New web site for Zed's - please criticise. :)

art b · Nov 3, 2013

and some orange busses

Dicky · Nov 3, 2013

wheres the bit that says you dont like welding chassis! Or have we moved on?

snotty · Nov 3, 2013

zed said: ↑

And for @snotty, to satisfy his "men dressed in small tight garments" fetish...

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A fetish I honestly don't have, even more so after seeing that ...

Just pointing out that the Speedos did Daniel Craig's career no end end of good . Mind you, thinking about it, he didn't have to weld top hat sections while wearing his budgie-smugglers...

snotty · Nov 3, 2013

PS Zed - put your hourly rate up, mate. You could stick another fiver on it (at least) and none would notice...

sANDYbAY · Nov 3, 2013

What a fantastically helpful answer.

surfgir1 said: ↑

(...I now sit back and await the inevitable TLB corrections of my own typos/grammar above! )
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No-one would dare!

Owen Snell · Nov 3, 2013

paradox said: ↑

Wheres the merchanidise like stickers and t shirts
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That's a very good idea.

MorkC68 · Nov 3, 2013

Nothing wrong with the website at all, reads fine to me! Scrolling etc worked fine, nice and smooth, no jumping from frame to frame!

Hope it brings new business to you

Poptop2 · Nov 3, 2013

zed said: ↑

Noted.
I might even do a bloggy page to show what I'm up to. @poptop2 will now take the wee.
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extract the urine. Moi? s'il vouz plait pass de monsieur!

Ermintrude · Nov 3, 2013

what about t1's?

pmacs49 · Nov 3, 2013

looks good, hope it gets you plenty of work. all the best Buddy.

carlperkins001 · Nov 3, 2013

Just had a read through the site, comes across really honest and customer focused!

Also, didn't know you had a booth and did full re-sprays. I shall contact you about mine in the future if you have the time.

Tuesday wildchild · Nov 3, 2013

Can a link be posted in thread for us on tapa or you gonna make us use a browser

Zed · Nov 3, 2013

tuesday_wildchild said: ↑

Can a link be posted in thread for us on tapa or you gonna make us use a browser
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http://st5493.wix.com/zedsbusgarage

Zed · Nov 3, 2013

Ermintrude said: ↑

what about t1's?
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What about them?

theBusmonkey · Nov 3, 2013

surfgir1 said: ↑

It's a good website and a pleasing layout, so well done!

I'm going to preface my post below by saying I used to critique this kind of stuff professionally, so please don't take me being picky the wrong way - I genuinely mean it when I say it's great as it is if you want to leave it alone, and you are free to ignore my advice without fear of me taking offence

Structure/Usability
Firstly, like @sANDYbAY and @Mrs Moosey I also spent a while clicking on the three pics and their titles to click through to their respective pages. For usability's sake I would make these link through to the relevant page, and I would link the paint job one through to the different section you have on how you have specialist painter you use for a full respray, but do the prep for your customers yourself. As a small business, if even one customer is irritated by a pic not clicking through as expected and quits the site without exploring further it matters, so the fact in a relatively small sample of testers both sANDYbAY and I have found this behaving against expectations is significant.

As others have also said, I agree that I expected them each to go to separate pages, and if you keep this layout for the homepage it might well be worth clarifying in your own mind what the difference for you is between "Driveability Solutions" and "Service and Repair" and setting up either separate pages for them or putting them in two sections on the same page, one above the other and having the link link through to the header for the relevant section. There's no problem duplicating your expertise as long as the two pages aren't exact duplicates and unless you are paying per page you create I would recommend you do all you can to maximise the opportunities for customer's to say "aha! yes, he is the perfect answer to my specific need".

That's all marketing/spin is - work out what problems your potential customer has (or even more importantly THINKS he has) and spin your life story/product/experience/service as the answer to just that issue You got a ghost? Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters! You got a T2 problem? Who ya gonna call? Zed!

FWIW, I think if I were picking three categories to "sell" your skills in, I think I would pick "Service and Repairs", "Paint and Bodywork", and "Mods and Upgrades" (or similar) and create a sub-page for each under your Services tab/button. I could be way off target, though, and Driveability Solutions certainly has a great PR ring to it

Price is also a big factor in potential customers' decision-making processes, and as yours are such a bargain and a massive selling point I would also consider pulling all your prices together in one page (maybe as well as where they are in the current format, or as well as listing them at the bottom of any sub-pages to which they are relevant) for comparison and ease of reference. If you do this put a small line on the page about them being dependent on individual circs, etc, so you aren't held to them no matter what by some chancer.

I'd also echo the having a recommendations page - it feels horribly cheesy when it's you asking for the comments/testimonials, but it really helps potential customers feel that you are to be trusted.

I also think having a blog (and/or a twitter feed?) is an excellent idea - but only if you keep it up-to-date. If you set it up, use it wonderfully for a while but then find you haven't posted in it for over a couple of months, I'd suggest you then remove the blog from the site as this gives the wrong impression imho.

As an aside about business blogs, I don't know much about other mechanics' blogs, but there are many examples of blogs which started out idly gathering a following and bringing extra business in simply because people have heard about them through the blog and liked what they saw. In general I'd say they are quite specialist, very like VW Campers are from an outsiders' pov, and it's amazing how successful a blog which is apparently about something nobody thought would be that interesting per se, becomes a big success because their approach to the blog is accessible for potential customers/like-minded enthusiasts who go on to become customers or recommend them to others. With the owners' permission you could blog about every longer term van that comes in when they arrive, take pictures as a starting reference, and take pictures at significant points along the way as their resto/more minor work progresses, concluding in a lovely photo/advert for your services as they leave completed and in tip top shape. I'd have thought as long as you have the time and enthusiasm for it this kind of approach could work really well in the VW camper world, especially as us owners see our (and others') vans as characters in their own right - look how interesting we find the resto threads on here

Copy/Text
Back to being picky, it would feel better to me (especially as someone reading it from slightly further afield) if the text on your homepage had a town or city as a reference as well as the counties - eg "A VW T2 only workshop trading for 6 years on the Cambridge / Suffolk / Norfolk border." becomes "A VW T2 only workshop trading for 6 years on the Cambridgeshire / Suffolk / Norfolk border within easy reach of Cambridge and Ely."(or whatever you feel your biggest local towns/cities are)

I would also find a way to work in the ease of access to any mainline stations and list them - maybe add this information to the contact page? Also is it easily accessible from any major roads?

Grammar/Spelling
Very few that I can see right now - which is bloody amazing in my experience!

The main grammatical one I spotted was "Owners Vans" which should either be "Owner's Vans" if it refers to a singular owner and multiple vans, or "Owners' Vans" if it refers to multiple owners and multiple vans.

A few others are in the About > Workshop section:
"The workshop is in units in a converted farm buildings." - I'd probably lose the 'a' before "converted farm buildings"?
"We can have several long term jobs on the go simmultaneously and fit in smaller works at short notice." - I'd probably chage "works" to "work" or call it "smaller jobs" and change the first to "long term projects"?

And a possible one in the About > About Zed's section: "Cue realisation that after 20 years of mechanical engineering" - you could also say "Cue the realisation that after 20 years of mechanical engineering". It's really a matter of taste, I'm just highlighting it in case it is something you didn't intend.

Hyphens... hmm... Now these are something which I confess confuse me nowadays (and I'm not that old!) as it is becoming ever more acceptable to not hyphenate things like "long-term", "Fair-sized" and "second-hand" so whether you do or not is up to you as long as you are consistant about it, which I think you have been. I would however definitely hyphenate "cost-effective" (under Services > Engine Upgrade or Replacement) rather than leave it as two separate words.

Spelling issues -
* About > The Workshop 'Simultaneously' in the sentence above you have too many m's
* About > The Workshop "Also on site there is a fair sized second hand new/old furniture shop, you can have a shed made, a Mini set up to be competative at National level" the spelling that needs correcting is 'competitive'
* From the About > Our Ethos section: "Every camper owner has different ideas about how they want their bus, so we tailor out offerings to suit you." I think this should probably say "tailor our" instead of "tailor out"?
* Home > Common Sense "If your engine requires a complete rebuild, a full time engine builder offering a 12 month warrenty" should be 'warranty'
* Home "Or txt... it can be noisy in the workshop... or email via the contacts page." - 'Text' not 'txt'? I'd also personally remove the '...' punctuation and put in 'as' and a comma instead, but it's your character that needs to come across, not mine Oh, another thought on this line - if you can guarantee same-day response to initial texts and/or emails I would put this in (i.e. "and I guarantee we will get back to you within a day") as for me with experience with some absolutely lovely but apparently communcationally-challenged mechanics, this would have me contacting you in relief and feeling respected as a customer as well.

Sorry - that's all become rather long-winded and pernickety! These really are such small things, though and I'd like once again to commend you on an excellent site, and the brilliant way you come over as exactly who you are - completely honest, trustworthy, experienced, and absolutely worth taking your van to.

(...I now sit back and await the inevitable TLB corrections of my own typos/grammar above! )
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OMG we pay LOADS for this type of service....GREAT advice

rickyrooo1 · Nov 3, 2013

one more critisism. £30 an hour? no wonder you're skint.

rickyrooo1 · Nov 3, 2013

i meant only £30

Tuesday wildchild · Nov 3, 2013

Its just a strip down the middle about a third of the screen on my 7" tablet using Firefox.

snotty · Nov 3, 2013

rickyrooo1 said: ↑

one more critisism. £30 an hour? no wonder you're skint.
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'Tis true. My bloke used to charge the same six years ago. Put yer rates up, Zed!

Zed · Nov 3, 2013

Hmmmm... so I'm too cheap am I?

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New web site for Zed's - please criticise. :)

art b

Dicky

snotty

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MorkC68 Administrator

Poptop2 Administrator

Ermintrude

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Tuesday wildchild I'm a circle!

Zed Gradually getting grumpier

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New web site for Zed's - please criticise. :)

sANDYbAY On benefits-won't sponsor!

MorkC68 Administrator

Poptop2 Administrator

Tuesday wildchild I'm a circle!

Zed Gradually getting grumpier

Zed Gradually getting grumpier

theBusmonkey Sponsor

rickyrooo1 Hanging round like a bad smell

rickyrooo1 Hanging round like a bad smell

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Zed Gradually getting grumpier

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