Those with web design experience or anyone else that wants to critique...

My new website. Its up and running and we are on our way.

It was done by a company that specializes in medical/dental web design.

What do you think?

Smile Potential Dental Coaching

Re: Those with web design experience or anyone else that wants to critique...

It has a very user friendly, yet sophisticated layout. I forwarded a link to my cousin's brother who is a recent dental school grad. I think that your expertise can benefit more than dental offices....it's sounds like good consulting advice for any health care practice. Good Luck.

Re: Those with web design experience or anyone else that wants to critique...

I think they did a very good job. By the way, does anyone ever tell Dr. Katz that he looks like Jeff Bridges?

Some small suggestions - there are a lot of lower case letters at the start of sentences or phrases. I know it's a trend, to include lower case and that it's "friendlier". I don't know whether you're going more for professionalism or for friendliness.

Also, the navigation bar at the top is a little flat with hard edges and no drop shadow. The left edge is thicker than the right so the right kind of looks like a mistake to me. And you can see it behind the excel/stand out/find out boxes which also have hard edges.

The graphics are great. A word of caution - images downloaded from the internet without purchasing them are being cracked down on. I'd get some kind of written proof from the designer that they were all purchased legally.

Getty images recently sent my company a letter demanding a four figure sum for the use of their images on our business site. Now it's up to us to prove that we paid for them. There is some kind of technology that allows them to troll the web and identify what sites are using their images.

Ok that's all I got.

Re: Those with web design experience or anyone else that wants to critique...

Thanks for the replies, I'm going over it now to look at the things you pointed out.
The design company stated that they used images that they have purchased, I'll see if we got that in writing.

Re: Those with web design experience or anyone else that wants to critique...

I program websites for a living so I have a bit of experience in this area. I have to say it is a very professional looking site, I think everything looks great. The only thing I noticed is that the site map is blank.

Re: Those with web design experience or anyone else that wants to critique...

Hi -

I work for a marketing agency and optimize and build new websites everyday with a team of people for a variety of different clients.

Here are some of my comments -

- when you first go to the site, I do not thing it's very obvious what it's for. You need to read all the copy to figure it out and people these days, don't like to read. You have about 15 seconds to make a good impression and get people to stay on your site.

-I do not think the graphics fit at all. Without reading any of the copy, it looks like a page about finance, not consulting. I think there is total disconnect. I know you don't want it to look like a dental practice website, but i do think some sort of dental imagery should be included.

- questionnaire form - you need the survey to be embedded on the site so people can submit online.

- your call to action "are you a dentist" is way too small. I would definitely make it more prominent.

-$500 credit is a great feature - I would find a way to move it up on the site. depending on some web browsers, it may fall below the fold.

- From a search engine optimization standpoint there are lots you can do to show up higher in rankings.
1. Revise the title tags on the page
2. Implement meta descriptions and meta keywords. I looked at the source and there is nothing there right now. You'll never show up in Google without these things.
3. More internal linking - there is some, but you need more!
4. Find more keywords to optimze on the site. Each page should concentrate on a specific keyword. Dental Practice coaching has zero serach volume,yet, dental consultants is searched almost 5,000 times a month.

I'm really sorry if you think this was harsh and I didn't mean to rip apart your site. You asked, I have experience, so I told you! FM me if you have any questions.

Re: Those with web design experience or anyone else that wants to critique...

Thank you for the detailed reply
I asked about meta tags because I didn't think it was coming up easy enough on a google search...I'll ask them again.
We don't want ant teeth or dental images at all because in dental marketing teeth & smile logos & graphics are frowned upon.
I agree though that it may not be 100% clear what we are all about without reading...I'll talk to the designer about what we can do about that.

Thanks again!
I'll update after we make some changes!