lianabanana — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 19:34:41 +0000

No I don't have my settings off

yourmanstan — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 19:16:43 +0000

thankyou megan, you confirmed my worries that the cyclists may be misleading,i will have to change it. you also pointed out some other things that i have been grappling with...i still have more changes to make...

liabanana, i did not increase the font size at all, perhaps you have your settings off?

stilll looking for as much feedback as any kind person will give me!

Megan — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 14:33:25 +0000

Too big ?!?!? ON what planet??? Planet of really well sighted people?? Looks just fine to me.

lianabanana — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 14:30:00 +0000

I think it's really cool except the font size is WAAAAAY to big.

Megan — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 13:50:46 +0000

As someone interested in health and fitness this site was quite intereseting to me. The first thing I noticed is that the design looks like a template. The graphics in the header area seem to be conflicting with the page content. Is this site about cycling or personal training? Definitely change those graphics so they match up. While you're at it, do something more interesting with the fonts. Maybe she could trade some of her personal training services for a logo design.

The other thing that bothered me about this is the photos. First of all, thye're not very good quality. Secondly, she looks like she's posing as a model rather than advertising her personal training services. Just becuse she looks great doesn't mean she can make me look great too! I think she should have some professional photos shot, showing her in professional attire (no bathing suits), doing professional things (like working with a client). I was turned off by the big hair but I guess that's a Houston thing. You could also try to get some before & after photos of clients (with their permission, of course). That would really help to sell the service. Testimonials highlighted on the front page would be good too.

The front page really needs to sell the service she's offering. Nobody is going to want to read all that text. Use bullet points to clearly and concicely state what she can offer the client. It seems to me that she uses readly available and inexpensive equipment so that would be something to highlight - no need to join an expensive gym!

I'm finding that most of the pages have been poorly customized. The photo grallery page, for example, has text stuffed in little boxes with pictures floating to the side in the middle of nowhere. Putting things in boxes all the time is a common mistake. Also keep the text plain - bolding makes things harder to read. I also didn't know that I was supposed to click on the photos to get to the larger gallery. A little photo retouching would make those all look a lot better. And move the training photos to the top of the page with her modeling at the bottom.

yourmanstan — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 05:14:19 +0000

thankyou jeevesbond

still looking for more feedback! thanks guys

JeevesBond — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 12:14:47 +0000

Ah, and apologies for the bad start/deleted posts.

Hopefully we can now get this review back on track!

JeevesBond — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 12:13:09 +0000

The site easily meets basic criteria - it does what it says on the tin, and conforms nicely to users expectations of layout etc. Also you can tell immediately that this is a valid service with a good reputation in it's local area (she does drive a nice car, so I'd imagine she's earning some decent cash!)

The design is a little lacking in inspiration, it's very orange and would look better if another - contrasting - colour were included. If you have links made from images only you should provide textual links also (usually at the bottom of the page) so that google can spider your site properly, and users with screen-readers or images turned-off can still navigate the site.

As for your questions:

The subject is a personal trainer, she is targetting (but not exclusively) professionals in the Houston area of Texas.
The user would be someone searching in their locale for a personal trainer, the most likely scenario is that they have come from google - although the site is not optimised for SEO (another matter).
Approx 8-10. She seems to really know what she's doing.

To follow on from the questions: It seems that there is a very good opportunity to gain visitors (that convert to clients of course!) from regional searches on Google, the problem with this is that the site is not optimised for SEO. Here're some pointers (although I'm no SEO expert):

Structure your pages, include H1, H2 (etc) tags to bring better structure - especially to the Index page. This will not only help SEO but make your site more Accessible and Useable.
Provide those textual links discussed earlier.
Investigate back-linking, try to get reciprocal links with others offering similar services.

Hopefully this will help - I believe you have a very good foundation, and a valid service to back that up!

rumka — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 12:33:04 +0000

It would be better if you would use mouse overs on your web site.