Please Review Digital Sermon Transcription

They have: 7 posts

Joined: Feb 2009

I've been in business for about 8 months. I've done well enough that I could justify having my website redesigned. Please look it over and let me know what you think I could do to improve it.

Thanks,

Ginger
www.digitalsermontranscription.com

decibel.places's picture

He has: 1,494 posts

Joined: Jun 2008

Hi Ginger,

It's a nice site - not sure how much I would change in design or function.

Maybe you can add some kind of networking environment for your clients... (forum? buddy list? if enough activity, chat?)

You got the contact form right, I like the chat window right there.

A Designer may be able to suggest micro-adjustments (your favicon looks a little aqueezed on the right side)

My Suggestions:

1. Add description meta tags to the pages - important for search engine listings. While you are at it, add meta keywords although the usefulness of this tag is debatable.

2. Add meta robots tag to ensure indexing - also a robots.txt file.

3. Replace the Romans quote in the header image with actual text - more readable and better for search - and you could even rotate quotes then, or put a particularly appropriate one on each page

They have: 7 posts

Joined: Feb 2009

Thanks for taking the time to look at my site!

I kind of have a networking environment, but I haven't done anything with it. At the bottom of my FAQs page, there is a link to my business Facebook page where people can ask questions and find links to related sites. The bottom of the FAQs page probably isn't the best spot for that link...not sure where I should put it. I'll put some more thought into it.

I made the favicon myself. You're right, it does look a little squished to one side. I think I can fix that.

I'm glad you mentioned the meta tags. I'd forgotten all about adding those. I don't know how to do the robots tag, but I'll check into it.

I don't understand what you mean by replacing the Romans quote with actual text. What kind of text? Do you mean with transcription-related text?

Thanks again for all your help,

Ginger

decibel.places's picture

He has: 1,494 posts

Joined: Jun 2008

GSc wrote:
I don't understand what you mean by replacing the Romans quote with actual text. What kind of text? Do you mean with transcription-related text?

I meant:

1. the quote text in the header image is a little blurry. Using the image as a background you could place HTML text (styled with CSS if you want) on top of it, which should be crisper.

2. I meant keeping the same quote, but using text you would also be able to change the quote for different pages as appropriate, or programmatically rotate the quotes.

I know that a lot of people are happy with the Vanilla forums, and meebo.com lets you create a chat room widget that you can embed on your site. If you think these are useful additions. There are also many alternatives to these, they happen to be ones which I have used.

They have: 7 posts

Joined: Feb 2009

I understand now. I've written the designer who helped me with the header to see what she can do... Thanks!

decibel.places's picture

He has: 1,494 posts

Joined: Jun 2008

Changing around the text in the header is not a "designer's" task, it involves coding and if the text is being manipulated in any way scripting/programming beyond the skills of the average "designer."

However, if the designer can provide the header graphic without the text at the bottom that would be a start.

I would not sweat much about this - your site is very nice as is and I was reaching a bit for suggestions - dynamic text in the header would perhaps be an "improvement," but it's by no means "necessary" Laughing out loud

RTFVerterra's picture

He has: 109 posts

Joined: Dec 2008

You've got a very impressive site.

They have: 7 posts

Joined: Feb 2009

You're both very kind. Thanks! Smiling

They have: 7 posts

Joined: Apr 2009

Ginger;

I'm not sure what I would suggest to improve your site.

You have an extremely focused target market, so I would imagine that a high percentage of your visitors are motivated to purchase.

Once they arrive, you present a persuasive sales pitch, so I would imagine you do well.

This may be a case of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.'

Your business is uniquely suited to the Internet, and I imagine you get a lot of referrals.

Given that I'm not going to suggest any changes, I will suggest that you sign up for Google Analytics, which is a free service. This will give you sophisticated analysis of your site traffic that may help you understand where your site visitors come from, how long they stay, which pages are holding their interest, etc.

(By the way, I think the stock photo you have front and centre is absolutely perfect.)

krates's picture

They have: 11 posts

Joined: Aug 2007

make the navigation better everything just looks good..

Brutal's picture

They have: 134 posts

Joined: Feb 2009

krates wrote:
make the navigation better everything just looks good..

no sure that need change navigation, site look very good. i see all pages and dont find any bugs.

well done.

They have: 42 posts

Joined: Mar 2009

Just took a look at your site. I like the design. The color goes well. I did notice it lacked a lot in on page SEO. Some alt tags and basic bolding with the keywords would be a good idea. I also noticed your main headline on the index page said "Welcome to DST". Putting your keyword in a header 1 tag would mean a lot to your ranks.

I believe it is very functional. No change there. Basically I think it just needs a little tweaking here and there with on page SEO. Great service to offer though.

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