Wanted: Website Review investing.co.uk

[addz123]

Just got a new theme designed and coded.

http://www.investing.co.uk

It's been a huge learning curve for me because it's the first time I've paid for a premium design. I own 20+ sites where I've just used the same affiliate theme I used when I first started in 2010 lol.

I've learned that with a big site it's not enough to just hire someone to make you a "good looking" design. You need to actually consider what functionality you want from your site, what type of message/functionality you want to convey as a brand (e.g. news site, comparison site, special deals, email newsletter, information portal). I mean if you take a look at Money.co.uk, ThisisMoney.co.uk, GoCompare.co.uk or Finance.Yahoo.com then you can see what type of site they are and how they want users to interract with the site.

You then have to use this information to then come up with functional solutions for a design. In my case I felt like investing has so much scope I needed to provide clear investment sections or boxes that users could easily navigate to.

Let me know your thoughts, mainly just talking about homepage since I'll add comparison tables and unique internal page designs later.
Adam

 

[mreeves]

Nice layout with plenty of content.

Loose the ridiculous strap line "The UK's No 1 Investment Guide". After working hard to build a credible looking site such an outlandish strap line will do you no favours.

 

[bu06nne]

out of interest, how much did you pay for the design?

Cheers

 

[namealot]

Lot going on the main page menu area etc for me bit cluttered with the div box just having the same..? other pages seam less so Don’t really get the Logo? Also . div class="box” , Online trading, gold investment etc has some sort of bug with i.e. * 8 words sort of change font size ? image of pension, bond, company news all seam to shrink on mouse over But were fine on chrome, firefox...Does look like many other wordpress themes though....

 

[Aegean]

It rendered fine for me in IE9, FF & Chrome. Generally I like it, the text layout is clear.

 

[GotLiveChat]

When I click APPLY NOW it doesn't do anything; still under some development?

On very bottom "Investing.co.uk is a trading name of ARG Media Ltd. " should be indented or centered, and take the title SITE MAP off -- is already implied by list of links.

Nice looking site though!

 

[ImageAuthors]

I agree that the tag line should be changed. Investing.co.uk is such a strong domain that it ought to speak for itself. You want visitors to ASSUME that you are the UK's No. 1 investment guide. If you go out of your way to mention that you are "the UK's No. 1 investment guide", what you're actually doing is calling attention to yourself and bringing that statement into question -- partly undoing what the domain name should do for you.

If you want a tag line, permit me to recommend a better one:

"Investing.co.uk ... Where else?"

"Where else?" implies what you have stated, and it does so in 2 syllables rather than 10. Basically, you profit from comparison with the less attractive domain names of competitors. If you ask visitors to think of a better web address than yours, they will (first of all) think about your brand and (secondly) conclude that yours is indeed the best.

Also, I recommend changing the logo and the fonts generally. Try to suggest luxury.

 

[bensd]

I assume you have seen the .com recent sold for $2.45m?

 

[tifosi]

I assume you have seen the .com recent sold for $2.45m?

Was going to mention that. Make it a decent site that has it's own look and feel to the .com and you never know who might come'a'knocking...

 

[raysaj]

great domain !!

i would say the colour menu for the menu should be changed or updated as that is showing as red for 'online trading'...red also for some stands out as danger or alert so use neutral colours....

 

[immediate]

The design interests me but not impress me. You've got a terrific domain you might as well pay a few grand for a decent design.

It should be a portal but it looks like a cheap blog / article directory to me.

Get a competent editor, some of the articles need better HTML markup.