Please critique my writing site

[TheWriteTouch]

Hi all,
I am new to the forum and would love it if you all could review and critique my writing site. I am a freelance writer and mom of course who would love to get my writing business off the ground. Up to now I have been an Elance provider but want to get non-Elance clients as Elance is becoming too competitive and the pay is getting so low, it's not worth the monthly costs.
Anyway, I appreciate all comments.
Lorraine

[redheadskater]

Hi Lorraine-

My first impression was that the font for your logo and the navigation icons on the left is to difficult to read. It's very hard on the eye. You might want to change it to a font such as Verdana, Serif or Tahoma - they are more readable.

2nd impression is that you have WAY TOO MUCH information on your home page. Your aim should be that all important content should be read by the viewer without having to scroll. While I really congratulate you on providing so much information to your visitors, you need to break it up so that it's more readable and people can scan it better for the information they are seeking.

I certainly feel your pain regarding elance. I was a paying member for awhile but the competition in the web design field was so intense, that people were doing a complete website for $100. Way to cut-throat for me.

I signed up for a featured spot on marketingtool.com (under my state) and I have gotten several leads from this site. You might want to check into it.

I have some ideas about how you can re-organize your page so that the information is displayed better. I'll post those later as my little guy is begging me to play trains with him!

Lisa
:D

[redheadskater]

This is a really rough image of how bullet items can help make important facts more noticable.
http://www.capitolwebdesign.net/images/write_touch-jpg.jpg

All that stuff on the left hand side - calendar, Google AdWords, search features, etc. - I recommend getting rid of them all. They're a distraction from the main focus of your page.

If you really wanted to keep the Google search feature for your blog, then I would move it somewhere to the top right-hand side of the screen. This is where most people expect to find a search feature.

I took a look at your writing sample page and it looks good - except for those Google AdWords. In case you can't tell, I really hate them on a professional service site. If a visitor happens to click on an ad, get taken to another site who just happens to have an ad for a competitor of yours - well, there's a big potential for lost business. KEEP YOUR VISITORS ON YOUR SITE - unless you have a really, really good reason to send them away to another link. One last word - where's the navigation to the rest of the site? I only see a link to the Home page - the rest of the navigation should be on the left just like on the home page. Keep navigation consistent across the board.

Another thing I noticed is that all of your samples are in .doc format. What if a visitor is using a Mac? I really recommend you switch all of these to .pdf format. It's cross-platform compatible (ie - reads the same on Mac/PC). You can go to www.pdfonline.com and upload your .doc's and convert them over to .pdf's for FREE!!! (This is one of my favorite sites!)

I've given quite a few suggestions here - tackle one thing at a time. And remember, a web site is always a work in progress.

Hope I've helped....
Lisa

[smbwallace]

Very cool. I'm a freelance writer, too, and I had a lot more success looking locally than I did over the Internet. I started out offering what I was doing -- writing newspaper articles -- to newspapers as a freelancer. Several snapped me up. What I'm writing now is all human interest, which is even better than what I was doing before. Now MY website is a PERFECT example of how NOT to design a website, but I'm not offering any goods or services, just letting others read my work. Check it out —

www.geocities.com/smbwallace2003/arkansasprofiles.html

[ebooktastic]

That was an amazing and in depth critique provided by Lisa and I must agree with most all she had to say.

I would also mention that the website seems as though it were made in the late 90s. I do not mean that to seem rude or crass, but one of the things that helps to instill trust in website visitors is how well the website is kept up to date.

Some may say that design doesn't matter that much, but I've found that it does. It's part of the cumulative whole.

Also, the page doesn't size to fit those who may be viewing on smaller monitors. There may not be too many, but they are out there and if they have to scroll horizontally and vertically to read your content, they may end up leaving.