Website Critique: Reinholdt Productions
By Anna Johnson on August 12th, 2008Time for another website critique. This time we look at the home page of Reinholdt Productions at http://www.reinholdtproductions.ca.
In case you’re not familiar with how we critique webpages, we use the “7W formula” in which we evaluate the page in terms of the 7 Ws: “Who”, “What”, “Why”, “How”, “Where”, “When” and “HoW”. For an explanation of the 7W Formula, click here.
1. Who
Actually, I’m not entirely sure who the target market is. Above an optin box is this copy: “Are you looking for artists or entertainment? Get your F*REE look at how we can help today!” Then under the optin box it says “And find energy, fun and opportunity in only 4 days!” In all honestly, I’m not sure who the page is targeted at. My natural inclination is to click the “About Us” link to find out more, but ideally the home page should be clearly directed at a certain type of visitor. Corporations wanting to hire a theater company… agents looking for actors… community organizations wanting to put on a production… who?
2. What
In terms of what I am supposed to do on this page, my eye is naturally drawn to the optin box. There are also links to the “Contact” and “About Us” pages, as well as a couple of other links to the same page (a current project Reinholdt is involved in). If the main aim of the home page is to get people to enter in their details via the optin box, I would remove the other links. Or a least have those links lead to internal pages that don’t “give away” the rest of the site OR to internal pages that also include the optin box.
3. Why
Unfortunately, there is no strong “why” on this page. There are clues about being able to get a free look at how Reinholdt can help me find artists or entertainment, and how I can laugh, play, learn, find energy, fun and opportunity (in only 4 days)… but all these “benefits” are vague. There is no clear, powerful articulation of what’s in it for me if I opt-in via the optin box, or take any other actions on the page.
4. How
The “how” is fairly straightforward – if I’m looking for “artists or entertainment” (as vague as that is) I simply type in my name and email address in the optin box. The other links – “Contact”, “About Us” and “We’re going to the Fringe! Click here for more!” are fairly obvious too.
5. Where
Similarly to the “how”, the “where” is fairly obvious, given the minimal amount of information on the webpage. However, the various elements have been arranged in a somewhat haphazard way. All that red is rather hard on the eyes and while the white words stand out, it’s a strain to read the black type on such a dark background. I like the logo… but the rest of the layout looks, dare I say, amateurish.
6. When
The “when” is now – with minimal information on the page (not necessarily a bad thing), there is no reason why I can’t fill in the optin form, click on a link, or leave within seconds of arriving.
7. Wow
This webpage lacks major “wow”. If anything my response is “oh dear”. In fact, even after perusing some of the other pages on the site , I’m not sure what the main aim of the site is… Is it to provide
entertainment services to corporations and community groups? Is it to help other organizations to get productions off the ground? Is it to get sponsorship? Is it all these things? It’s just not clear.
To the site owners: I don’t mean to sound harsh, but I think further thought needs to be put into this webpage and website overall. The good news is that, following this “rethink”, a stronger, clearer site that achieves your objectives can probably be created without too much fuss. As part of this rethink I suggest you determine:
- Who you want coming to the website
- What you want such visitors to do when they arrive
- How to persuade them to take these desire actions
Then re-engineer your website with an appropriate structure, look, feel, layout and solid copywriting accordingly.
Source: Reinholdt Productions
October 5th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Hi Anna…Thanks so much for reviewing our website. I’m not sure how you chose us but I’m glad you did. Your comments have helped. The powerful why seems to the hardest question to answer for us.
We built our website on our own to at least have a website. This version is definitely better than our first so we keep getting better.
It is through the helpful advice of others that we have gotten to this point.
Would you have some recommendations of website designers that are affordable and creative that we could talk with?
Thanks.
Wanda
October 5th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Hi Wanda,
You’re welcome! And congratulations on building the website yourselves. No easy task. In terms of affordable and creative web designers, consider looking for a designer on a freelance site like elance.com Just be sure to check the feedback and past work of any designers that bid on your project. Best wishes and thanks for commenting,
Anna
July 13th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
I think you will like our new look!
Wanda
July 13th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Wow Wanda – that’s a major improvement. Well done!