cfmonk Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 Hi all, We've just finished the first draft of the website for our new brand which will be covering the more "event" side of the business (rather than the party / wedding / school ball stuff) and will in particular be used to sell our larger 15m and 20m structures. Any thoughts you have on it would be much appreciated: http//www.eventstructurehire.com Cheers, Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerry davies Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 As the bishop said to the actress, I can't get it up. Can you post a working link, please? One glaring ommission is that of no linky's from Cascade Chris. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonM Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 The link should be: http://www.eventstructurehire.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themadhippy Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 Links go off site (http://www.marquee-tent-hire.co.uk) that cause a warning pop up in my version of firefox Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfmjohn Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 Just had a quick flick through and noticed that the in the navigation bar at the top, the image for the page you're currently visiting seems to load last. So it appears to disappear and then loads a good 10 seconds after the rest of the page. It sorts itself out once the browser has cached the images but it doesn't look good on the first visit to each page. (Chrome v14) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boatman Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 Hi all, We've just finished the first draft of the website for our new brand which will be covering the more "event" side of the business (rather than the party / wedding / school ball stuff) and will in particular be used to sell our larger 15m and 20m structures. Any thoughts you have on it would be much appreciated: http//www.eventstructurehire.com Cheers, Chris It would be useful to have a technical data page with internal dimensions (and possibly loadings). I was recently asked produce a 3D drawing of a truss square inside a marquee for an event next year and had great difficulty locating the appropriate dimensional data. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfmonk Posted October 27, 2011 Author Share Posted October 27, 2011 Hi all, Thanks for the replies and yes Kerry my inability to post work links should preclude me from designing websites! Mad hippy: not sure what I can do about that, we need to link back to our other website. I'll have a read through info from Firefox and see if there is any way of making off site links acceptable to them. cfmjohn: That's because the image used for the button for a selected page is a different image to the non-selected link. As such your browser has cached all the other images so loads them immediately but has to fetch the new one. Thanks for pointing it out though (obviously not a problem on my computer as everything cached) and I'll see what I can do. boatman: Will add technical specifications early next week. kerry: There is a link, it's in "Large Marquee Hire" on the Cascade site. Thanks for taking the time to look everybody, slightly upset that nobody has yet enjoyed my pun... Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerry davies Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 Thanks, seems OK. I would make more of it on the home page of Cascade so that people browsing for bigger structures get linky'd straight there but otherwise, cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peternewman Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 cfmjohn: That's because the image used for the button for a selected page is a different image to the non-selected link. As such your browser has cached all the other images so loads them immediately but has to fetch the new one. Thanks for pointing it out though (obviously not a problem on my computer as everything cached) and I'll see what I can do.Without going too OT, there are various ways to load the second image in advance using Javascript, or better yet, you can have both types of button, or even three types for up/down/hover, as part of the same image, then just use Javascript and CSS to move the image up and down and show the right bit of it, then it shows the new part of the image instantly, as the whole image loads when you first view the page. Have a look online to find out how to do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boatman Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 cfmjohn: That's because the image used for the button for a selected page is a different image to the non-selected link. As such your browser has cached all the other images so loads them immediately but has to fetch the new one. Thanks for pointing it out though (obviously not a problem on my computer as everything cached) and I'll see what I can do.Without going too OT, there are various ways to load the second image in advance using Javascript, or better yet, you can have both types of button, or even three types for up/down/hover, as part of the same image, then just use Javascript and CSS to move the image up and down and show the right bit of it, then it shows the new part of the image instantly, as the whole image loads when you first view the page. Have a look online to find out how to do it. You seem to be overcomplicating the menu bar by using a different .png file for each button background as well as table cells. Why not simply use CSS to provide the background and text colours for the different modes and put each button in its own box. That way you don't have to load any images for the menu bar. Using a .png file to provide a plain colour background is very wasteful of bandwidth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junior8 Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 Forget the look of the thing - though I found the black on grey distinctly uninviting - and take a long hard look at the content. Aside from noting a few spelling and grammatical errors I was left wondering just what your USP is. I would try to find some things that you think differentiate you from the rest - even if it is only a personally handled on-call 24/7 number. I am always slightly worried also when marketing material bangs on about things that the customer should be able to take for granted - like good service. There's also always the danger of putting off potential customers inadvertently - the continued emphasis on 'large' in para one of the home page could well frighten customers off as they have no idea of what you mean. On the 'About Us' page I would remove all the material about safety and such like - the customers expect you to know what you are doing and also to take H&S seriously. I was also uncertain about whether you are, in fact, members of MUTA it might be wise to make that clearer. The link to the MUTA site does not work and might be better opening a new window - they may not come back to you! I wonder also if you would be wise to leave the wedding marquee side to the Cascade site? Finally - and I know I may be unusually finicky about this - but after reading the site I have no real idea what entity I would actually be doing business with. As I can't find a limited company with this name I presume it would be with Cascade Events Ltd but unfortunately on that site I cannot find a VAT number even though the price lists on the new site are stated as being nett of tax. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.elsbury Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 On your main site, can you do something to make hyperlinks more obvious? To have them the same as the text until you mouseover, is a bit weird and to me means you'll miss seeing the linksDavid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfmonk Posted October 30, 2011 Author Share Posted October 30, 2011 Hi Junior, Thanks for your comments, I'll have a look through the copy again and see what can be changed, on the colours you opinion differs wildly from that of several other people who really like the black and gray colour scheme but I guess that's personal preference. I thought we made it pretty clear that Event Structure Hire is part of Cascade Events Ltd and our registered office and company registration number is on every page of the site, I didn't realise the updated companies act required the VAT number to be shown as well but will include that tomorrow. David, the links are a different colour, I can make them more different though if you feel it's important! Thanks, Chris Edit to Add: Just did a quick google on whether to display a VAT number or not and there's a huge mixed bag of opinion out there. It turns out it's not a requirement of the Companies Act 2006 but might be a requirement of the distance selling legislation. Anyone have any thoughts? Sorry, one more thing to add: No, we're not members of MUTA which we never claim to be but we do abide by all their guidance. MUTA is a trade organisation which exists to promote it's members and membership is a waste of money! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrummerJonny Posted October 30, 2011 Share Posted October 30, 2011 Just a small one, but noticed in the first 5 seconds:Frontpage text, the link to temporary buildings hire uses the following link:http://www.eventstructurehire.com/Temporary-Warehouse-Hire.aspwhich returns a 404 error. I think the link you want is ~/warehouse.asp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boatman Posted October 30, 2011 Share Posted October 30, 2011 A couple of notes on the temporary warehouse page: 3M is a sticky tape manufacturer - 3m is a height. Are you sure that you can guarantee this statement; "Our stock of electrical and lighting equipment as well as heaters will ensure your temporary warehouse is warmer, dryer and just as safe as your existing facilities." ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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