I am looking for constructive feed back on new site

[rmt4u]

I am hoping to get some constructive feed back on our new site i made through homested.com our site is balancedlivingwellness dot com it was actually fun to put together, and i am still adding more articles and pics etc.

[Breathe]

Quick glance looks good. The site is easy to navigate, and loads quickly. Text and content is centered (one of my pet peeves are left justified websites. Looks weird on a large screen.)

Criticisms: 1 -too many different fonts/sizes. The small size text is too small. Most designers advise using no more than 2 font types on a page. IOW, if you change sizes, don't mix it up by changing fonts too.
2 - your links page is, um... weird. It sounds like you are still working on that. I like that the articles link to a new page (although again with the TOO SMALL fonts,) but I don't like all of the articles themselves and in-between space down below on the links page. It seems cluttered and impractical. Maybe you are transitioning those articles to links with their own pages?

Looks like a nice place to come visit!

[familymassage]

i agree with the varying font and size changes. and that the small is too small. i'm bolding the typos i notice below. things that might need tweeking are italicized.

from the Home page

Are you are in pain, looking to feel better and wanting quality care?. Then read on through the following site, and call right now to book your appointment and start on the road to Balance & Wellness.

from the About Us page

Ask your therapist:
Each therapist combines differnt modalities to provide the best treatment to address your goals. You will be working directly with your therapist to help design the massage thats right for you!.

Balanced living Patients:
Athletes, Chronic Pain Sufferers, Repetitive Strain Injuries, Acute Injuries, Pregnancy, Back Pain,Stress, Massage Newcomers, Seniors, Adults, Children, Carpal Tunnel, Headaches, Tendonitis, Arthritis, Foot Pain, Sciatica, Fibromyalgia, Sports Injuries & More.

you might want to alphabetize this list...*shrug*

Questions:
Not sure what type of massage you need? that's okay, your therapist will work with you to formulate a session that works well for you and your condition.

Balanced Living Massage Therapy & Wellness Centre started as a dream to provide Markham residents with a multidisciplinary clinic, with a diverse focus. After many years of practice in markham, Brian & Jennifer made that dream a reality & opened the doors to Balanced Living 3 years ago.

maybe phrasing it as "with a diversely focused, multi-disciplinary clinic." or "with a multi-disciplinary clinic of diverse focus." *shrug* just seemed like a lot of 'with' for one phrase. as for the ampersands, if you're using them to tie into the branding of 'Therapy AMPESAND Wellness' i would suggest using it for every 'and' in your literature; otherwise i would suggest changing these ones to 'and.' FWIW...i still recall from 'intro to journalism' in 7th grade that numbers under 10 are spelled out, numbers 10 and up are done as numerals.

We pride ourselves in being one of the areas leading health care centres, We have been awarded 2 Readers choice awards from the Markham Econamist in 2006 & 2008. Our consistant proffesionalism, skill, and experiance have earned us the trust and respect within the medical proffesion aswell as the community.

i know there's different spellings between US and Canada...wasn't sure if professionalism was one of them.

-Our clinic is proffesional, yet relaxed.
-Quite comfortable treatment rooms.
-Complmentry bottled water after your treatment

my uncertainty of spelling differences on the professionalism again. IMO i would drop the word 'quite' and just have that billet be 'comfortable treatment rooms.' to me, having 'quite' preceeding it is like watching an infomercial that claims something VIRTUALLY does something (cleans dishes, sops messes, whatever).

Both Brian and Jennifer are well regarded in the Markham community, both for their educational work and for contributing to various local charities, such as United Way, Heart and Stroke, Weekend to End Breast Cancer, The Ride for Karen, Participation House, Pathways, Markham Stouffville Hospital, and the Canadian Cancer Society.

They are also noted for the on-site massage (including chair massage) that they do for many corporations and events in the Markham area.

this seems awkward to me...maybe stating it as "In addition to their in-clinic work, Brian and Jennifer are noted for their on-site services (including chair massage) and are well regarded in the Markham community for their educational work and their contributions to various local charities, including:" and do an alphabetized billet list in the same style as the one listing the qualities of your clinic.

on your services page i originally read the 1 1/2 hr massage pricing as "1/2 hr" and couldn't figure out why you were charging $105 for a 30-minute massage when you were charging $25 for a 15-minute massage...then i realized my error. i would suggest keeping the time notations the same--change the 1hr and 1 1/2hr to 60min and 90min in the interest of continuity.

some of the pages/parts of pages allow for right-click copying of information, some do not. thought i'd let you know in case there was a preference on that.

from the Services page:
i would suggest italicizing the 'call for pricing' on the cosmetic acupuncture. also, the naturopath assessment doesn't have a valid price listed. again, i'd keep your time notations the same and measure in minutes until you reach 2hr.

i would also recommend linking to the ART article mentioned on the products page, rather than directing to a link on another page.

the picture next to the CST blurb isn't CST....i would suggest finding an appropriate pic or leaving the slot blank for the benefit of clientele that are unfamiliar with CST.

since you have a box listing the events you have worked, you might want to do a blurb regarding on-site services and incorporate that box with it...again i would suggest alphabetizing the list.

from the Therapist page:

Our Team is here for you!
Balanced Living brings together therapists with

a wide range of skills

i can't bold a break ...the space between the second and third lines needs to be moved below the third line to separate it from the body of information below it.

also, FYI, the Therapist page has a browser title of 'Blank.'

Brian Bennett RMT, CKTP, ART.
Registered Massage Therapist, Certified Active Release Teckniques provider, Certified Kinesio taping practioner, Streatch Therapist.

if kinesio-taping isn't a hyphenated word then i would suggest capitalizing the 't' in taping for uniformity. though, with the 't' being part of the alphabet-soup-acronym you might want to capitalize it regardless.

Brian Bennett graduated from the renowned Canadian College of Massage & Hydrotherapy, the oldest Massage school in Canada. He became a registered massage therapist with the College of Massage Therapists of Ontario after completing 2200-hours of intense schooling and rigorous board exams.

it might be nice to link the school's website to its name here. since the rmt is part of the alphabet soup and the long-version mentioned here is in direct correlation to Brian, rather than speaking in general, i would capitalize the beginning letters; ESPECIALLY since you carried capitalization through his continuing ed certifications.

He has participated in high-level events like the Men's Masters Tennis series treating some of the world's top athletes, and has written for Alive Magazine, Canada's national health publication.

i would suggest altering this to say something akin to: "...high-level events--such as the Men's Masters Tennis series--treating..."

He is an accomplished Ironman triathlete, and runner having competed in the Ironman world championships in Kona Hawaii in 2008. competing in 3 Ironman Triathlons, over 50 shorter triathlons, 3 marathons including the 2007 Newyork city marathon, he has been a proffesional ski patroler for 18 years, a member of the critical incident stress team for the ski patrol, a former alpine & nordic ski instructor/racing coach winning coach of the year from the canadian ski coaches Federation.

something i still remember from an high school english/composition class is to not have sentences in the same paragraph starting with the same letter/word, and to not have paragraphs near each other starting with the same letter/word. in the case of this paragraph, i would change the first word to "Brian" instead of 'He' since the paragraph before started with 'He' and the word is being used quite a bit throughout. to me this paragraph is awkward, but i'm really tired and not coming up with a reasonable suggestion for stream-lining it. i also didn't read through the rest of the page due to the late hour. the period is green because it's actually a comma on your site, but the bolding of it didn't translate effectively.

From the Links page (the browser label is 'services'):
the caption for the pictures in the header:

Brian Bennett RMT, ART, treating patients at Ironman USA in Lake Placid, New York 2008, as part of the medical team.

in the US the monikers of 'patient,' 'client,' etc are touchy subjects incorporating scopes of practice. i would suggest changing 'patients' to 'participants'...in which case you would then need to change the following 'at.' you could rework it to read: "Brian Bennett, RMT, ART treating participants of the 2008 Ironman USA in Lake Placid, New York as a member of the medical team."



the small font is difficult to read and straining on the eyes. the site looks GREAT overall--i've just inherited my mother's nack for other peoples' spelling and punctuation, and not seeing my own underneath my nose. that's a great thing about having other eyes proofing...when you've been editing and re-editing it all starts to run together. i noticed a recurrence of an extra period after exclamation points; some variations of spacing after periods as well. typically two spaces are used after periods, exclamation points, question marks, and colons; one space after commas, semi-colons. whatever you do, do it consistently. mind your ampersands too...i came across some others besides what i marked here. what i have found helpful for me sometimes (when i'm starting to go cross-eyed from working on my website or newsletter) is to print out the page and take a red pen to it. for some reason getting to a more tactile variation of proofing clarifies and stimulates me. i readily admit to being an odd-duck though.

what a super exciting adventure for you guys!! i'm WAY stoked for you! like i said, the site looks great--just a little polishing, that's all.

[rmt4u]

Thank you sooo much guys!, It's great to have extra eyes to catch stuff like this, I had a couple people review the site but there is always more to catch.

Thanks!

[familymassage]

but there is always more to catch.

i feel that exact way about my site, and my literature. i've driven a few grammar-savvy friends NUTS sending them draft after draft of newsletters, etc.

let me catch up on my stuff and i'll try to comb through some more in a few days if you'd like.

[EgoMagickian]

You two look so sweet in the About Us photo in the upper left :-)

I caught a typo on the Services page: "Clinic Fee's" doesn't need an apostrophe.

[SchedulingWizard]

I like the look and feel of the site. The pictures are great and personal.
The font of the articles is too small, it should match the rest of your site.

I would not write a hotmail address on a professional business website.
It lowers the trust you build up with a nice site.

You already have a nice info@ email address, use only that one.

[SchedulingWizard]

Another tip, I see that many seem to find spelling mistakes on your site.

If you edit your site online, you should try Firefox Web Browser.
It has a build in automatic spelling checker.

I am using it right now when I am writing this post.
So it's almost impossible to make a spelling error.
But grammar is another thing.

[goshtangit]

Hi,

I just viewed your site and I really like the clean look but I do agree that some of the font are too small.

Here are couple of SEO tips for you to rank better on search engines. On your homepage, I see that the title tag just says "Home". You really need to change that to say something like "Massage Therapy & Wellness Centre in Markham, Ontario". That way you are geo-targeting your website to that area and surrounding areas so when someone types in "massage theraphp marham ontario", your website will have a better chance to show up on first page of Google

I hope that helps you going in the right direction,

Jimmy

[pueppi]

Hi,

I just viewed your site and I really like the clean look but I do agree that some of the font are too small.

How did you find rmt4u's site? I can't locate a link anywhere. Help.

[ccMarie]

How did you find rmt4u's site? I can't locate a link anywhere. Help.

I could swear I already responded to this, but now I am not seeing it.

pueppi,

I try to update this thread whenever someone posts their website:

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