Long Time Listener....

[Big Rob]

Hey Everyone,
I am relatively new to the game. this is my first great undertaking in what I hope will be a fruitful career. If you have the time take a look at it for me and let me know how you feel about it, what can be improved, etc.

www.stowecomputers.com (http://www.stowecomputers.com)


I also want to thank everybody who reads this, because I have been surfing this forum for many months.Sometimes for specific problems, but mostly just reading random problems and learning, so if you're reading this you have probably already helped me. Thanks

[marybeshaw]

You have a very nice site. I LOVE the blue color. It's cool, professional, and a little different. Your location is also very prominent. That's good.

A couple of suggestions:

Only underline links for usability reasons. Rather than underline the headings on your Web Design page, bold them.

For every flash section of your site, do you provide alternate text for non-flash users (the most import of these being search engines)?

On the "Contact Us" page, automatically highlight the option they have come from; If they click "Contact Us" from the Web Design section, highlight that.

On the refurbished computers page, how do you get someone who wants one of those PCs to contact you to purchase it? Add something that makes it really easy.

Check your img alt attributes. On your Discus Industries non-flash page, at least, alt attributes for the descriptions should match the text inside (and all the text should show up when the user views the page; they shouldn't have to mouse over to see what the heading is about).

If it were my site, I would add a lot more content to every page, not in flash, so visitors can more easily be convinced to place an email or phone call and search engines can index it. Visitors who need to be convinced they need a custom computer rather than one they can get from a big shop or Wal-Mart. Visitors who aren't sure if they want to refurbish the computer they've got or get a new one. Visitors who aren't sure if they want web design or not. What does the $10.95/month web hosting include? Email? Disk space?

Good luck!
Mary

[tracknut]

It looks like a lot of work went into the site, Rob. I like the color scheme, but have a few issues. Hopefully you won't take them wrong.

- Putting your web design work on the same page as computers and repair, really throws me as a potential customer. They are "apples and oranges" skill sets, which leads me to believe that you're trying to drum up a bit of web design work, but aren't serious about it. I would have two different sites.
- The big fonts everywhere make the whole site look a bit like an ad you'd see in a newspaper. I'm used to "typical" font sizes on most web sites - why is yours yelling at me?
- I would fix the width of the site, rather than having it expand with the browser. Nothing is accomplished when the browser width is extended - your site just moves around.
- The site in general looks a bit "old tech" or "clunky". Not quite sure how to describe it.
- On your web design page, using uppercase on the first letter of every word is quite annoying.

But you've got a start, keep making it better :)

Dave

[Twissler]

You may want to make the navigation items smaller because at 1024x768 the navigation is still cut off and I can't see all the options unless I scroll.

You did quite well for that being your first major website.

[Big Rob]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions, its great to have different perspectives. I appreciate you all taking the time to help me.