Before and after: Your website,before andafter.
Same business. Same work. Same prices. Three versions of one website, thirty years apart. The one on the left is a joke. The one in the middle is what most owners are actually running, and it is the one quietly costing work.
Every screen on this page is a worked example we built. It is not a client, and no result on it is one we are claiming.
1996 and today
The same shop,thirty yearsapart.
North Fork Joinery is a worked example, not a client. Twelve years in the trade, a workshop in Portland, three people. The left hand side is a thought experiment: the site a shop like this one would have had in 1996. The right is what we build now. Nothing about the business changed. Everything a stranger sees did.
North Fork Joinery
Fine Woodworking & Custom Cabinets
Welcome to the home page of North Fork Joinery!! NEW! Price list updated
Now taking orders for the holiday seasonNow taking orders for the holiday seasonNow taking orders for the holiday seasonNow taking orders for the holiday season
We are a family owned wood shop located in Portland Oregon. We make tables, chairs, bookcases and custom cabinets to order. Please look around our site and sign our guestbook before you leave!
Home|About Us|Our Products|Links|Guestbook|E-mail Us
You are visitor number000147
This page is best viewed in Netscape Navigator 4.0 at 800x600
Last updated: 11/04/1996
Questions? E-mail the webmaster
- Built for 800x600
- No way to book you
- Illustrative
Twelve years of joinery. Finally with a front door.
Handmade in Portland. Delivered across the Pacific Northwest.
- Reads on a phone
- One thing to press
- Illustrative
Twenty minutes with both founders, about your business. No deck and no pitch.
Book a revamp callThe one that actually costs you
Nobody's sitelooks like 1996.That is not theproblem.
The 1996 page is easy to laugh at because every signal on it is loud. The one in the middle is the one doing the damage, and it is harder to see, because nothing on it is wrong. A stock photo of a handshake. A stretched logo. Welcome to our website. A form nobody answers. It is not bad. It is nothing, and nothing is what a stranger weighs against the two other businesses in your town.
- 1996North Fork JoineryWelcome!!
Loud and obvious
Nobody has this any more
- 2014Welcome to our website
Quiet and forgettable
Most owners have this
- TodayTwelve years of joinery. Finally with a front door.Book a workshop visit
Says what you do in one line
This is the work
All three are illustrations, not screenshots of anybody's website.
People settle on how a page looks in about fifty milliseconds, and the verdict barely changes if you give them ten times longer.
Lindgaard et al., Behaviour & Information Technology, 2006What actually changed
Seven things,one page.
- The headline
- BeforeWelcome to our website
- AfterTwelve years of joinery. Finally with a front door.
- The first screen
- BeforeA logo, a greeting and a menu
- AfterWhat you do, who it is for, and one thing to press
- On a phone
- BeforePinch, zoom, give up
- AfterBuilt for the phone first, tested on a cheap one
- How they book you
- BeforeCall us during business hours
- AfterPick a time. Confirmation lands in both calendars
- What proves you are good
- BeforeA visitor counter
- AfterReviews, asked for after the job and not before
- Speed
- Before6.4 seconds
- AfterUnder a second
- Who owns it
- BeforeWhoever built it
- AfterYou, from the first day. Leaving us is a password change
Load times are from the worked example, not a measured client result.
Going from a one second load to three raises the chance a visitor bounces by thirty two percent.
Think with Google, mobile page speed benchmarks, 2016How the right hand side happens
The call
Twenty minutes about your business. What you sell, who buys it, what is not working. No deck.
Week two
Positioning, the sentence and the first route. If it lands wrong you stop there, on a third of the fee, and you keep the work.
Week six
Live. Every domain, file and account registered in your name.
Want to seeyours, twice?
Bring the address of the site you have now. We will walk through it with you on the call and say what we would change, in what order, and what we would leave alone. Twenty minutes. You keep the notes either way.