New website... Feedback please

I bit the bullet and put together a website... Naively I did not check business names so I'm one of the 300 "Happy Faces" face painting businesses, but I'm going to stick with that name for now. Please take a look and let me know how to improve. Thanks so much!
Http://happypaintedfaces.webs.com

this is a good start--

here is my opinion which is based on nothing but my personal opinion and one 3 hour marketing class

On the home page:
I would vary the writing--Put your company name in different font then the rest.

I would choose more exciting colors for the back ground (but not distacting).

The blue writing on the right is unreadable.

I would also take the girl on the right out--she doesn't look that happy to be painted--I would go with a more smily child/person

On the contact page--it is one long line of information--and your phone number is broken up on to two lines---

I would post it this way---

Happy Faces is located in the h:amlet of Wallkill, near New Paltz, NY.

We can be contacted by:
Email: happypaintedfaces@hotmail.com
Phone: 845-674-1441

Contact us today to find out times still available.

On the saftey section I think I wouldn't post where you bought paints. most people won't care that much I think. If you sound like you know what you are doing they won't want to look up the paint types. Plus what if someone links on to a site and thinks--Hey I will just buy $65-75 worth of paints and do it myself? That is what I would think anyway!

Again this is what I would post in that section

Happy Faces uses only FDA approved, professional grade products. All of our paints meet FDA standards for cosmetics. Brand names of our products include Diamond FX, Wolfe, FAB, Snazaroo and Mehron.

Sadly, there are too many uninformed persons offering face painting who use products not approved for use on human skin. Simply being "non toxic" is not enough. Non-toxic means that the product is not poisonous if ingested, not that the products are safe for skin. Many craft paints can cause serious skin reactions.

Information on supplies is available upon request. (I would take that out totally, but if you want something like this in--this is an idea)

For everyone's health and safety, Happy Faces cannot paint anyone with an open sore, rash or contagious disease such as a cold. We are happy to offer hand or arm art as an alternative


Gallery looks great--If you paint kids of any age, if not then I would remove the baby--like if you don't paint kids under the age of 2-also there is a lot of talk about posting trademark characters (spiderman & Captain A) on websites--

Honestly the Rates page to me was hard to read--not because I couldn't see it, but it seemed like a lot of imformation
I would put the Titles of the parties in a different font.

I would put that you would need an hour for a small party -- 2 for medium party and a minmum of of 3 hours for 30+ children-or however many you could do in that time.

I would also make the corporate shorter sentences. Good info, but most people won't take time to read all of it when presented in that long format (marketing class talking, not me--though I agree)
Under Contracts--is that a typo? Did you mean business or business? Spelled the same way--different meaning---use a different work--"due to the increased demand" might be an option.
I think I might put a picture or two on each page -- just to show a little more of what you do. "

"Liked" your page! Nice job---I am starting mine and it is harder then I thought it would be--maybe I will try your server out and see if I can figure it out better.

Thanks Amylady! I made most of the changes you suggested... it's amazing what a second set of eyes can see. A few things I'm stuck on... I don't have any more pictures until I get permission to publish the photos from the parents of the children I'm not related to! And I thought I read that the more links to/from your page will help your rankings, that's why the supplier websites. I just don't know what other links I could add...
Thanks so much for taking the time to look and give me feedback. I knew that baby shouldn't be in the gallery but she's my niece and I'm in love with her!

hi Rebons, The site looks nice. I love the light blue, its easy on the eyes. one thing I noticed was this line on the Safety Info page - "Please see the information box on the right containing links to some of Happy Faces product suppliers" It should say Left, not right.

Also on your rates page, this line " 35 miles from zip code 12589, a travel fee may be charged.". You could reword it to say Travel fees/charges will apply. That way, if you want to waive it, they will feel like you are giving them something extra. I charge .50 / km outside my city limits and have only waived it once for a charity event.

Your Gallery is nice, great photos! Good luck to you.

Thanks Veelux! Changes made. Hahaha... left/right. I changed the format after I wrote the information.

This looks great! I did like the art on the non smiling girl--that was on the front page, did she disappear? I didn't see her in the gallery

But I like this ---nicely done! I LIKED your page last time I was there and it doesn't show up! hummm....

Amylady thanks again! You helped more than you know! The non-smiler is my very own teenager, and I told her she can't be on the front page if she doesn't smile! I'm not sure I've got the business facebook page set up correctly. Thanks for liking me too!

I would also get rid of the suppliers. Some clients might, as AmyLady said, decide to purchase paint themselves instead. They may also stumble onto the forum.
I really like the photos in your Gallery. They suggest you have a large variety which is great. Your wording is good on the rates page, too.

It is my opinion that we should never used "FDA approved" when describing our paints...

As far as I know, the paints themselves are not approved by the FDA, but the ingredients in them are compliant with the FDA standards - correct me if I'm wrong, guys, but I believe that we established that on past threads on the forum - so for newer people, this is maybe something you were not aware of...

This, of course does not include almost all neon colors because the testing either hasn't been done or the results are inconclusive or something to that nature.

I think you could have a go at making your website a little more livelier, colorful or fun... just to project the idea that your face painting is so much fun that they really want to hire you for their event. My own website probably goes overboard with that concept, but I get so many compliments from those who have looked at it and called me for a booking.

Rebons wrote:... And I thought I read that the more links to/from your page will help your rankings, that's why the supplier websites. I just don't know what other links I could add...

I'm not familiar with the link thing you are talking about...maybe it is links to other "ordinary" peoples sites, not suppliers...but I'm with the others on 'getting rid of the supplier' links.
That just seems to me to be giving people the idea they can do it themselves and NOT hire you.
........
I just talked to my son (he owns an IT consulting business)...He told me the best way to get local traffic on your website is to google "create Google business listing"
and take it from there. You need a gmail acct to do it, but it is free...
He also said if you want to spend some money on it, you can use Google Adwords, they charge for it, but he said it isn't much compared to others.

it is relevant and high ranking links TO your site that improve your page rank... not to say that a few relevant links from your site aren't good too, but that's more because people will find visiting your site to be relevant. I have links on my page to the manufacturers' sites so that they can find out more about the products that way instead of having them ask me for more information and you certainly don't need to tell customers where to purchase them.

I use google adwords, you can set your budget to be as low as you'd like and it does help. Just be sure to set the areas that will see your ad to be within your service area... I can't tell you how many ads I see on a google search for clowns from Toronto and I'm SURE they aren't going to drive 4 hours to do a job down here. You can set it as a radius distance from one point or list the cities where you want it to show.

Thanks everyone! Okay, suppliers links gone. and "approved" changed to "compliant". I've actually avoided buying any neon after reading the discussions about them. (And because I'm on a buying moratorium until AFTER my first paying gig ). I did register the website with google, yahoo and bing and got on google maps. Google has it as "being reviewed" for the past month, has anyone else run into this?
Thanks again, I really appreciate everyone's thoughtful review!

I agree with Miss Ronnie, Animation is fun and seems lively. Our website has some and we change it with the seasons. People always compliment and comment on it. My husband is good at that stuff so he keeps it up to date.

Nice job!

I would recommend making "Facepainting" in the title "Face Painting".

I would include some time information on the rates page. Maybe after the number of guests you could include about how long that would take.

I also think it would look nice to include some pictures on all of the pages. The contact page and safety pages look pretty empty and would be jazzed up with some photos. Sounds like you already plan to do this once you have more pictures.