Thread: Advice and opinions please for my first real website

I've finally finished this largely due to the invaluable help and advice I've found on these forums.

I still have a few wrinkles to iron out, like why it doesn't display the menu bar properly on Safari, but it's live now so all help and advice would be gratefully received.

www.elizabeth-scott.co.uk

janice

Liz,
Although we did not have time to thoroughly comb your site, our immediate concern is the download time for the photos you are using. Download VodaHost's pic resizer. This ap will reduce byte size when shrinking your photos so your page will finish loading much faster.

Our other recommendation would be to reverse the color of your header bar. The yellow of your side bar and yellow of your header should face each other for balance. Then change the color of your name to be the same red at the end of your header bar.

Also, the text on your forms should be left justified, not centered. This means you should have separate text boxes for your center justified titles and left justified text.

Finally, as a rule - It is more difficult to read text that is over 5.5 inches wide. You may want to reduce the width of the text on several of your pages to make it easier for people to read.

Hello

You've done a great job so its all about tweaking now.

1) Ditto with images, They are MASSIVE. I clicked on one of them and it consumed my screen (which is quite large) I had to scroll down and across to exit it. Ideally and especially as you are hit with these images on the home page, I would avoid using the light box because they cram big images into small thumbnails. Ideally it might be better for you to create a small image for the thumbnail and then a create a big image and get it to pop up. When you create the large image, size it so it fits well within a normal sized screen, or indeed no wider than your your page width if you want to go big.

2) You need to resize the rotating image in your header as well

3) You may wish to consider centering your pages, To do this, Right click all your pages in BV and click page properties, You will see the instruction in there.

3) Your search button returns a dead link http://www.julia-dajani.com/property/search.php

4) I found your site easy to read

I hope this helps

Thank you so much, this is just what I need. I'll get on it as soon as I've finished dinner :)

Apart from massive image weight ( massive for me, because I use Dial-Up modem ), I have nothing bad to say. Just a tiny thing like top menu, that should be fixed.

And a suggestion - If you take your business to professional level, then you have to get the most out of search engines. You don't have any text links on your site. I don't know about that menu which you have, because I never use menu's which you can build in these kind of softwares. Not that they ain't good, but I don't like to go to websites and see somebody with the same menu or anything else.
So add left side menu, but this time - make it a text link. So all the robots ( google bot etc ) could give more information to their database, so when people search in google, they could easily find you.

Hi Janice,
Really nice site - here's my 2 cents:

About Us: and spiraling overhead...........require in today's changing
Barnes: Below are some links to - if you are referring to Property Ombudsman & OFT, they are not actual links, if you know what I mean?
Sheen: mansions and villas. However from the early 20th century
Mortlake: reign of James I/VI.
Why Instruct Us: the spiraling overheads........confidently sell your home...............fees are kept low at just 1%......financial services and so we won’t

- & a general comment about the photos you have at the bottom of your pages: I only wonder, when you have 7 individual photos showing in a row, why do you then have all 7 show up when you click on each one? Just curious :)
Well done,
david

(made me a little homesick, reading about the villages of London, I must say)

thank you everyone for all your advice. I've changed the photos and it's made a huge difference, I love the way they mute the background and come up in the forefrnt of the page when I click on them. Ahimsa I don't know why all 7 come up when you click on one, I hadn't noticed to be honest but I have to say I quite like it. I used a blue voda light box, maybe it's a feauture of it.
The design changes I'll suggest to my daughter, I've done all this for her and she has the final say. The colour bar is the brand image for the company and is on all the sale boards ec.

I've loved doing this and I'll be quite sad when it's finished - what will I with my evenings then!!!

....one more thing: on the Listings page you have a lot of side-scroll - bringing in the lines of text would help? Also, when I ckick on the property picture this page has an unnamed menu button. It goes back to the Listings page but is, perhaps, unnecessary??
good luck,
david