Waffle said:
I need you to rip this piece apart. No kind words, only how to improve it.
No problem. My first impression (after about five seconds) was what does this company actually do? No pics, no recognisable theme, just a few buttons and lots of text. Then when I started reading the text it was like "OK, that's great that they were the prime contractors for Henry the VIII, or whatever, but what do they actually do?" Some pictures of work they have done would be nice, or even some mugshots, though personally I would prefer to see action shots. You need to consider that this is a commercial site so most likely you will get people typing "building contractors" into a search engine (10,100,000 results from Google). They will (if they're like me, and everybody's like me :) ) click on the search result and look at the page for five seconds. If their first impression is that they've wandered onto a "History of Building Contactors since the Middle Ages" site they will click on the back button and look at the next one. On the other hand if they see a clean home page with lots of pictures, or even one obvious one, of big, beefy, semi-clad men carrying heaving great weights on their shoulders like they were chopsticks then they are likely to consider that the site warrants more attention (OK, maybe this isn't the way to go but the temptation was too great to resist).
The other point you need to watch (granted this is coming who's never designed anything more than a CD-holder layout and who's own website looks like something that was drawn in playschool) is that, being a building contractor, unlike, say, a t-shirt company, they will be very localised so anyone who is looking for such a company will need to know where the company is based. A t-shirt site doesn't have that problem, they will take anyone's money and ship the goods to anywhere in the world. Someone looking for a building contractor, in contrast, will need to know, the faster the better, exactly where the company is based and what area it services. Personally, and granted that my knowledge of English geography is pretty dim (I'm assuming it's England), I have no idea where Clevedon is. Putting myself into the shoes of someone who came to the site via a Google search which of the two do you think is more likely?
A) I spend ten minutes looking for a large map so that I can look up where Clevedon is (assuming of course that it's on the map) or,
B) I click on the back button and try the next link.
One possible solution could be something as simple as putting "Servicing the needs of the Gobi Desert since 2000BC" under their name on the banner would make it easier for prospective customers to decide whether it is suitable for their needs.
I hope this ripping has met your expectations and requirements, please let me know if you require any further abuse. :P
