What to do with a new good looking site?

[mosaicpro]

With a new site comes new challenges.

We have recently finished one of our clients websites in the Retirement (financial) field.

www.retirementireland.ie

In my opinion the site is looking good, fast loading(very little js, optimized images) and good SEO structuring.

As being a new site i feel like the decisions taken now are crucial. If SEO is  done properly could save a lot of time. If not would take us a while until we get  1-5 positions for retirement, retirement options, retirement planning, retirement ireland.

Any thoughts on existing design / structure / content.

Any extra suggestions are welcome.

[CPLDistribution]

Very quick and minor point but I would look at the colours that you use on your homepage buttons. The bottom piece of text on the buttons e.g. 'free consultation' is very difficult to make out, which could be a particular for issue for people whose eyesight may be in decline.

[mosaicpro]

Good point. The free consultation being one of the main points we need to highlight on the site.

[ReneReinholdt]

Hi there

not so quick as you might think. I would run it through the following firefox plugins and follow their advice:

• ySlow
• Google Page Speed
• avoid links width anchor texts like view "more", "read more" or "view all" and so on.
• several links (that are images) are missing title tags
• several images are missing alt text since you made them using css sprites witch is good, but doesn't help google allot.
• Several of your image buttons could easily be swapped for text with a background image, this would help google crawl your site as well.

Regarding design:

• the top menu disappears in the gradient background
• the lower part of the page is a bit messy (text wise.)
• Too many font sizes used
• Too many font colours used

Hope that you don't take my critics personal, but the above where my immediate thoughts when I saw it

[firstconversion]

Thats pretty much what I thought. I was also thinking some of the text was large, which is good for an okder audience, but some is rather small. Id find a decent, large size and stick to it

I also think your elements could do with some more space between them, to help uses read and chunk the page visually

S

[ReneReinholdt]

good point about the older audience Stephen.. actualy you should make all buttons using text and css. That way they can use (no clue what those programs are called in english but the once that read a web page out loud to someone. :)..

And you should make sure it can pass a AAA standard. meaning should use a fluid grid design (since you are targeting an older audience) that way they can scale (hence read) the page and the layout will remain the same. For an example on fluid grid design check this link: http://www.designinfluences.com/fluid960gs/

[mosaicpro]

Awesome. Thanks guys for the best feedback so far

As you may know doing the website yourself you kind of miss these things as there a lot of things to cover when going though the entire process on your own.

(p.s.. did the website all by myself design + functionality)

Thanks again for the good feedback.

[ReneReinholdt]

Your very welcome ennovation.And yes you do have a tendency to stare yourself blind on a design one did oneself, I know that all to well

Just a final thought, since your also targeting an elder audience you should bare in mind that old peops have a nasty tendency to have old mashines with outdated browsers, so you should make sure that your final version supports IE6.

Best of luck