Normally, I don’t do website critiques unless I want to call someone a nitwit. This site isn’t bad, but it begs to be discussed because the designer was able to get BtoB Magazine (July 19 issue) to highlight it. And it is for an industrial supplier, a target of this blog.
Chardon Rubber’s new website is hailed as part of a rebranding effort to be “more than just a parts supplier”. Adding “success stories” to their site is a great way to do this, although the tag line “Ensuring your success one elastomeric/innovative solution at a time” is too cliche. The biggest branding foible is not having a distinctive logo (apparently just the company’s name in Arial/italic in a red block), and then burying it in the middle of the home page, and to the right on the other pages. I wasn’t brave enough to download the 15M PDF of the corporate brochure to compare offline branding efforts.
Visually, the site is pleasing and integrates Flash as part of the page. The home page suffers from a scrolling marque and a Flash image with flying text–two gee-whiz efforts that shouldn’t be used together. The press release hails the marque as good way for visitors to get “a quick overview of products and services” which it does (if they can read the small, fast type), but not as effectively as the image below it with a variety of rubber parts they make. Images inside the site show manufacturing and products, which also helps tell their story.
They did break some of my web design rules, though:
- Their address isn’t displayed, except in a flash image on the contact page. Because they appear to have a mostly regional business, this is a major oversite. They at least need a phone number on every page.
- They used a globe. Okay, it was just one page, and they were probably desperate for an appropriate image, but it is a crime, none-the-less.
- Using the word “solutions”. I know that they are trying to be more than a parts supplier, but I’ve never found this to be a convincing method.
- The site uses a non-flexible page design, including height. This limits not only the visitor, but the company’s ability to make longer pages that tell a better story or show more images.
Ug – you were way more reserved than I would have been. Tiny, unresizeable fonts. A “why the heck did you do that” Flash footer that consists of a static image. Copy that begins to sound like “blah blah blah” after 2 pages. Overreliance on PDFs for important content. Between the flash and PDF’s this site will do poorly in search engine rankings. And the HTML is a throwback – image maps for navigation links (gah – even for the PDF content links!) and embedded font tags for styling.
Boyink
Ug – you were way more reserved than I would have been. Tiny, unresizeable fonts. A “why the heck did you do that” Flash footer that consists of a static image. Copy that begins to sound like “blah blah blah” after 2 pages. Overreliance on PDFs for important content. Between the flash and PDF’s this site will do poorly in search engine rankings. And the HTML is a throwback – image maps for navigation links (gah – even for the PDF content links!) and embedded font tags for styling.Boyink
Good comments Mike, especially with technical issues that aren’t readily apparent. I didn’t even suspect that footer was flash.
Someone with branding expertise can probably see other problems, too.
Good comments Mike, especially with technical issues that aren’t readily apparent. I didn’t even suspect that footer was flash.Someone with branding expertise can probably see other problems, too.