine's a pint of the black stuff.
Mike: You can't drink a pint of Bovril.

 

[Foamcow]

OK, now I see why.

Huge Flash movie website.

That's bad. Sorry.

The page took 2 minutes to load on my 8Mb broadband connection (although I don't get anywhere near 8Mb admittedly).
If you hadn't asked for an opinion I wouldn't have bothered waiting to see if it was loading or not.

If you really must have a totally flash based site then make a preloader that loads fast so people can see what's going on.

There are a ton of reasons not to build a site completely in Flash. Do you really want to hear them?

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<honk>*:O)</honk>

Tyres: Mine's a pint of the black stuff.
Mike: You can't drink a pint of Bovril.

 

[Foamcow]

To be fair I see it's just that homepage.
Looks nice.
Takes way to long for anything to happen.
Search crawling will be awkward though Google should manage it.

Why not redo the home page so it doesn't use Flash for the whole page, just make a few small flash elements and drop them into a largely 'normal' page?

There is nothing on the homepage you couldn't do with HTML/Javascript really. At the very least, break it up into HTML intersperesed with Flash

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<honk>*:O)</honk>

Tyres: Mine's a pint of the black stuff.
Mike: You can't drink a pint of Bovril.

 

[thompom]

thanks foamcow - will do that soon, the company wanted the wizzy car at the beginning ?!?, have to say that 30 secs is a long time for 300Kb movie - but i think your idea is the best way to go

 

[Foamcow]

Well perhaps it was another problem because it took over a minute to load.

All that for the car is a little self indulgent and won't do any favours.

Tell them this.
If, every time they went to Sainsbury's they had to watch a 30 second Jamie Oliver ad before walking through the door how long would they put up with it before they start going to Tescos?

Splash screens are a no-no.



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<honk>*:O)</honk>

Tyres: Mine's a pint of the black stuff.
Mike: You can't drink a pint of Bovril.

 

[Foamcow]

I'll write a little more later when I have more time.

I quite like the site as a whole, but there are a few issues I think you should address to get the most out of search ranking etc.

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<honk>*:O)</honk>

Tyres: Mine's a pint of the black stuff.
Mike: You can't drink a pint of Bovril.

 

[johnwm]

It's worth using this site:

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/wso.php?url=http://www.sewardcars.com/index.html

to see where your time problems lie, and how others will see the site

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