Would Love Some Opinions On This Response I Recieved On Another Forum

[cmpan1]

I hope my criticism is helpful. I know I unloaded both barrels.

Gary, if you're speaking to me, you couldn't insult me even if you tried. With all I've gained from you since
becoming a Xara person, I am eternally grateful.

Cliff

[andymack]

This post resurrects my own post regarding the Xara tag in the heading, where so-called "experts" can take a pot shot at it like this guy has done. I reckon it was the icing on the cake for this guy during his utlra-critical tirade, he landed in heaven when he saw that and added it to all the other ridiculous "flaws". I reckon the website looks good, loads perfectly OK for me and gets the message across as far as I can see. ( Except the text and auto staring video). But these are minor gripes that should not detract from a professional looking site that did not cost hundreds of hours or too much money, for which the client must be happy about? The guy who did the criticizing can continue to spout his expertise to corporations whilst we guys get the website designs out as clean and pertinent as we can for very little outlay. Keep up the good work Cliff. (and everyone else on here)

[pauland]

The critic on the other forum didn't need the Xara tag to know it was produced by design software, but you're welcome to ask for it's removal. This is very old ground that been discussed thoroughly in another thread.

[Cloud]

I am not going to get into the design side of the site as the original post was about the guts of the site and I went over to the analyze site and to be honest it seems about 10 years out of date, I mean why on earth are they showing 56k or isdn at 128k, you would think that they would have updated the speed settings to match what is out there. I mean I am set in the middle of the yorkshire dales with a 50meg connection (actually speed tested at 25meg) so sites; even fairly large ones are loaded instantly. According to the site speedtest.net (which measures actual internet speed) the average uk speed is 17.14meg and in the USA it is 13.77, russia is 14.47, australia is 11.58meg and the top 4 countries are over 30meg with even mongolia which we always think of being in the middle of nowhere is 11.37meg in fact the top 100 countries are over 4meg - my point is why worry about what speed your site uploads on a 56k modem?

By the way the site is http://www.netindex.com/download/allcountries/

[pauland]

You're right - I just cut and pasted the last few rows from the table in the analysis.

My internet speed is 10MB, so way below average. There are a lot of rural places in the UK and elsewhere that do not have fast speeds. I have cable but the BT phone system that my speed would be about 2.5MB.

In many ways the average is irrelevant - what counts is what most of your users are using. A 500MB web page will never be loaded by anyone on a slower speed connection and what about those who are browsing on an iPad or other mobile device - they won't have fast download speeds.

All that said, it never harms to optimise a web page. The page can probably lose close on 200K of download through some simple optimisation of two images.

Why exclude some users from your site when it is simple to make it more accessible?

[AutoEvo]

Cliff if it helps... I've just gone onto your website. I use Google Chrome. It loaded right away [have no idea what my connection speed is]. It loaded without issues or any apparent waiting time. And every item on your page appears to work as it is designed to. I wonder if any of the usability issues or visual issues such as flikering borders and the like were because they were loading your page in IE or Firefox or some other browser?

[vgvetter]

Cliff,
Based on my last 12 months excursion into the world of internet marketing would say:

1. You are totally correct... "he's vomiting".

2. You have given class to the term "squeeze page".

3. The social networking icons you provided add utility not always seen on squeeze pages and should pay off.

4. Noticing concerns over download time, checked it out at webpagetest.org. They report initial download at 3.45 seconds, and second download at 1.57 seconds. Since time is dependent on locations and browsers the site allows selection to suit, so different answers for different folks. (You got an "A" on image compression).

5. The page looked great on my iPad, so forget the stuff about screen size. Only thing is iPads don't show flash, so if you had placed the video on YouTube and embedded it, that that would work. On the other hand, if you're tracking the site you know what kind of browsers your Viewers use, and it may not be a concern.

6. Regardless of all else if the site is doing its job for your client, who cares?

My best

Vern

[gwpriester]

You already have a 5, Vern. Is this 5a?

[vgvetter]

Thanks Gary ...

Ya gotta watch em every minute.

[gwpriester]