New Website, What do you think?

[Attila Hajzer]

Check out my new site: http://hajzerwebdesign.com/

It’s using html/css and foundation 5.

I am considering putting it on wordpress too (creating a theme). But it’s a small website and i don’t know if it’s worth making a whole wordpress theme for it. Thoughts?

[Josh]

Overall, really like it. The one thing I’m not getting is the need for that enormous footer on every page. It just seemed weird the 3rd and 4th time I saw it.

If you don’t plan on blogging regularly on the site, I wouldn’t bother with WordPress. I might look at using the basic free version of Craft, which would give you the speed and simplicity of a static html site, but you’d be able to easily manage adding new projects.

[Alen]

Just some quick thoughts.

• Big SVG logo on the home page needs to go. Use that space to tell me something about your business. Make me click on that contact button.
• Do not convert to WordPress unless you want to learn WordPress. You don’t need CMS for couple pages you already know how to administer.
• No all that sure why use Foundation at all, you have 90% of your foundation.css not being used.
• You need to make those image sizes smaller if you can.
• feature image in particular is almost 1MB.
• All images look stretched, out of proportion. Gear thingy as well.
• Put your phone number somewhere. Or a way for someone quickly to contact you.

But overall it’s a great start. Simple to navigate and clean.

[nixnerd]

@attilahajzer I agree with Alen on most of these. Foundation? No. WordPress? HELL NO! Smaller/more compressed images? Yep. Great discussion on this here. Alen posted a SICK video on that thread. Watch it.

But I’d like to spend a little more time on this:

Big SVG logo on the home page needs to go. Use that space to tell me something about your business. Make me click on that contact button.

Alen pretty much told me the same thing about my portfolio site months ago. I still haven’t updated it because I’ve been able to get clients anyway and I’m pretty busy with other stuff. But, I understand what he’s saying… you need to tell a story with the “above the fold” content as cliche as that sounds.

Now, I don’t necessarily think you have to do it the way everybody else does it. Some will have a pithy statement in huge white letters over a photo with a color overlay. Some will have a three-column layout with paragraphs that describe the three things they do best with clean icons. Some will have a full-screen video or parallax effect with a really sweet logo. That’s all fine and good… but is it the most effective thing for you? Probably not.

The problem with all these is not that they’re popular or played-out, but that they’re done for the wrong reasons… purely for aesthetics or to look trendy. There’s nothing wrong with beautiful or trendy things. But they don’t help you get the client you want. Someone will ALWAYS have a cleaner, more beautiful website. Someone will always have a better logo. Someone will always have a more creative, more pithy saying.

I think you should think long and hard about your niche. Think about what separates you from other webdevs (I guarantee there is something). Then, you need to think about who your client will be. Then, that above the fold content needs to be PURELY for them. No one else. It’s a signal… or a trap. However you want to look at it.

This is a little tactic that employs some game theory. This works all the time in sales. When I was in sales… I would pay very close attention to someone. I’d listen to how they talk, what clothes they wore, what car they drove. I did house calls so I’d look in their home for anything that could help me relate to them. I would see something like the flash of a Chicago Bears jersey down the hallway in a distant room. What do I do then? Make some super casual reference to Chicago. Before you know it, we’re talking about how much we both love Chicago Dogs and I’m telling him about the time I met Jay Cutler. Hey says “Hold on, I’ve got something to show you!” That’s when he brings out the autographed Jay Cutler jersey from the other room. This is where he becomes Mr. Actual Client because he trusts me. I’m his guy now. It’s a social hack.

Basically what you’re doing is sending a cryptic message to your clients that says “Hey, I’m your guy.”

I’ve figured out who I want my clients to be based on what my skills are and where the money is at. That is who I’ll be going after. No one else. If other people want to hire me… great. But they’re not who I’m actively marketing myself to (in the next iteration of my site). I’ve decided I want to really focus on and emphasize customer engagement. So, this will largely involve custom web apps/games that enable brands to engage with their users/buyers in a meaningful way. So… the above the fold content on my new site will emphasize that. Other clients won’t get it and that’s ok… they’re not my target.

The purpose of all this is to help you get more clients, bigger clients. Clients that you don’t have to convince. They’ve already convinced themselves.

Here is a very practical game theory example that Van Halen used in the 80’s. It’s called “Brown M&Ms”:

http://vimeo.com/36615187

ONE MORE quick example: Have you ever received those emails from Nigerian scammers who claim to be princes? You know, the ones who claim they’ll give you $100,000 if you help them gain access to their millions through your bank account?

When you see those, you probably say this: “WOW! Who is dumb enough to fall for this? Why don’t these guys change their tactic? Everyone has heard of this!” That’s the point. Everyone has heard of it. Well, 99.9% of the population has. But these scammers are looking for the few people who either haven’t heard of it or ARE dumb enough to fall for it. Their scam works perfectly because of game theory. If they get a response, they’ve got their mark.

[Kingslayer]

I like the design just a few things that seem to be off.

First the kerning on your logo doesn’t feel right to me.

2nd. Images look stretched as mentioned and arrows aren’t crisp.(http://abload.de/img/bildschirmfoto2014-07hoakp.png)

3rd. On the clients page you divide via a background image but still have divider lines. It looks like a bug.Look at where the image ends and white beginns (http://abload.de/img/bildschirmfoto2014-07sremq.png)

Greetings =)

[Author]

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