A Site Review Of Ent Federal Credit Union By Edward Hadome of EdwardHadome.com.
From what I see the major problem comes from the home page. After reading through the profile of your business, I automatically created an image in my head of what a financial institution website would look like. What I pictured in my mind is that of a site with a feel of the corporate world. But this wasn’t the first impression I got.
(For a complete listing of reviews of this site, site links, and to read the site review criteria established by the site’s webmaster, visit the Ent Federal review page.)
Since the on the net, surfers are click crazy, we always try to expose catchy phrases and images that can capture them at a glance I assume this is what you were trying to do.
Although the intention is good and right, but sometimes we tend to over do it, and this is what I feel happened here.
The first thing I saw on your homepage was a photo showing some buildings and mountains, I refreshed the page and appeared again another photo of a peaceful lake with some more mountains. I refreshed the page again for the third time as I became curious and this time appeared a photo with a view of a mountain area and some branches with big brown leaves I didn’t refresh again.
Then on the photos you have the words boldly written “Welcome to your Credit Union” which is appropriate.
But the photos didn’t speak to me; I didn’t see any relation to finance, online banking, credit cards or credit union.
You should consider replacing those photos with a combination of people, photos of hi tech and corporate nature. This will really give it a sophisticated look, right now the photos are more like a gallery showing me a location only, but that doesn’t tell me anything about the service.
Directly below that you have the website survey, and “Get tax document online” next to it.
There is no real relation of the two for them to be grouped together, and why should I be interested in the survey, what is the survey about?
Below that you have some banners, which is “pop up the spring issue of your newsletter connection” and right next to it you have “Ent access bill pay” if I am correct, as I wasn’t really able to make out what was really written because of the font type. Is that an “e” or an “a”
Again, why is the newsletter and the bill pay clustered together, what is the relationship between the two.
Next to the “Ent access bill pay” banner, (again not sure if I am correct) to the right, you have get your personal financial view and following is “Planning to build a home, get a load for it” banner.
IMPRESSION
At a glance and first impression I got, was a page loaded with affiliate partner banners that looked like if I clicked on them, they will take me to another site all together.
The color combination used on the page doesn’t give it a uniform look and the general color choice didn’t tell me anything about the service.
YOU ASKED THIS:
Although you have loads of images on it, the load time is pretty good, but the banners do not convey a call to action, everything is so squashed together that I cannot see any one message stand out other than the mountains and the “Welcome To Your Credit Union”.
You may reconsider restructuring and redesigning the home page, but this time using lighter uniform colors, and inserting images appropriate to the business.
Add some text to the home page, banner adverts are not nearly as effective as text adverts. Honestly when was the last time you clicked on a banner on a site?
Give your visitors something to read, and have it bold in front of them with the benefits for them to investigate further.
Use a bold text that summarizes in few words what they can gain from reading further down the page, use an image that tells the whole story… something to tell them at a glance what you are offering and how they can benefit. The key here is benefit. Your clients are not interested about what’s in it for you, or how great you are.
A perfect example of what you were trying to do is what overture is doing right now, visit www.overture.com to see the photos and message. Refresh the page and see what happens, you will see another…
Here you see, in 13 seconds overture has told me in that little movie everything I needed to know. Even if I never heard of them before, I will investigate further and on the right I have the key links bold in my face.
I see you have you have a “member join now”. You should consider placing this in a strategic location at the top left or top right of the page; you will get more attention to it.
Say I am a member, where do I sign in? Is the text with “online banking log on” that right under it is highlighted “more cars now” the login? Are you trying to make auction the main focus on that line?
Make a list of the things you want your clients to do the first time they get to your site. Summarize each service benefit , can be just one sentence and spread the information evenly across the page.
Do not squeeze all the information together, because people will no see a clear message but just a bunch of words.
Define the steps necessary for the visitor to complete the desired action, and always have a plan “B” and “C” in the case that plan “A” didn’t work
Having text on the home page is also advantageous as the search engines prefer website with content, and generally the index page tends to rank higher than other pages of a site so you stand a great chance of improving your ranking on the search engines.
The inside pages
Now when I clicked to see what you had inside the site, I was completely relieved. This really good… The site is bright uniform and informative.
YOU ASKED THIS:
From what I see you have done a good job with the availability of information, I also see you have the “quick jump” at the top, here you have links to areas of your site that felt are key locations on your site.
I also see you have the Java menu that lists all locations; you also have this on the home page. You may consider changing the colors of the background to a darker one to make the white text more visible.
On the menu on the left, I see you have listed the “main menu” and “sub menus” You may consider increasing the text size of the “main menu” text and/or making it a different color in order to distinguish between the two. This way people know where to click to investigate further under that category and will make the site more organized.
You may consider including a search box and the login possibilities on each of the pages, because right now the site looks more like a static site with no member area.
Your content is OK, you have organized that properly, for the type of site, you do not need hype so this is ok. However since the information is so much to get all at once, I would suggest you have a “catcher” on all pages.
People can enter from the backdoor to your site so you should be prepared. First thing you should think of is how to get the details of your visitors, so you can slowly and gradually introduce them to the benefits of doing business with you rather with your competition.
Give them something free to go away with and remember you, like a “How to guide”, and in exchange you get their permission to send them further mails when they give you their e-mail address to receive the download information.
Have them sign up for your newsletter.
And tell them the reason in a few seconds using a few words, why should they become a member today? With these three things at the back of your mind, you will get a chance to know your customers better and they to will find out what why they should do business with you.
Continuous communication is the key.
THE COMPLETE E-BUSINESS PACKAGE:
Intelligent E-Marketing
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URL:http://www.edwardhadome.com
E-Mail: admin@edwardhadfome.com
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