Like the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover”, people still do it, and the same to anything else– like blogs or websites– design is a huge factor in its judgement. In fact, a bad design may stop you from your web goals; e.g. more ads, more hits, etc. So if you don’t think you can handle it, take your pick of web designers and marketters throughout the web.

Visual Scope Studios is a Seattle-based company offering website design and development services.

On Showcase

They have a large and growing portfolio, with different a range of categories, every one reaching down below the fold (complete with screen shots!), showcasing previous work they have done. This shows that they have experience; in web design, and in business management, not only specializing in one topic, which is definitely a plus.

Design

One of the services Visual Scope specializes in is Web Design. They have a clean style, matching colour schemes; priorities above the fold. I’m not sure if there is more than one designer or if they were from 1999, but some designs are less “modern” than others, using an old and un-user-friendly design, so I decided to take a look at the source code to see why.

A Shock.

I looked at the DocType; XHTML. Imagine my surprise when I opened up the source file and found– tables! I triple checked the codes, but, I saw tables. Tables! Tables! Tables!

Tables are meant for storing data; so they generally load slower.
Nowadays, DIVs are in style…

DIVs are more flexible and are usually styled by a CSS file or right onto the file. You can read more about it by Google searching it. Visual Scope even has an article about it, combining XHTML and CSS! (A shock!)

DIVs or no, Visual Scope seems to have ongoing amounts of clients; I would suggest switching over to DIVs to keep up with larger clients. Nevertheless, they seem to have done fine marketing on their ranks.

Online Marketing

When advertisers buy reviews and advertisements, another big factor is the ranks. Search engine optimization being one of their expert areas,  Visual Scope boasts that they have pushed themselves up to one of the top ranks for their keywords (see image), and can do the same for you/your site.

Because of the tables, I’m still not exactly sure why they have such a large amount of clients; it can be many things– marketing, job boards, word of mouth, advertising, etc. But if the reason is marketing, then I suppose they would be a good agency to go to for marketing.

Pick Me!

As I was browsing their website, I noticed that they had motivating mantras encouraging you to go to them for your needs, such as “Maximize the full potential of your website” I can’t be the one to say if it’s true or not for their service, since there are no stats provided for previous work, but those mantras actually work; they put your website in new light, suggesting what they can do for you, to pursuade clients.

Contact

They have a clear means of contact, a basic form on the sidebar, a more complex one on a ‘Contact’ page. They even have an ‘Urgent’ ticket system for existing clients to contact them urgently. In my opinion, there isn’t much difference between the ticket system form and the contact form. I would just combine the two. I made a quick outline of an ideal contact form:

The only thing holding Visual Scope back is tables! Plus, a “Get a Quote!” or “Hire Us!” button/sign wouldn’t hurt. ;)

This was a sponsored review.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008| Category: ReviewMe Reviews | Comment | Trackback