UK HGV Driver Site

[dbfcs]

Showing off my UK based site:

Driver Shortage: HGV Driver Resources

Driver Shortage gives learner and existing HGV drivers resources and information. Get your LGV licence, find HGV jobs, find training and information on Working Time Regulations and digital tachographs

The site uses a default (tweaked) installation based on the Microsite template.

I think it is snazzy. It does the job rather nicely.

Looking to extend the current site to add more functionality, sticky features and content.

What do you all think?

[mysticcowboy]

I like your basic design. It's clean and logically laid out.

I do have a couple of suggestions:

• One, lose the intro page. It does nothing for your site other than to slow down your visitor. Every usability study ever published says this. Of course, some clients insist, so what are we to do?
• Two, add some photos. Pictures always make a site more inviting. Pictures of people engaged in the activities you're promoting are even better. You can find very inexpensive stock photos at photo exchanges like http://istockphoto.com.

[kweitzel]

definatly ... and maybe separate the advertisment a bit more from the content ... at the moment it is not easy to differentiate (or loose some of them ...)

But it does look verry professional already!

cheers

Klaus

[dbfcs]

I like your basic design. It's clean and logically laid out.

I do have a couple of suggestions:

• One, lose the intro page. It does nothing for your site other than to slow down your visitor. Every usability study ever published says this. Of course, some clients insist, so what are we to do?
• Two, add some photos. Pictures always make a site more inviting. Pictures of people engaged in the activities you're promoting are even better. You can find very inexpensive stock photos at photo exchanges like http://istockphoto.com.

The intro page cannot be lost as I installed into a folder and my web server has issues. From an SEO perspective, the folder appears to be helping.

Added a top photo to the page. Take a look and tell me what you think.

There appears to be not that many great pictures around that would complement the content I have. 

[dbfcs]

definatly ... and maybe separate the advertisment a bit more from the content ... at the moment it is not easy to differentiate (or loose some of them ...)

But it does look verry professional already!

cheers

Klaus

Thank you.

Will take another look at the ads!

 

[kweitzel]

There appears to be not that many great pictures around that would complement the content I have.

If you can't find it, make it yourself ... you drive yourself, take your camera with you and shoot some pictures ( ... your copckpit, the steering wheel, loading/unloading ... just mak a couple of highres pictures and then use photoshop or gimp (that one is free) to create the GFX ... for both programms you can also find lot's of good quality tutorials which you can adapt ...

take a look at this image here, made for a german transport company out of 4 shots:



it was easy ...

cheers

Klaus

[dbfcs]

There appears to be not that many great pictures around that would complement the content I have.

If you can't find it, make it yourself ... you drive yourself, take your camera with you and shoot some pictures ( ... your copckpit, the steering wheel, loading/unloading ... just mak a couple of highres pictures and then use photoshop or gimp (that one is free) to create the GFX ... for both programms you can also find lot's of good quality tutorials which you can adapt ...

take a look at this image here, made for a german transport company out of 4 shots:

it was easy ...

cheers

Klaus

Fair comment - there's nothing better than original content!

[mysticcowboy]

The intro page cannot be lost as I installed into a folder and my web server has issues. From an SEO perspective, the folder appears to be helping.

Added a top photo to the page. Take a look and tell me what you think.

There appears to be not that many great pictures around that would complement the content I have. 

Very nice, I think you've done an excellent job. It's interesting to hear about the SEO advantages of the splash page.

[mysticcowboy]

Just one more thing. I think you might like to add a little bit of margin around your text, especially the top, right under the photos. Whitespace is your friend.

[dbfcs]

The intro page cannot be lost as I installed into a folder and my web server has issues. From an SEO perspective, the folder appears to be helping.

Added a top photo to the page. Take a look and tell me what you think.

There appears to be not that many great pictures around that would complement the content I have. 

Very nice, I think you've done an excellent job. It's interesting to hear about the SEO advantages of the splash page.

A tip that appears to have worked is call the folder something to do with your content. As my content is about HGV drivers (also called LGV drivers), I have called the folder hgv_lgv. Most people leave it just as wb or whatever.

The splash page goes against my principles but as I have to install into a folder (web server restrictions), I had no choice. Sure I could use a php redirection script but instead I have filled it with more keywords.

[mysticcowboy]

The splash page goes against my principles but as I have to install into a folder (web server restrictions), I had no choice. Sure I could use a php redirection script but instead I have filled it with more keywords.

Nice tip. Thanks.

I've been using HTTP 301 redirect, but to do that you need access to the .htaccess file, which some servers don't offer.

[dbfcs]

PHP redirection script:

Code: [Select]

<?php
header(&#39;Location: http://www.drivershortage.co.uk&#39;);
?>
Put this in a PHP file and change the URL to whatever you like.

The downside is that it redirects automatically so no keywords!