posted by Andrew Hartley - Business Consultant & Entrepreneur on Aug 6
As I mentioned in a previous post: Re-designing a never-quite-finished-in-the-first-place design, I entered one of my sites (Third Floor Cards) in a contest to win a free site re-design. Lordy, does that site ever need it. We rose through the ranks pretty well, enjoyed a short stint in third place, and then were knocked back down to fourth, where we’ve been sitting for a couple of weeks now.
With a little boost, I think Third Floor Cards can still make it to third before the end of the competition, but second and first are out of the question for our little site.
That being said, Life Blue has offered a second chance to the less fortunate websites out there - like TFC. The remainder of this post is a critique of LifeBlue’s website, which will garner me an entry into their second-chance drawing. Watch for the “web design” link -> that little beauty buys me five entries into the drawing! Talk about a neat marketing trick to improve your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Life Blue’s website, in my opinion, is quite well-made. It’s intriguing to the eye, as the top banner changes into a new design focus each time you click a link, but the site’s “motto” - Is your life Blue? - stays front and center throughout. Additionally, there is always a form on the right side of the screen - “above the fold” - allowing you give the web design company your contact information so they can contact you for a custom quote.
I found the site easy to navigate and interesting to read. The writing is concise and has some humour, the text is easy on the eyes (as is the rest of the site), and there are a plethora of links to get you pretty much anywhere you are interested in going on the site without much fuss. The only confusing bit to me was on their Portfolio page, where the links in the left column were there to limit your search of their portfolio examples to their design focuses of creative design, application development, search engine marketing, content management systems, and e-commerce. Since the rest of the left-column links on every other page were so similar, I was confused when I clicked a link and it just reloaded the portfolio page. Perhaps a better explanation of what clicking the links on this page does would help… it took me several clicks to realize what it was doing.
Overall, though, I think it is a very well-designed site, and whether I win in the second-chance drawing or not, I may be contacting Life Blue for my web design needs in the future.
I did two “web design” links! Think that’ll get me another five entries in the drawing? naaah.
Fair Winds,
Andrew
