Offering free website audits
Hey everyone!
I'm looking to see if consulting is for me, which is why I want to offer a free website audit to 3 - 5 people. I mostly specialize in ecommerce, but I can give you some input on stuff like design and UX as well. I haven't really planned this out meticulously, I just really enjoy doing audits and giving feedback - I will develop a process as we go along.
There's no catch, it's absolutely free and all I get out of it is a bit of experience and maybe (if you like) a testimonial or something.
A couple rules apply:
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I'm doing this in my free time, so work and other projects have priority - please understand that I might take a while to get back to you
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not sure if I want to do this on a first come first served basis or pick sites that I find interesting, but I'll try to be fair and also repeat this audit thing once a month or so if there's interest
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just link your website in the comments or contact me via Twitter. If you have any particular pain points, just tell me about them. Otherwise I'll just do a general audit.
That should be it! Looking forward to see what you got :)
Cheers
Thanks for the offer! Would love to get your feedback on divjoy.com, a service that helps React devs build and launch faster.
Hey Gabe, will check it out and get back to you. Is it okay if I just post my assessment as a comment here or do you want a private response?
Here is great. Thanks so much!
Hi Gabe, I just checked out Divjoy. What a great project, very solid website as well. Not a lot left for me to criticize :)
Here are some things I noticed:
Accessibility: you have quite a few accessibility issues on your site that can be remedied quickly. Just use https://wave.webaim.org/ and/or the Lighthouse audit in Chrome Developer Tools to see what needs to be done. You can also check out this blog post for more information: https://medium.com/pulsar/which-accessibility-testing-tool-should-you-use-e5990e6ef0a
Image compression: I haven't noticed any real-life performance issues on my end, but https://www.webpagetest.org/ doesn't like your (lack of) image compression and progressive jpegs.
Pricing: in my experience, a lot of people skim a website to quickly find out about the price. It's definitely possible that those kind of potential users bounce your site quickly because your pricing info is relatively hidden in the FAQ, whereas the expectation is to find a separate pricing section. I'd suggest you add such a section.
Features/Benefits: these are mainly "hidden" inside running text as well, you might want to emphasize them a bit. Here's a quick edit I made: https://imgur.com/YTlC662 - you could do something like this, maybe use two rows and make it a bit prettier than I did here :D<<<<
Site Links in Search Results: you might achieve a higher CTR by adding site links to your Google SERP. See here for example: https://www.reliablesoft.net/sitelinks/
Misc.: Found a typo in the FAQ, first sentence in the "How does this work?" section: Choose a template above and we’ll let preview and customize right inside Divjoy.
All in all this is a very solid product and I'm probably going to try using it for my own projects. Great work!
This is fantastic feedback and all makes a lot of sense. Will iterate. Thanks so much! If you end up using it and want a discount just let me know ;)
You're welcome, glad I could help! I might take you up on that discount :) will be following you on Twitter to stay in touch!
Hi Kadir,
Thanks for the generous offer. Mind taking a look at https://www.bitcompare.net?
I'd love your feedback.
Cheers!
Hey Dean, sure thing! I will check it out and get back to you. Is it okay if I just post my assessment as a comment here or do you want a private response?
Absolutely, that's fine. Thanks.
Hey Dean, I took a look at Bitcompare, looks pretty neat! You don't happen to use a MediumRare theme for the frontend?
Anyway, here's my assessment:
Accessibility: no major problems here, you can use https://wave.webaim.org/ to iron out the few issues that are left or use the Lighthouse audit in Chrome Dev Tools.
Site Structure / User Flow: you don't really have a lot of CTAs to guide your users to the actual product - namely the comparisons. What are your CTRs for the links in your hero? You might want to add a button to each of those.
Also, your buttons don't lead to the actual comparison, but to an additional page in between. I'd suggest getting rid of those pages and just adding all that information to the actual comparison page, since a lot of it is redundant anyway. You could just make a horizontal version of the feature list card for example and put it on top of the comparison table.
If you don't really want to break up those pages, create a separate flow for them, as they are mainly information pages and shouldn't serve as an additional step between landing page and product. Give them their own "tree" so to speak. While first time users might appreciate the information, repeat users will get annoyed quickly if they always have to take an extra step to get to the comparisons.
Edit: it seems like the only hero link that has the extra step is "Buy Bitcoin", so the quick access is essentially there already - the other stuff still applies though. The big "Buy Bitcoin" Button below the hero still has the extra step too.
Site Links in Search Results: you could benefit from site links on the Google SERP as well. Take a look at this: https://www.reliablesoft.net/sitelinks/
Misc.: A couple things:
the navigation elements in your testimonial section are confusing/unintuitive, I'd suggest sticking with arrows.
your listing of the different product categories is incoherent throughout the site: https://imgur.com/4dkPRSE
typo in crypto loans page: https://imgur.com/G6oJnhf
I'd suggest you get rid of the comments section, it's not likely that any meaningful discussion (if at all) will ensue and it makes the site look blog-y and less like an actual product
mobile navigation looks unintuitive and a bit out of place, stick with the classic hamburger menu I'd say
super nitpicky: the spelling in your breadcrumbs is incoherent
the typography is very basic - try https://fontpair.co/ or something similar to find a nice font combination you like
I think that's it for now! Super interesting project for sure, looking forward to see where you are going with it!
Really appreciate that @kadirwest!
Such a great write up and we'll be using these tips.
I'll update you when we've made the changes.
Sure thing man, glad I could help!
Yep, please keep me up to date!
Ah, by the way: this stuff is a bit more advanced, but I have noticed a couple WebPageElement tags on your site (e.g. WPHeader, WPFooter). There is some debate about if these are beneficial or even detrimental to a website. You can get an intro here: https://github.com/schemaorg/schemaorg/issues/1251
Would love some feedback!
Check out our flutter apps (iOS and Android) from folocard.com
It's a follow up app for conferences/meetups.
Hi hakosam, will check it out and get back to you. Is it okay if I just post my assessment as a comment here or do you want a private response?
Hello Kadir,
This is actually a good direction and wish you all the best.
I recently launched www.pesatime.com recently and I would love to get your opinions.
Its basically a super simple Online Accounting Software for small business's
Hello Mutinda, thank you! I will check it out and get back to you. Is it okay if I just post my assessment as a comment here or do you want a private response?
Sure, just post it here as i believe its something that is going to help other fellow indiehackers.
If at all I need more details or would like to extend the conversation, I will send you a private message.
Thanks alot.
Hey Mutinda, just a quick update: this blew up more than I expected and I don't have the time to do all these audits at once. You're definitely on my list though and I will get back to you within the week. Thanks for your patience!
No worries I totally understand.
Thanks again
Hey, not sure if this really counts (might be too small / early for you to properly look at), but I just finished a mock for a landing page (only mobile mocked for now). Would be interested in what you have to say about it.
https://www.figma.com/proto/djEiV4OAw9ICfKKVIO5KBs/Landing-Page?node-id=1%3A3&scaling=scale-down
Alright, since you were first to ask, I went ahead and checked out your mockup first. I'll just post my comments here, hope you don't mind!
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Hi Isaiah, I checked out your mockup. Unfortunately (as is usually the case with mockups) there is not a lot of meat to it yet, but there are a couple changes I'd suggest:
Color: add a third color and use it as an accent color. This color you'd want to apply to stuff like the CTA button and links. One of my favourite tools for color schemes is https://color.adobe.com/ - check it out, it's free. Also you might want to alternate the background color of your sections to have your landing page appear a bit more dynamic.
Font size: your subsection titles have the same font size as your hero, you might want to make those smaller. A good rule of thumb for font sizing is to start out with the body text and make the primary heading (the one in your hero) twice as large and the secondary heading (the one for the subsections) approximately 1.5 times as large. Or you could just use a tool like https://type-scale.com/ and play around with it a bit. Just make sure to add some visual hierarchy to your landing page.
Visuals: icons are usually good to concisely capture a concept, but they rarely elicit emotion. In your case I'd ditch the icons for a couple nice stock photos or illustrations. I love https://unsplash.com/ for free stock photos and great sources for free illustrations include https://www.drawkit.io/ and https://undraw.co/illustrations
Misc.: I'm absolutely not a pro when it comes to website copy, but your copy seems a bit lengthy at times. Maybe you could try to trim it down a bit. For example you could just use "Find out more!" instead of "Find out more information". Also, you could sizing down the buttons to around 60 - 75 percent to make your landing page more dynamic.
Hope this helps! Just hit me up if you want me to look over the mockup again after you've made some changes. Cheers!
Oh man. I had no idea most of those tools you linked to existed 😅. All your feedback makes sense and it very appreciated! Thanks for taking the time to look at it. Will for sure post here after I’ve iterated in the design 🤙🏽
Sure thing man, glad I could help!
Hey @kadirwest, ended up iterating on the mock. Those tools you suggested were INCREDIBLY helpful! Would love for you to take another look whenever you get the chance 👍🏾
https://www.figma.com/proto/djEiV4OAw9ICfKKVIO5KBs/Landing-Page?node-id=1%3A3&scaling=scale-down
Hey man, looks really nice now, great job!
Another tool you could play around with is https://www.heropatterns.com/ in case you want to spice up the background a bit. Or you could go with a gradient: https://cssgradient.io/gradient-backgrounds/
Just let me know whenever you have a question or need me to take a quick look!
Oh man, even more great tools 😂. Thanks so much for the help and suggestions!
Haha man I genuinely enjoy how much you love tools! I just checked your website btw, I'd like to talk to you about a project if you're interested. Just send me a message on Twitter and let's talk if you like!
Hi Isaiah, sure, I can take a look! I will check it out and get back to you. Is it okay if I just post my assessment as a comment here or do you want a private response?
Seen you are overloaded so feel free to say offer over if you need, but if still after some practice will list my ecommerce link since you said that was your specialty - britishop.com
Hey Mark, super hungry now after checking out your shop haha!
Will try to get back to you within the week.
One thing I always suggest to people using Woocommerce is to just make the switch to Shopify. Full disclosure: I'm a Shopify Partner and biased in that regard, but my experience shows that Shopify just performs better overall and is cheaper in the long run - more bang for your buck as well.
My assessment won't be Shopify-specific though, just wanted to give you a heads up. Cheers!
Would love to hear your thoughts https://www.solfej.io/
Hey Shayan, just a quick update: this blew up more than I expected and I don't have the time to do all these audits at once. You're definitely on my list though and I will get back to you within the week. Thanks for your patience!
hey Kadir, thank you for the offer ! I'm working on my small business website and have it live now at https://ekatvacollections.com/. I'm iteratively developing it and want to make it a full e-commerce website some time next year. Thank you for the help again.
Hi @anjalir, just a quick update: this blew up more than I expected and I don't have the time to do all these audits at once. You're definitely on my list though and I will get back to you within the week. Thanks for your patience!
Ecential.landen.co
Nice service! Gonna remember this one for down the road as I try and get traction.
We have a subscribe button at the bottom of the page if you want to stay in the loop!
Would love feedback on my side project awesomestufftobuy.com not sure what to add to the site!
Hey Andy, just a quick update: this blew up more than I expected and I don't have the time to do all these audits at once. You're definitely on my list though and I will get back to you within the week. Thanks for your patience!