navigation
a webmaster learning community
     Home    Register     Search      Help      Login    
Sponsors

Shopping Cart Software
Ecommerce software integrated into Frontpage, Dreamweaver and Golive templates. No monthly fees and available in ASP and PHP versions.

Website Templates
We also have a wide selection of Dreamweaver, Expression Web and Frontpage templates as well as webmaster tools and CSS layouts.

Frontpage website templates
Creative Website Templates for FrontPage, Dreamweaver, Flash, SwishMax

Search Forums
 

Advanced search
Recent Posts

 Todays Posts
 Most Active posts
 Posts since last visit
 My Recent Posts
 Mark posts read

Microsoft MVP

 

Hey I'm new and would like your opinion on my site!

 
View related threads: (in this forum | in all forums)

Logged in as: Guest
Users viewing this topic: none
Printable Version 

All Forums >> Web Design >> Site Critiques >> Hey I'm new and would like your opinion on my site!
Page: [1]
 
leighmcc

 

Posts: 3
Joined: 6/4/2007
Status: offline

 
Hey I'm new and would like your opinion on my site! - 6/29/2007 3:56:11   
Hey,

I am new to the forums and would like your opinion on a few different websites I have designed myself. I am a freelance web developer, and also operate a Web Hosting business.

http://www.startyourownwebsite.net
http://www.shokem.com

I'm currently working on a couple new websites, so I will post them when they are more finished.

Leigh McCulloch
Tailslide

 

Posts: 5915
Joined: 5/10/2005
From: Out here on the raggedy edge
Status: offline

 
RE: Hey I'm new and would like your opinion on my site! - 6/29/2007 4:43:27   
Hi Leigh

Welcome to the forum! I'll dive right in and say that because you're a web developer I'll be much "nit-pickier" (is that a word?) than I would with someone who does it just for fun.

On the first site - you've got a load of coding errors in there which would make me be concerned about the quality of the "make your own sites" thing. There's no use of heading tags to help users and to help with SEO (Google loves heading tags!).

The layout is fixed width but it's too wide for a 800px width screen which is strange - if you're going to go for fixed width rather than elastic or fluid then I'd go for around 760px width to avoid the scrollbar.

There's an odd mix of table-layout and CSS there - it's a really simple layout so I'm not sure why you're using tables at all... Mind you I've just checked again and it's a Joomla site which would explain the coding!

The layout breaks quite quickly when you increase the font-size. Try not to specify heights for things and you'll make it more flexible.

Far as the other site goes - not much to say really, except that you've not bothered to have the stylesheet changer but you've kept all those stylesheet links. I'd dump those if you're not using them.

On the Other Stuff page the menu is broken in Firefox, Opera and IE7.

Also - and this is seriously nit-picking here - you've got about the same amount of comments as you do markup. I generally add in something like:

<!-- end container -->


or similar which I find really useful - but you've got a load of comments on opening and on closing of divs which add up to a lot of extra stuff in there. I'm just thinking about the added page weight - it's nice to keep things as slimline as possible. Maybe this is something that RapidWeaver puts in for you?

_____________________________

"My strategy is so simple an idiot could have devised it"
Little Blue Plane Web Design | Blood, Sweat & Rust - A Land Rover restoration project

(in reply to leighmcc)
jaybee

 

Posts: 13959
Joined: 10/7/2003
From: Berkshire, UK
Status: offline

 
RE: Hey I'm new and would like your opinion on my site! - 6/29/2007 7:43:14   
Agree with all the above comments

_____________________________

If it ain't broke..... fix it until it is.
:)

:)
GAWDS
Now where did I put that Doctype?

(in reply to Tailslide)
Larry M.

 

Posts: 2607
Joined: 2/20/2003
From: Greenville, South Carolina, USA
Status: offline

 
RE: Hey I'm new and would like your opinion on my site! - 6/29/2007 12:54:25   
Perhaps I've not bridged the generation gap sufficently, but this entre on http://www.shokem.com :

"the simplest website that doesn't suck"


..... has no place to be in place by a so-called "Web Developer"

_____________________________

Larry M.

A liberal is a person whose interests aren't at stake at that moment.

(in reply to jaybee)
leighmcc

 

Posts: 3
Joined: 6/4/2007
Status: offline

 
RE: Hey I'm new and would like your opinion on my site! - 7/2/2007 4:01:21   
Thanks for your points. Yup the site is made with Joomla which is why I have a mixture of tables and CSS. This was the first website I used Joomla for, and I must say I am not impressed.

I'll chase up the errors and excessive comments. I was more interested in what you thought of the design of the website, as I intend on stripping the entire site down to static pages once I settle on the design, i.e. no Joomla and I'll use some custom PHP scripts I have to separate page content from page design.

Thank you for your comments everyone.

Cheers,
Leigh

(in reply to Larry M.)
Mehdi

 

Posts: 32
Joined: 8/1/2007
Status: offline

 
RE: Hey I'm new and would like your opinion on my site! - 8/3/2007 21:44:07   
I wouldn't have a clue about coding errors so I'll just comment on the design.

It's nice and concise but using images for text links is so Mickey Mouse. It's clear Customizable Templates, Free Website Builder and News have been cut and pasted and to my surprise so where the phone numbers. That's unforgivable. You should be using photoshop for images, not pasting text!

(in reply to leighmcc)
leighmcc

 

Posts: 3
Joined: 6/4/2007
Status: offline

 
RE: Hey I'm new and would like your opinion on my site! - 8/3/2007 23:24:28   
In some situations it is appropriate to convert images to text, especially if you don't want those areas of documents to be readable by bots. Email addresses and phone numbers bots pick up for advertising. Hence why my footer is images.

The reason I use images for text elsewhere in the design, is because I want a specific look and feel. These other text->image have not been 'cut and pasted'.

(in reply to Mehdi)
d a v e

 

Posts: 4010
Joined: 7/24/2002
From: England (but live in Finland now)
Status: offline

 
RE: Hey I'm new and would like your opinion on my site! - 8/4/2007 4:41:05   
"Email addresses and phone numbers bots pick up for advertising. Hence why my footer is images. "
but without the proper alt text attributes then screen reader users or those with images turned off won't have anyway of contacting you either ;)

_____________________________

David Prescott
Gekko web design

(in reply to leighmcc)
treetopsranch

 

Posts: 963
From: Cottage Grove, OR, USA
Status: online

 
RE: Hey I'm new and would like your opinion on my site! - 8/4/2007 20:52:08   
By all means get rid of this "the simplest website that doesn't suck"

It is a crass lowlife statement and cheapens your web site.

_____________________________

Don from TreeTops Ranch, Oregon

"I've got a taste for quality and luxury"


(in reply to d a v e)
dbguide

 

Posts: 28
Joined: 12/12/2007
Status: offline

 
RE: Hey I'm new and would like your opinion on my site! - 12/14/2007 3:33:23   
two stylistic comments

startyourownwebsite.net <--- looks like an herbal affiliate site; I should know I own an herbal MLM and I try very hard not to make it look like an herbal MLM

startyourownwebsite.net <--- looks a lot easier than networksolutions or monstercommerce ... is it as easy as it looks? ... you are certainly less expensive ... how is the customer service? I am looking for new hosting

ok the last one wasnt stylistic at all :)

(in reply to treetopsranch)
Page:   [1]

All Forums >> Web Design >> Site Critiques >> Hey I'm new and would like your opinion on my site!
Page: [1]
Jump to: 1





New Messages No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages Locked w/o New Messages
 Post New Thread
 Reply to Message
 Post New Poll
 Submit Vote
 Delete My Own Post
 Delete My Own Thread
 Rate Posts