Finding every Kalamazoo, MI area website is impossible and ranking them would have been even harder. The only option was to continue by category. This is post #2 of the Best Website in the Kalamazoo Area Series.
This list is the best of local business websites. Some criteria I used to rate them:
Kalamazoo Center For Healing Arts
A very simple site with distinguished navigation and easy to read content. The right most column can be a little distracting. An easy fix would be to incorporate the image with the article and move the extra info to it's own row below the content. This will expand the content to take up a majority of the page and give more importance to it.
A very simple easy to navigate website for available real estate at Oshtemo Village Place.
The website for Great Lakes Water Proofing is a spacious website that understands the importance of "white space", although the paragraphs are a little crunched and deserve more space between lines.
The navigation is very prominent, which makes it easy to find and use, but the spinning animation for the menu links makes the menu distracting and a little annoying.
Take a particular note of the quick pick menu with links to their various services. This makes it easy for visitors to find information about the services they may need without having to navigation deeply into the site.
SKP design is an interior design company and the website gives the user what they would expect; A clean website with plenty of pictures and evidence of their skill.
In the Web 2.0 world the font size could be increased a little and leading as well. This Will make the content easier to read for the user.
The menu is creative and made to look and feel like your flipping through a portfolio binder. A draw back to pages other than the home page are the narrow columns that make the content hard to read. Incorporating images with the text to allow for wrapping and wider columns should help alleviate this.
A clean well made site that is easy to use and read. The text has proper leading which makes it very easy to read! The only draw back to this website is the lack of prominence of the menu items.
Leading is the space between lines. It is important to have enough leading to keep the reader from losing their place within the content.
Of special note is the fact that this website uses a CMS system, specifically Joomla. Joomla is one of the more popular CMS programs and one that I stand by.
This site defines the meaning of "white space", which isn't literally white. "White space" is the space between elements. It allows a website to breathe and bestows the relationships between elements. The farther away an element is from another the less related they are and vice-a-versa.
As a tech support company you might expect the website to be overun with information and little regard to style and although this website isn't very artistic it definitely isn't daunting.
Right from the start this website is easy to use. Down the left side are quick links to the primary services The Technology Pool offers. (These links are also doubled within a secondary menu just below the banner image.)
The data represented on this site is put into tables that many users will be able to understand.
Although information on services is easy to find, there is now call to action on any of the services pages. This is one of the most important aspects of a business website; Converting a website visit into a sale or contact for possible sale. The only location to contact is within the top most main menu in the contact us link. This should be integrated into each services page to allow visitors to contact the company more easily.
iyeTek has a great website that embodies many of the great aspects of the Web2.0 movement. The main navigation is easy to find a prominent and hover effects give the user more control and interaction.
The front page is split into 2 columns. The left columns previews information from other sections of the page to give the visitor an idea of what the company offers and the right column holds recent news, contact info, etc...
When moving to deeper pages the content widens to the full width of page. This brings importance to the content and makes it easier to read. Although the paragraphs' line seem a little close this is a great website.
A simple well thought website. Every page has contact info at the bottom make it easy to take action if wanted by the user. The website allows clients to proof photos from home (through secure access) and the photographer keeps a blog.
Blogs are a great way to show potential clients/customers the knowledge and authority you or your company has with its industry. It can bestow confidence and create a relationship that can lead to loyalty.
Except for possibly extending article content pages to the full width of the template there's not much fault to bu found. Contact info is ever present in the header and information is easy to find. J.O. Gallup does a great job with theri website!
Honorable mentions
These website almost made it into the top 10. Keep in mind the use of "white space", leading, font size, menu prominence and user interaction.
