When I saw the name bluesky I thought ooh I bet it'll be a pretty blue site... kinda disappointing to see just the sandy beach

Some things you may want to consider - I was confused by the title on the home page:
"APARTMENTS, CONDOS AND" ...
"VILLAS FOR RENTAL DIRECT"...
"FROM THE OWNERS"
- You might want to change it to
"VILLAS FOR RENTAL "...
"DIRECT FROM THE OWNERS"

The navigation was a little confusing in that the links were at the bottom and you have to go home to see what other pages there were. I'd try to put that pretty photo up near the top (file size is a tad large too) and get the navigation up there too.

I personally think the line "THIS SITE IS BEST VIEWED IN 800 X 600 RESOLUTION USING MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER" is a bit superfluous - I have a tiny little monitor and sometimes I feel like I'm being told I'm insignificant because my monitor is 7 years old. At least I use the correct browser!

Good luck with it and I hope you find something useful in what I've said.

Now that you have an idea how FP works, I would recommend spending some time studying up on tables. They will help you place things so that not everything appears to be centered. I see you have done some of that further into your site. Try it on your home page. It will make it look more professional.

Another thing to keep in mind is to keep extraneous items on your page to a minimum. Don't distract from your message. You could easily set the mood by moving the photo to the top and putting your site/company name with it. I'd get rid of the palm trees (and some of the other stuff). It would also give your site a lighter, brighter look and feel to use a lighter background, maybe even just plain white. Let your text message be the star of the show.

Finally, the navigation is a bit of a problem. It's important to have it near the top of the page, and almost always at the bottom as well. Keep it consistent...on all pages, always in the same spot, always in the same order. You have a "home" button and a "home page" button. (?)

There are way too many meta tags. It's best to keep keywords/phrases to 10-15 or so. This site may help: http://searchenginewatch.internet.com/webmasters/tips.html and this one: http://www.solution-shelf.com/FrontPage/HowTo/PrepPage.htm

Be very aware of load times. You may need to further break down your categories of rentals. People just will not wait minutes for a page to load.

I know you've worked hard on your site. Learning FP is no small task. I think you've got the hardest part conquered, now you just need to do a bit of polishing. We're all still learning!!!

Hang in there, and good luck with the site!

Sandy

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Stu Reilly Design
Allegheny Web
Dreamweaver Sites

quote:

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Originally posted by Millie:
WOW I've never seen so many META tags before in my life!! You win the
<.META name="prize" content="wisecrack".>!!!

When I saw the name bluesky I thought ooh I bet it'll be a pretty blue site... kinda disappointing to see just the sandy beach

Some things you may want to consider - I was confused by the title on the home page:
"APARTMENTS, CONDOS AND" ...
"VILLAS FOR RENTAL DIRECT"...
"FROM THE OWNERS"
- You might want to change it to
"VILLAS FOR RENTAL "...
"DIRECT FROM THE OWNERS"

The navigation was a little confusing in that the links were at the bottom and you have to go home to see what other pages there were. I'd try to put that pretty photo up near the top (file size is a tad large too) and get the navigation up there too.

I personally think the line "THIS SITE IS BEST VIEWED IN 800 X 600 RESOLUTION USING MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER" is a bit superfluous - I have a tiny little monitor and sometimes I feel like I'm being told I'm insignificant because my monitor is 7 years old. At least I use the correct browser!

Good luck with it and I hope you find something useful in what I've said.

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Hi Millie
thank you for looking. When you say that you have never seen so many meta tags, is it the amount of words within each meta tag you mean or the total number of tags. I am not very well up on meta tags, I have followed some advice on them. Are they wrong?
Mark

Thank you for taking time to look at the site. I have taken your advice on the navigation issue and put them at the top and bottom of each page. With regard to the meta tags and the picture, I read somewhere that it was important to have as many key words both in the tags and on the page as possible in order to get a good ranking on search engines. they also said that the key text should be at the top of the page. Does the picture not have any bearing on this, or am I reading it wrong.
Mark

Basically, the idea is that you shouldn't wait till the bottom of the page to start getting serious with your content. However, keywords are not as important as grabbing a viewer's attention and compelling them to read your page, then enter the site to seek out more detail. How long do you think it takes for someone to get the first impression of a website? Long before the page is loaded. If that impression is not favorable, they will likely leave before they even know what you have to offer.

Although search engine placement is good and important, chances are, you will get most of your traffic through marketing of other sorts.

As far as the meta tags, I would stick to the "necessary" ones that browsers need to read your page, then Title, Keywords, and Description. The others are virtually worthless.

Sandy

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Stu Reilly Design
Allegheny Web
Dreamweaver Sites

Sandy gave you some good advice. Your title needs to be redone to use keywords in it. Your description is really a list of keywords. You should work on the keywords a bit and you have set a record in the use of unneccessary keywords. Please don't take offence, but you have way more meta tags than I have ever seen in my life.

It won't take you long to get the hang of keywords. Go to the top of your screen and select view, then source and see how thomas has done the meta tags on this page which are excellent.

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If you are going to think anyway, you might as well think BIG