Can you guys give me your honest ideas about how I can make my site better

[goldsteinmedia]

Hey guys,

I was wondering if you could let me know what you like and dislike and what I can do better on my site. http://www.goldsteinmedia.com/

I know alot of you are web developers like myself. The big difference is that most of you have tons of experience whereas I'm still learning the craft. Any additional coding that you could suggest or style-tips would be amazing!

Thanks so much!

-Seth Goldstein

ps. Also if you guys (general term for both men and women) have any suggestions how I can get my site as well as my client's sites up and listed on search engines that would be awesome. but the top stuff is more important right now! :D

[BonRouge]

Tables for layout is not the way to go (http://www.hotdesign.com/seybold/index.html) - here (http://bonrouge.com/2c-hf-fixed.php)'s something simliar to your layout that doesn't use tables.

A menu is a list and should probably be marked up as such. Listamatic (http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/) has a lot of good ideas for how to mark up menus.

Marquees (http://www.maplewoodlax.com/) are really irritating.

Image maps (http://www.singyourwaytospanish.com/) are, in my humble opinion, not the best way to present menus. If you want to change anything about your menu in the future, you'll have to change the big image rather than just a bit of text. There's nothing wrong with using images for the menu, but I'd use single images for each item if I was going to use them at all (there isn't much need for it when you can use css to make great-looking menus).

I'm not sure if you'd like your boxes to reach down to the bottom of the page when you don't have much content (like this (http://www.goldsteinmedia.com/goldsteinmedia/gmcontact.htm) box doesn't reach down) but if you'd like that, here (http://bonrouge.com/3c-hf-fluid-lc.php)'s one way to do it.

I hope this helps in some way.

[geekazoid]

I agree with BonRouge about marquees and image maps. Not only are marquee iritating - they aren't supported by Netscape. The best designers design sites to look good in all browsers. I'd say if you can make your site look good in 800X600 and look exactly the same in IE 4+ as NS 4 then you're golden.

You want to make sites as dynamic as you possibly can, so as far as the side nav goes, you're developer should have known that as far as the image map.

Overall your site is okay, but why does the font on the home differ from the fonts on the rest of the pages? Why do you have a stylesheet: css.css and still embed styles into your pages hard? I'd suggest optimizing your stylesheet.

And man no offense.. well it can't help but be.. your site http://www.singyourwaytospanish.com/ gives me headache looking at it.

I'd take some time to look at different proffessional sites or maybe take a class in web colors.

[goldsteinmedia]

First of all, I'm the web developer. Second Image Maps and marquees do indeed work in netscape since I mainly develop using Mozilla/Netscape (I do cross in to IE to make sure things look okay). Thirdly, the color scheme for singyourwaytospanish was chosen by my client. Think of the theme man, the theme is Spanish. Mexico and Spain are colorful and my client picked those colors. How much experience do you have in web design. What are some of your sites that you have developed. Because the first guy showed me one of his own sites which gave him the right to comment. I appriciate your comments but if are a developer you would understand that the client is always right and color scheme should reflect on the color scheme of the product wich if you looked at the pictures and graphics, provided by the client, those are the colors.

So I conclude that you don't know what the heck you are talking about. I don't mean to diss you but show me a site that you made and that will help me out. Don't just diss and not show what site would look better.

-CH :p

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by goldsteinmedia
First of all, I'm the web developer. Second Image Maps and marquees do indeed work in netscape since I mainly develop using Mozilla/Netscape (I do cross in to IE to make sure things look okay). They are wrong on every browser because they are invalid and inaccessible.
How much experience do you have in web design. What are some of your sites that you have developed. Because the first guy showed me one of his own sites which gave him the right to comment. Why should we have to prove ourselves to you? You asked for comments / advice, we are giving it to you.

So I conclude that you don't know what the heck you are talking about. I don't mean to diss you but show me a site that you made and that will help me out. Don't just diss and not show what site would look better. Please do not insult other members by saying they do not know what they are talking about. You are receiving help / advice free of charge and no one here has to help you. If you alienate other members you might not be able to get help / advice from our forums anymore.

I feel that Geekazoid could have worded things a little different so his post would have come off a bit nicer but I am inclined to agree with him about web safe colors. If you use them they are going to make your site look better and make your life easier.


If you wish to see how a css based layout works you might take a peak at www.bluerobot.com . They have some very basic css layouts there, but it is a rather good place to go when you want to see css for layout in action and see how it works. I do suggest you use a css based layout rather then tabular as tables were never intended to be used for layout, they will waste your bandwidth, and cause some formidable accessible issues.

[MstrBob]

First off, based upon your coding, it seems you haven't the proper grasp on HTML 4.01 nor the Web Contents Accessibility Guidelines, so allow me to post these resources.

HTML 4.01 Specification (http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/)
CSS 2.1 Specification (http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/)
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/)

I personally don't recommend anyone attempt to make a website look visually appealing in Netscape 4 or Internet Explorer 4. These browsers' support for CSS is far from optimal, and they have such a little following, I feel confidant in dropping CSS support for these browsers. It is not economically smart to attempt to bug proof these browsers. But if you're using proper HTML 4.01 and CSS 2.1, then your website will still be perfectly accessible.

It's hard to pinpoint, but your website just doesn't have that proffessional feel. I can't quite explain why, though, visuals aren't my strong point. But as your buisness site, you want it to be the best showcase of your talents, as it will show potential clients what you are capable of.

Also, as a sidenote, this thread would be better suited for the Website Review forum, and, a member needn't show their own work to justify their opinions. This is a free forum, take people's advice or leave it, they needn't have to prove their talents with their website if they don't want to.

[goldsteinmedia]

Okay.

First, my client wanted marquees.

I don't want you to prove yourselves to me but instead of just saying that this site sucks why don't people provide links to good sites for me to look at.

I'm a rookie and willing to learn but when someone just says it sucks with out showing me how to make it better it doesn't help me. sorry for getting pissy.

I do appricate all your help.

-Seth

[MstrBob]

http://csszengarden.com/

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by MstrBob
http://csszengarden.com/ One thing I like to point out about zengarden is that it is a good demonstration of the power of css because of the fact that everyone one of those layouts has the same html file. Only the css file changes, but the xhtml in the html file is all the same for all of them.

[geekazoid]

Hi,

I'm very sorry if my wording was a little harsh, it wasn't my intention to hurt your feelings. I think you're brave for asking others for their honest opinions, mine isn't really ready for showing yet.. but when I am ready I know some of their replys might be harsh, that's just the way it goes.

I answered your poll saying you have a lot of potential... maybe I'll be more careful in how I word myself from now on. I'm new to photoshop and yes I am a developer. This is something I'm working on but I don't really like it.. and I didn't write the shopping cart php code. http://www.somersproject.net/landreaSite/


Sorry once again.

Geekazoid

[BonRouge]

Seth,

Yeah... and he did say "no offence" the first time.
For what it's worth, I think my comments are valid and I'm not a 'developer'. I make websites for myself, some friends and my business (an English school) - it's not my job. I don't think not being 'a developer' makes what I have to say any less valid. As the others
have said, you did ask for honest opinions. Now you're getting them, you don't seem very happy. Without trying to rub it in, I too think the colour scheme on the Spanish site is just kind of painful. Sure - use Mexican colours or Spanish colours, but that's not really what you've done there. I'm no design expert, but I can tell you from gut instinct/reaction that the colours clash. There's a good article here (http://www.sitepoint.com/article/color-for-coders) about colour schemes.

Good luck.

[goldsteinmedia]

Geekazoid. I'm sorry for gettings so pissy. I'm really impressed with that site you showed me. Bon... the spanish site I agree I don't like those colors either. But my client was explicit that she wanted those colors. So in the interest of making her happy and making 400 bucks I abliged. lol.

Try http://www.maplewoodlax.com/:D

:cool:

Let me know what you think of that. I'm currently working on a biotech site when that's up i'll submit that too. It's not the fact that I don't like critism. And I understand that no one has to show their credentials (sorry for my poor spelling) but it would be nice that if you tell someone that their site needs work to recommend a site or two to show him what looks good.

Thanks Guys!

-Seth

[BonRouge]

Yeah, I think that site looks nice enough. It's simple and yeah - the colours are good. You can't go far wrong with red, black and white. (You've still got that marquee there though...)
Besides what you thought of geekazoid's comments - I think enough's been said - I'm wondering what you think of what people have said. For example, did you read my link about tables? If so, have you started to re-think your whole approach to building web-pages? If not, why not?

[the tree]

Tables again, not good (http://hotdesign.com/seybold)
The navigation would work much better as a styled list.
I'd put that marquee below the header image.

[PeOfEo]

Originally posted by the tree

I'd put that marquee below the header image. I would remove it all together if possible.