Seeking Business and Design Critique on Website (for my web design company)

Jared, a responsive website, like what you have is a great tool for generating business. A lot of people are using mobile today, so that is definitely a plus.

However, I would advise not just using Squarespace themes for your design and development. Code a custom site if you want it to be a portfolio in itself.

Hi Jared, I want to say congratulations on starting your venture and journey. I am working my way there too. Looking at your site, I will be honest, I think for a web designer, it appears to be a template. I have seen this design a few times and it doesn't seem to really stand out as being a site designed by a designer as much as just using a template to put your information up. I actually have a client that wanted me to "copy" this design, http://www.chelseamarket.com, to design his site, and I told him that I could use it as inspiration, but I would not copy the design. And the site for Chelsea Market is very similar to your design. Not saying you copied, just saying its a trend right now. I would just use as inspiration. and use the elements that you like in the design on your site.

On a separate note, did you take the Pro Design Course with Ben Hunt in the UK?

Looks great! My only small critique from a design perspective (which I believe you said was in the que for change) is the logo, not just the logo itself, but it feels like it could use a little room to breath (top/bottom padding) within the header bar. That was just my guttural reaction upon hitting the site, everything else looks great!

Thanks for the feedback!

I agree that the logo does need some room to breathe. I plan for the next one to not suck and not be so boring, and that will have some padding, haha. Glad you like it otherwise!

Jared,

I'm brand new here, but I've been in web design and development for quite a while and have a few thoughts on your site. I hope they're helpful.

Like Jacques said above, the fact that the site uses a SquareSpace template rather than a more custom design isn't great for a web development site. If it was a merchant site or selling something other than design, that would be different, but I do expect web designers and developers to do some ground-up work on their own sites. But you've already answered that comment, so let me try to be more specific.

The anchors from the front page (Work, Benefits, Blog) could be spaced better from their header text. When I click them, the header text for each section is right up against the black header section, which looks a little awkward. This is pretty minor.

Also, on the client pages (Spider Kelly's for example), it's not all that clear that the page continues lower down. There's nothing drawing me down the page. Maybe do with this what you did with the front page and use anchors to draw users to the information that's useful to them. In some cases, you may even be able to use arrows or some other visual device to bring the users along the path you want them to follow.

The blog makes me do a lot of scrolling to get past the first article and doesn't have a menu or anything to find specifics if I need to. Something up top for the blog (a search box, a list of recent posts, etc) might make it more navigable.

I hope any of this helped, or at least spurred on some new ideas. Good luck with your redesign.

Jacques had some valid points when he wrote "But why would I, as a business owner, want to pay you to set up a squarespace template that 1000 other businesses are going to have? And why would I, as a business owner, not just pay my nephew $100 to set it up, considering how easy the TV commercials say it is to set up? I just set up a website in 5 min on squarespace, so why would I want to pay you to do it?"

Maybe you could create some strong answers to those objections, answers that could then be incorporated into your 'Front Page' statement.

Imagine you are speaking directly to a 50 year old small business owner. He is an expert in his field (baker, auto mechanic, accountant, etc.) but he knows little about 'optimization for mobile" and doesn't really care. All he knows is that he has a million things on his to-do list and now some of his customers are asking "When are you gonna get a website?"

You've got 90 seconds to reach this busy guy and convince him he NEEDS you.

Thanks for all of the feedback, guys - much appreciated!

Ian - all good points that I'll certainly consider.

As far as Squarespace - the sites are still very customizable (mine is not much like the "Marquee" template that I used") - they offer a great amount of flexibility to keep things fresh.

To address Jacque's criticism (I guess there's of comments per answer) - Squarespace sites are incredibly easy to start, but there is still a learning curve in terms of: basic design principles, information architecture/hierarchy, which template is best, functionality, how it coordinates with the rest of a digital marketing strategy (which still goes into my "consultation," though I specialize in websites), customizing small things that aren't in the WYSIWIG editor, how to hack together certain things, learning how to add various functionality, and other digital tips. I'd say to be decently knowledgeable with Squarespace takes around 20-30 hours (assuming you're already somewhat tech savvy). Now if I charge $2000 for a basic website that pretty much maintains itself, that could be a bargain to guarantee an attractive reliable site and provide peace-of-mind without cluttering anyone's head. Some business owners probably need a site up ASAP, and taking weeks/months to learn the platform is simply out of the question. It took me quite some time (e.g. a membership on here for months and learning on other sources, along with lots of practice) before I actually could make a good-looking Squarespace site. Some business owners have also been interested in having me transition the project to them for them to maintain on their own, which can even be a nightmare on something like WordPress - people love Squarespace's simplicity.

As far as my value proposition - besides for the fact that I build Squarespace sites - how does everything sound to Joe Shmoe local small business owner?

All valid opinions, and to address your point above, I don't think you were being harsh at all - skepticism is important! Haha. I'll be selling on reliability, clear communication, and customer service (e.g. if someone wants to call me at 10:00pm with a problem, he/she can do so). I personally think people will pay for that sort of peace-of-mind and service (especially if they've had a bad experience in the past), but we'll see!There are plenty of designers that are way more talented than me, and I'm sure a bunch of them charge less, but communicating with customers in plain English and specifically addressing business needs, as well as being reliable, seems to be more rare among this industry. Thanks again!