[Travis Wright]

www.retrieverresource.com

I finally got it launched!!! I ended up building it myself, nothing fancy, but I think it gets all my info out there. Let me know what you think.

Travis

 

[Conecuh]

Looks good man!

 

[Kenneth Niles Bora]

Nice site!
The photos are fine.
The "About You" page is nice. Not too brief. Not too in depth. A little wordy yes but I have seen a lot worse.
The program and pricing page I cringe when you state mater of factly what a client dog WILL know after one month.
Your digging a hole for yourself man because some dogs are 'tards!
The two testimonials and nice, brief and well worded with nice photos as well.
Now the most important thing. Well it is what it is. It will actually bring you customers and turn some off. It is what it is.
I do smile when I read the name of the Church you work at. I have never heard of a Cowboy Church. You Texans! ;-)
.

 

[Donald Flanagan]

Not bad. I especially like the link to "the most important thing"!

 

[Donald Flanagan]

I do smile when I read the name of the Church you work at. I have never heard of a Cowboy Church. You Texans! ;-)
.

I've met the pastor of one cowboy church... but that one's in Wyoming! They meet in an auction house, and try to work around the schedule of cattle ranchers who work hard 7 days a week. Good stuff.

 

[BonMallari]

Travis: there are many dog persons that could use some spiritual guidance and divine intervention....Good Luck on your new business

 

[dixidawg]

The picture at the top of the "Testimonials" page creeps me out big time....

Looks like you have the gun with a closed breech pointed right at the dog in the water.......

 

[2tall]

Travis, the neon type hurts my eyes and makes it hard to read. Yes, I am older and have bad eyes, but you might want to soften the colors a bit. Good luck to you on your business!

 

[Scott Parker]

You did a nice job on the web site it's very well put together I think you need to put a picture of the kennels on there so people can see what type of facility their dogs will be staying in also I get the impression that you are limited on time and your main priority is the church which I commend you for your strong beliefs but if I'm sending a dog to someone I would want their main focus to be on my dog but that's just my opinion. Good luck with it I hope you do well.

 

[Run N Gun]

You did a nice job on the web site it's very well put together I think you need to put a picture of the kennels on there so people can see what type of facility their dogs will be staying in also I get the impression that you are limited on time and your main priority is the church which I commend you for your strong beliefs but if I'm sending a dog to someone I would want their main focus to be on my dog but that's just my opinion. Good luck with it I hope you do well.

I can't agree more....I would want your main focus on my dog if I'm paying you to train him/her....Plus your really turning off the none "god" people with all the "god" and "church" talk!!! Being a Sales Mgr myself, you want to keep you political and religious views to your self until you really know your customer!

 

[Brad B]

Travis, the neon type hurts my eyes and makes it hard to read. Yes, I am older and have bad eyes, but you might want to soften the colors a bit. Good luck to you on your business!

Same here.

 

[Kenneth Niles Bora]

Same here.

yup,
I didnt want to say anything 'cause I am so much younger than you all;-)


.

 

[dpate]

Good site. Some critiques...

-it sounds like most of your time is taken up by the church.

-In the about us, at the bottom it should be 'devoted' waterfowlers instead of devote waterfowlers.

- The neon letters aren't good for the eyes

- it does look like you are shooting the dog in "testimonials"

- and it looks like you are shooting and the dog is breaking in 'the most important thing' pic.

 

[kimsmith]

Travis remember keep your eyes on what first in your life and thats Jesus. He gives you the ability to train other peoples dogs. Don't let some discourage you from being a witness even on your website. God comes first then dog training, always being honest will take you a long way. Hope everything works out and we also have Cowboy Churches here in TN. It looks to me you sent your dog after you shot like we do at hunt test, marking off the gun.

 

[Travis Wright]

Thanks everyone for the comments, suggestions and critiques. I really appreciate y'all taking 10 minutes out of your day to help me out.

The photographs were taken by a good friend of mine, Tommy Voelcker http://vphotography.zenfolio.com/ ;he is very talented.

I am grateful for the heads up on a few misspelled words and grammar mistakes, it's always good to get another set of eyes on it.

Thanks for the heads up on the colors hurting people's eyes, I really like the color scheme, but I may look at softening it up a little bit.

Ken, I appreciate you pointing out how I had things worded on the Programs and Prices page. I talked a little about Time Frames in another section on the site, but you were right....it came across very 'matter of fact' about the 1 month time frame. We all know some dogs take longer than that, I have since reworded that section.

I realize some of your concern about the picture that looks my dog is in the line of fire. Kimsmith had it right. Coming from an HRC background it has been my experience that when teaching a dog to swing with the gun on marks that you should send the dog for the bird before taking the gun off of the area of the fall; removing it first has caused some head swinging and distraction issues with a few dogs that I have seen.....I guess I am just hardwired to do it like that now. As far as the dog breaking, he didn't, I had sent him.....breaking is not something that we would post a picture of....haha.

I know that I do talk alot about church on the site, it is a huge part of who I am. Cowboy Church is very different in that most of the pastors also run cattle, cut hay, train horses or all of the above in addition to working at a church. Training dogs and being a Youth Minister at a Cowboy Church go together pretty seamlessly.....I can't think of a time there has been a conflict. I only keep 8 dogs in training (including my two personal dogs) so with only 6 client dogs I know that they are getting as much if not alot more of my time than if they were at another full time pro. Again, I'm just a gun dog guy.....If you want a FC/AFC or even really a QAA/Master Hunter.....there are better options to send your dog to. But if your main concern is a solid foundation for a gun dog or even a dog that performs at the HRC Finished or AKC Senior Level....that is really what my kennel is about.

As far as 'The Most Important Thing'; like Ken said, it is what it is. My relationship with God is at the very core of who I am. I am well aware that what I put on my sight may or may not scare people off. There once was a time when I too was in Sales with a major Oil Field Company and I kept comments like that to myself, but now I am the OWNER of a kennel, and it was something that I wanted to do. If I loose business over it.....so be it. I am really not interested in using my relationship with God to build a Dog Training Business; I am however very interested in seeing how God uses my little Dog Training Business to build His Kingdom!!! I'm not a Dog Trainer that happens to be a Christian, I am a Christian that happens to be a Dog Trainer.

Thanks again for your time, compliments, critiques and suggestions.....they are very appreciated!!!

Travis

 

[dpate]

Travis, hope my critiques weren't taken in the wrong way. I am definitely in favor or your work with Christ and for witnessing to others through the website and training. Oh, and I figured you were marking off the barrel and I surely didn't think you would post a pic of a dog breaking but it just kind of looked that way to me. Good job!

 

[dukdawgman]

AMEN, Brother!!! I attend Kaufman County Cowboy Church and wish I had found it when I was a lot younger. God Bless!

 

[east tx hoghunt]

Very well said, there will be people that are more interested in you training there dog because of your witness and honest talk on your web site. Good luck in your venture.

 

[RaeganW]

On the front page, change the font of "Please take a look around..." from Comic Sans.

Put all of the body text in the same font. Right now some of it is Arial, some of it is Times New Roman. In general, Arial is easier to read on a computer screen. This isn't a big problem on most pages, except the testimonial page. You can use a different font for section headings, but a better choice is Arial Black or another sans serif font. It will match better. If you want to keep it simple, bold Arial like you have been.

Tone down the colors. You don't need multiple colors of font on each page either. I do like the color scheme you have going, but accent colors are better used sparingly, such as using them for section headers. They will draw more attention if they are a novel sight.

As others have said, the colors are a little bright. Generally dark backgrounds are more tiring to read than light ones. I do really like your color scheme (black, dark green, bright green, orange) and think it fits your subject matter well. But a more subtle use will have more impact.

On "Who We Are", columns like that are not web friendly. You have to scroll down to read one, then scroll back up to read the next column, etc. Traditional paragraphs are a better choice.

Also on who we are, it could use a proof read. You jump around tenses a little and use capital letters a little too freely.

Overall, it's a nice site. All the links work, your contact information is obvious on every page, it's not a nightmare to navigate, and the pictures are clear and attractive! It needs a little polish, but what you've got is serviceable and a sight (lol!) better than many amateur produced websites.

 

[Travis Wright]

RaegenW, thanks alot!!! You know what you are talking about, lots of stuff that I hadn't thought through. Obviously you are very knowledgable on this subject, thanks for the great advise.

Scott Parker, thanks for the idea of putting a picture of my kennels and other facilities on the website. I am going to take photos of the kennels and my trailer this weekend.

Again, thanks for your time, much appreciated.

Travis