Thread: I'm feeling brave...please check my new site and give your opinons

Well, as mentioned in title, I'm feeling brave enough to see what you think so far of my site.
Keep in mind that I just published it today. I'm still working on the index page. I feel the menu and navigation buttons are a little large. Also, the movie slide jerks. Not sure what to do about that. The links are not working as I have yet to complete the other pages.
But like to know what you think of the overall layout and design.
And, I'm joking...I can take any constructive critiquing, also appreciate any compliments. I'm not picky...<smile>

Thanks
www.jewelsgiftsaplenty.com

I would strongly recommend you take that nasty noise off your buttons It sounds like a machine gun, keep in mind you are selling jewels and gifts. instead of a movie clip try a banner, it has exactly the same effect and will improve the quality of the pics.

Thank you Narobe. Being a newbie to building a website, I'm not sure what you mean by adding a banner. I have a banner with my logo on it at the top of the page. Also, wouldn't a banner just contain one image?

Sorry to be so dense.
Appreiciate your feedback.

Narobe, I noticed in checking my site that the slide doesnt start at startup and that the paypal buttons are not working. I have an acct with paypal, just havent added products to page yet.

The pics in the slide are just pics I'm using to test the slide show. Will be adding better pics when I add some products.

Thanks again,

Hi

I have a banner with my logo on it at the top of the page. Also, wouldn't a banner just contain one image?

A banner can have asmany pictures as you wnat in it. if you look at my headder for my farm alll the goats and sheep are seprat picture put into it then saved as one.

Jolen

Hello

I can see you haven't finished your site yet but you are off to a great start

A couple of observations, you seem to have 2 home buttons on your index page. I am guessing you did that because your left hand links are further down the page. If I were you I would move those left hand links to further up the page and remove the one of the home buttons. I also noticed that when you click on a link the pages load in a new window, which is OK if you are pointing to a different website but not so good if the pages are within your own site.

You are off to great start though. Let us know when you've finished

Darren

Hi Windemeer and Darren.

You might take a peek at the way I have the banner now. I don't want to add an image to tthe name of my site...put one off to the left of it.
What do you think. Will be using my name banner for my PayPal check out page.

Thanks for the kind words, Darren. I made some changes. Would you check it out again. I removed the 2nd Home button,moved the side menu bar up, placed the text in the middle, downsized the slideshow.
The bottom half I will place a gallery of products and other things. Will also include a footer at the bottom.
If I find out that the changes work, I will wait for another critique after I create the rest of the page.

Thanks again for the input...appreciate it

Hi, pass your mouse over the icons you have on the left hand side of bluevoda until you see "ad banner rotator" double click on it, add your pics you can make them rotate faster and slower play around with it.
If you already have a paypal account, you can easily generate a button from paypal, and paste in a html box.

The pic on the banner is very blurred, from the pixel size it looks like you have stretched a smaller pic. You need to take the original pic and re-size it, this way you wont lose the quality. I would also change the font on the home page, I found it quite hard to read. You also have two menu buttons saying the same thing COMING LATER

Also I did not get one link to work, they all came up wit error page

Paul

The site is too wide, the visitor has to scroll to see it. It shouldn't really be any more than 1000 wide.

You have spelled 'looking' with a capital 'L', and you have omitted a space between 'child' and 'pets'. My eyes may be deceiving me, but it looks like there may be one space too many between 'someone' and 'in', 'life' and 'so', 'woman' and 'man' The two main paragraphs may look better justified than aligned to the left.

The first capital 'i' of 'If' is smaller than the rest of the text.

The banner text is out of place and out of proportion with the banner background. Place the text in a more balanced position - currently it looks like it's been 'plonked' there; then either make the text larger or the banner background smaller.

The banner is not aligned with the horizontal menu on the left hand side, ceck the x and y coordinates in the bottom right of BV in order to position it exactly - same goes for the pixellated photo of the lady.

The horizontal menu would look better if it was the same width as the banner.

The website background only surrounds the page on three sides. Is the page centred? (Page properties).

Otherwise - well done!

Hi Karel and AJ,
I want to thank both of you for your comments. I will work on the things you brought up. As far as the picture, I have been working on that. The navigations buttons will extend the width of the page, which I have set for 1000. I have a 17inch screen, and I don't have to scroll to view it. Wonder if I should adjust it to about 900?
I put the Coming Later buttons there just to show that there will be more buttons added later. My site is by far not ready, just trying to get feedback on what I need to do. I have received excellent comments, and I appreciate each and every one.

1000 should be fine for most monitors. You're doing well, it's a steep learning curve but look at it this way, once you've learned how to do something, you won't have to learn it again.

Thanks again, AJ. You give me hope that I can learn..lol
Trying to figure out why I can't adjust the length of the table that extends to the bottom of the page. Trying to leave a border at the bottom to match the other three sides. Funny that it shows in BV, but in preview, It still extends to the bottom.....grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Made some of the changes that was suggested. Please let me know how it looks now.
I need to figure out why the banner is loading slow.
Also, please note that the page is still under constructions. The links haven't been created yet, and the pics for the slide show are only temporary.

Check your page size in Page Properties. Experiment with changing the width and length to see what effect it has.

The first "If" is still smaller than the rest of the text. Should it be in bold?

Hi AJ,
Thanks again for your suggestions. I've made several changes on the site,but cannot make that durn "I" any larger. Funny, that the "I" that is in the first paragraph looks larger. Must be my weird computer...<smile> Still trying to get the background to show at the bottom.
ROFL....I just had a brainstorm. I decided to copy and paste the second I, and it worked!

Have you thought about consolidating the left side menu bar to a few number of choices? It may be helpful to direct people where to go.

I like how you've centered the page over a designed background to make it stand out. Have you thought about making "GREAT VALUES" a link to a "sale" type page?

Nice work!
Amy

Hi Amy,
Thanks for you suggestions and compliment.
I could you the "GREAT VALUES' as another link to my special page. Have one in the navigation bar at the top.
I probably will be have a drop down list for some items. Since I have not setup my products yet, I have lots of possibilites.

Thanks again

You should really put some temporary pages up, even if they say "Our Website is currently being updated. Please re-visit us again soon!"

Having "broken links" and no pages at all is not only annoying for casual visitors, it penalizes you with regard to Search Engine cache ranking, even initial evaluations (making it harder to recover).

Take the 20 minutes to preserve you site's integrity.....

I am not a web specialist. My background comes in training, human resources and legal administration to name a few. I have worked in programming and sales. Therefore, I really cannot help with some of the technical aspects. But I would like to offer some compliments and some thoughts.

First, the name of the website is great. One always needs a good name.

Next, I like this Month's Special at the top- good positioning. I would, however, use a more eye-catching icon instead of a star-burst something more in tune with your theme.

The colors work well. However, given the nature of your site, you could get by with maybe some more graphics without being crowded or over the top. However, it would best to experiment and then ask the webmasters if it works.

I would put a little more substance for the home page sales pitch. Tell us why you we want to buy. I know this is a work in progress. You want to sell so keep working on the best sale's pitch you can put on the home page. You have very few seconds to capture a buyer's attention and it has to be on the home page.

I am not sure what country you are in... but there may be some legal protections you might want to add before you go live... trademark, copyright, privacy statements, disclaimers, etc. After you get further along, this may become more obvious. Right now it is not as clear what would be helpful, but it is always best to try to both protect your product and services while minimizing your liability.

Just some thoughts, Tina

Hi Tina,

More than some thoughts, great suggestions!
I am saving your email to my website folder. That way I can refer to it when I get back to making some changes.
Right now I have put the construction part of my site on temporary hold.
I am wanting to work on setting up my shopping cart and come up with a good bookkeeping system that will allow me to keep a record of my suppliers, their costs and my prices. I'm a real newbie at all of this, so appreciate every comment and suggestion that someone makes.
I know I have a lot to do on my index page, and what you suggested sounds good.
Oh, Tina, I'm in the USA.

Hi Vasili,
Hadn't thought about putting up the temp. pages. The navigation buttons are not set up to link to anything. I have the under construction on the page for anyone that would possibly access my site. Will get to yours and Tina's suggestions real soon.