Thread: Please review my site

Hi
I've finally opened my website and would love to receive the beneficial criticism that you can offer.
(Test on firefox and IE)
Zip

www.jerusalemballoons.com

Nice work Zip. I love the color and feel of your site. The only thing I saw out of place was on your Good Luck and Graduation page. There's a writing behind top middle square (this is true for most of your pages...there's more about this below).

I just check some more of your pages and there seems to be some overlapping in respect to your pages' "eye catchers"

Also, the contact us at the bottom of most of your pages looks like it busted out of it's seams.

Now, I could be totally wrong about this, but I have a feeling you are using some really nice fonts that I don't have on my computer and my machine is rendering your fancy fonts to "generic" ones that everybody have. If that's the case, you may want to convert those texts into images so all your viewers will see your site as you see it.

Thanx for your reply!
Yep - You're 100% right on the funny words (some item names and the contact). I'm in the process of changing all the 'gloogun' text into graphics, which explains why on some pages + homepage they are normal!

What are 'eye-catchers'?

The fancy fonts that you use to grab your readers attention. They really don't have to be fansy; it could also be the way you position them for dramatic effect.

You paypal image is out of its box on firefox; it looks great in IE though.

Oh, ok. Thanx
Also, does the whole site load mega-slow on your pc?
On mine its just ok on firefox and much slower on IE.
I've downsized everything as much as possible, but...

Originally Posted by HalaalPages

You paypal image is out of its box on firefox; it looks great in IE though.

Yeh I know - I had to compromise so it would actually appear anywhere near the box in ff!

I have dsl so it's fast, but a way to see if your site is too bulky would be to go to Tools, Page Weight and see the size of your page and how long it would take to load. From there, you can optimize your pics if they are too large. But first, I'll start by knowing the size of the pages. Remember you want to optimize your pages for all of your viewers. The people purchasing your products may not have as fast a connection as you and you don't want them to be frustrated about a page that's taking too long to load.

Originally Posted by HalaalPages

I have dsl so it's fast, but a way to see if your site is too bulky would be to go to Tools, Page Weight and see the size of your page and how long it would take to load. From there, you can optimize your pics if they are too large. But first, I'll start by knowing the size of the pages. Remember you want to optimize your pages for all of your viewers. The people purchasing your products may not have as fast a connection as you and you don't want them to be frustrated about a page that's taking too long to load.

Oh I see. I checked the page weight - 682kb for my homepage. Is this a normal kind of size? What are average pages supposed to be?

Originally Posted by Zipeng

Yeh I know - I had to compromise so it would actually appear anywhere near the box in ff!

Have you thought about filling your shape with an "Image" effect and a "Stretch" style and and then putting a transparent shape with a purple border like the rest of the shapes around it and see if it gives you the desired effect?

Originally Posted by Zipeng

Oh I see. I checked the page weight - 682kb for my homepage. Is this a normal kind of size? What are average pages supposed to be?

How long does it say that will take your page to load? I'm not good at the numbers and how they translate into loading speed; I just like to try to get my pages loading time under a minute if I can. Why learn conversion rates when they're done for you? lol

Check out this page by Chris. It has a lot of goodies about image optimization and what to look out for.

Originally Posted by HalaalPages

Have you thought about filling your shape with an "Image" effect and a "Stretch" style and and then putting a transparent shape with a purple border like the rest of the shapes around it and see if it gives you the desired effect?

Hadn't thought of that. I'll try it out.
Thank you so much for your help!

Originally Posted by HalaalPages

How long does it say that will take your page to load? I'm not good at the numbers and how they translate into loading speed; I just like to try to get my pages loading time under a minute if I can. Why learn conversion rates when they're done for you? lol

Check out this page by Chris. It has a lot of goodies about image optimization and what to look out for.

The page loads 1:40 mins at 56 kbps. !?!?!

Thanx for that page - it's super-informative!

Some of your images can be reduced (like the 3 at the top of all of your pages). That will decrease the size a tad.

Also, your menu at the top, move it to the left a little (just a little) and widen it a bit. In IE it looks great, but in FF, the box and the Go button separate on some pages.

I meant to post this in my first response to your post: your work is wonderful! Really creative.

Originally Posted by HalaalPages

Some of your images can be reduced (like the 3 at the top of all of your pages). That will decrease the size a tad.

Also, your menu at the top, move it to the left a little (just a little) and widen it a bit. In IE it looks great, but in FF, the box and the Go button separate on some pages.

I meant to post this in my first response to your post: your work is wonderful! Really creative.

Thank you, once again for all your wonderful tips and advice!
I hope everyone enjoys looking at the pics and ideas - it's really a fun business!
Good night!