Thread: New website - Another pianist (!)

Hello all!

First of all, a big thank you to BlueVoda. It is truly great and I will recommend it to anyone...

I have now constructed my first website. I would love to get feedback if possible.

Here it is: www.meiyifoo.com

Look forward to hearing from you,
MeiYi

Hi

I don't know if it is just me or not, but I cannot get past your first page ...

??

Do you have it linked to enter the site?

Hi,

There should be a little enter by the "leaves".

hopefully (!)

MeiYi

Okay, I found it in front page ... but it is white .. and it is very small and it is blending in with the background ...

I think you had better make it black (or color of the leaves) and a bit bigger and visible to all ...

And I don't think you have it linked either ... you will need to link this to the page that you want to take us to ...

hmm.... that is slightly strange.

My friend is sitting right next to me with his own laptop and is linking the index page into bio without problem.

...but yes, perhaps I should change the colour slightly. I was going for the "delicate & subtle look" but I guess useless if no one could see it...!

Thanks Ladyeye.

www.meiyifoo.com

Well, wait until someone else comes into the thread then and see if they can see the word Enter ... hmmmm

It is to the bottom left of the leaves, and unless you hit your mouse pointer right on it, for it to roll over, the color blends right into your background, at least for me it does ...

Hi ... that's much better now, we can all see it .. and you have definitely captured the delicate and subtle look ... you've done a really nice job ... the linking to the smaller pages in pop ups is really nice. If there was anything I'd have to say that I didn't like, might be your navigation menu and where it is at ... that doesn't have the same look to me as you have laid out with the rest of the site ... but it is totally fine too ... You've done a great job!

I would HIGHLY recommend reserving the rollover for another navigation featured elsewhere; you need to make entry to your site by visitors CLEARLY an invitation, not a challenge (as is presently with a faint gray and smaller than legible size font)!!!

>> Make it Black and not less than 10pt -- preferrably to the right of the flora, more under your name -- if you hope to make your site memorable (and easily accessible) for your intended visitors.

I agree with Vasili regarding the size of the 'enter'; best not to make people work so much.
I like the overall look of your site. I think you have acheived the subtle elegance you were aiming for.
Noticed a couple of things worth noting I think:
The page is alittle wide. When I click on your menu and it does a side out thing it is off my screen. So either narrowing down the whole thing a bit ( should optimally be 800 or less) or shrinking the font size on your menu would take care of that.
The only other thing is the long bio link. It goes to an adobe pdf, which I opted to not open as I hate adobe. For some of us adobe takes a bit to load, and I would rather have had a web page to click to rather than a program to open so I could view more info agout you.
Small thin, maybe, and aslo maybe my perosnal preference.
IN any case, great job, nicely done.

I love what you are doing but I do have to agree with all the preceding comments ... I find if I have to work too hard to enter a site I just go somewhere else ... I love the minimalist look and think you have done a fantastic job ...

Thank you so much for all your positive opinions - I will take everything into consideration.

This has been so exciting!

Sincerely,
MeiYi

www.meiyifoo.com

Originally Posted by BlueUser

Thank you so much for all your positive opinions - I will take everything into consideration.

This has been so exciting!

Sincerely,
MeiYi

www.meiyifoo.com

Hi again MeiYi

Just noticed you have edited your post to include your signature ... you can have your website address permanently appear everytime you make a post without having to add it yourself ... go to quick links at the top of the forum, edit signature, add your link and voila ... it will appear for you in every post ...

P.S.

I am missing your enter text altogether again ... it is not there again, lol ...

You may need to change the link color - choose properties on the page and adjust the color of your links there ...

Hi LadyEye,

I took out enter all together as I've linked the whole picture and my name to the bio page. I assume visitors could almost click anywhere on the page to bring them on to the content... Would that be easier for the public? *fingers crossed*

Originally Posted by BlueUser

Hi LadyEye,

I took out enter all together as I've linked the whole picture and my name to the bio page. I assume visitors could almost click anywhere on the page to bring them on to the content... Would that be easier for the public? *fingers crossed*

I think you have to assume the lowest comon denometer - that is, that you have to hand-feed directions to people.

Generally speaking: give directions for everything, as if the user can not figure out anything

Bottom line, you need an enter button of some sort.

Well, yes, linking the entire page is a great idea ... but I will just tell you what happened to me once ...

I figured that people would come to a page and since I had my entire page linked to enter I just assumed they would hit it with their cursor and enter ... well guess what, I had someone that didn't they stopped at that page, were looking for directions, or the word enter and they didn't go any further .. so ... you never know what people are going to do or not do ...

So I would suggest just adding the words Enter Site - doesn't have to be that big, but needs to be readable and doesn't have to be linked, you could put it under the word Pianist, smaller than that, because wherever they then click they will land on the next page ...

... better?

1. enter site written - darker shade grey
3. whole page linked

Thanks LadyEye and Larazovich.

MeiYi ... you have me chuckling here ... you seem like you are afraid of those words, lol ....

If you are happy with it, and you notice that people are visiting your site, then okay, if not, just increase it, move it up a bit, darken it up and maybe more visitors will find you ....

Try it like that and see what happens I guess ...

Still you have me smiling!! That's great!!

teehee.

a little obssessed, am I not ?

Let's wait and see - will change it to ENTER if no one finds me...

Thanks loads!

Originally Posted by BlueUser

teehee.

a little obssessed, am I not ?

Let's wait and see - will change it to ENTER if no one finds me...

Thanks loads!

You could always offer a game of "Hide and Seek" while they are waiting, or even "Eye Spy" lol ... oh I am still smiling ... I think it's better now though, or it might be because I am used to searching for it, I am not sure anymore ... lol ...

One question:

How do I increase my website's searchability on google/yahoo or other search engines? So far, I've included all the appropriate meta tags and was wondering how long it might take for google to index my site.

Please advice.

Thanks,

Hi, before you get to far with the SE side of things, you will need to check all your pages for the key words you are using. They say that some SE’s are not even looking at this part anymore? But still worth getting it right for those that do.
Any key words & phrases you use must be on the page that a group of key words are relating to.
IE: you have on your home page (Malaysian pianist, Johann Sebastian Bach, classical pianist,) as key phrases. But they are not on the pages. This can sometimes work against your with the SE’s. Things like names & place names should also have capital letters. This link is a good starting point. http://www.moxie-enter-prises.com/SEO-The-Basics.html


Good luck.

Hi,
You have a beautifully designed site and all the constructive comments above should help it to work and flow even better. "Enter site" page; do you really need it? After all it is one more click (or should one think of it as a hurdle?) to get to the real info. Instead have a home page with the navigation to take the visitor staight where he or she wants to go. Once I was in the site I really wanted to look at every page so that says to me it is an interesting site. Gallery page at over 650 kb in size (a downside with the lightbox is it makes for large document sizes when too many images are used) it takes a bit too long, and for some users it may take much too long, to load. Whilst the gallery thumbnail page looks good from a visual design point of view you could split it into two separate pages to overcome this. Another help would be to optimise some of your larger (in kbs) images quite severely.

All in all an excellent job that you can be very proud of.

James.

HI,
What a beautiful website!
My take on the "enter" controversy......too small.
Only other constructive criticism is that the text of the reviews was a bit hard to read.
Otherwise I really liked your work. It suits the subject perfectly.
Cheers

Thanks fellas! Will sit down one day and update it slowly... as I'm gradually going blind looking at my computer screen the past few days (!)

Good advice from the forum though - Thanks!

Hi, it maybe my browser? But I can only view your site in IE. For some reason it wont show in FF. But let someone else confer this 1st.

Nice looking site.

Hi Mei,

It looks good to me.

Originally Posted by Collectors-info

Hi, it maybe my browser? But I can only view your site in IE. For some reason it wont show in FF. But let someone else confer this 1st.

Nice looking site.

Hi Chris

I can view her site in FF .. have you resolved this for yourself yet, just thought I would let you know ...

Hi lady, its all showing OK now. Very strange.