Thread: My First site is up and I need input!

The site is not quite done but before I go too much further I would love to get some input to see what you all think. I have optimized alot of it using severla types of tools but for some reason am not et indexed byt any of the search engines. Any all feedback is very welcome! I have thick skin so let me have it!!!

Originally Posted by motoxxx

The site is not quite done but before I go too much further I would love to get some input to see what you all think. I have optimized alot of it using severla types of tools but for some reason am not et indexed byt any of the search engines. Any all feedback is very welcome! I have thick skin so let me have it!!!

Very nice! Clean, professional looking, and easy to navigate. All the links that I tried worked. It looks great. Well done and congratulations. You can, if you wish, submit a support ticket asking for a one off search engine submission. If you have followed the advice you will have picked up in the forum, especially from Bethers, then don't worry. Your site will be found. It can take a little while though. Good job!

Hello, Moto!

Very nice, well thought design.
Ok, let's get picky:
1. On your "CLICK HERE" buttons, best not to be yellow highlighted or in caps-- don't let them become more prominent than your offers
2. nothing. Fooled you!

Absolutely outstanding introduction. Congratualtions!

Thanks both of you for taking the time to look. I keep going back and forth with the navigation. I tried to make it very simple since it can be a confusing subject.

Now that I look at it, I agree with you about the buttons, Vasili.

GirlOnThe Hill, thank you for taking the time to click around. I will see if I can submit a support ticket. I think I have tired submitting to some of the engines beofre but that was months ago and I cannot for the life of me figure out why I have been getting almost no traffic and it is not showing up with the search engines at all. Pretty frustrating.

Anyone else have anything to add? I am open for anything....

Hi Moto,

Great job....well done, but i have to agree with Vasili about the 'Click Here' buttons...they need toning down so your offers are the more prominent feature...other than that...well i just have to agre with Vasili once again...

Absolutely Outstanding! :)

Hello Moto ....sounds like my phone lol

I can see youve put a lot of hard work into your site its looking good... do agree with the yellow highlight though ....just one other small thing there is an image on the left .it takes a very long time to load ...on my dial up ...thats it ...Nice job

Wish you were in England we could do with your company here :o)

Thanks for the input Linda and Jan. I am going to tone those buttons down and I really do appreciate everyones input.

Linda, as far as us being in UK goes, we have the same weather as the UK but you folks drive on the wrong side of the road! I am in the Seattle Area. As fasr as the image loading slowly, that is a banner rotator and is is trying to load about 6 images. That is why it is taking a while to load. It is good for me to know that it loads slow for you Linda. I'll look into resizing those images.

I would really appreciate it if someone would go to the dental page and just act as if they were going to enroll in a dental plan and get some feedback as to how difficult they think the enrollment process is.

FINE! I'll take a walk...

(I'm Quick!)

Too bad the AmeriPlan doesn't include Invisiline....they alone account for a large part of the upswing in people going to the dentist!

Five clicks - not bad....but throughout the pages were different sizes (widths especially) that seemed to put me back a bit somehow....) and the over-usage of red and caps, and blue.....tends to make it look less than totally polished.

Were I to "farm out" like this, I probably would have "reverse engineered" the scheme to be more complimentary throughout.

I get the red-white-blue for AmeriPlan....but the finished corporate look of the off green and cool blues with black are much more "instututional" to me

The process...click thrus weren't too bad, but borderline. Finished application 1-click prior to submit is 11 clicks...rather long, but altogether necessary. Second issue..(I forgot - is your site 800w or 1000w) I know trying to keep everything "above the fold" is marketing 101, but stacking boxes in hot colors is hard on the eye. Solution?? reverse duplication of layouts all the way to front? Hmmm That would be a big effort, I know, one you would really need to spend time on to consider.

I think I've already said too much. Ask Amanda or Linda. They are briefer than I when it comes to these things....

Enrollment process was easy to use. Only have one issue you may want to look into. The areas to read the member agreement and payments authorization are too small. Almost seems as if you are trying to hide something. May make a customer hesitate because it was hard to follow when reading the agreements.

All in all a great looking site. Well Done!

Awwwww Moto , thats a shame , we could do with your company over here now that everything seems to be going private ...as for driving on the wrong side of the road ....You'd get used to it lol ;o)

As I am in the UK I couldnt get pased the first part of the form but what i di see looked pretty straight forward .

Thanks Vasili. Once you being going thru the enrollment process and are awy from my main dental page you are actually in a portal that belongs to Ameriplan and I have no control over that. I understand what you said about back engineering. That is a good idea and I will most likely do that so that at least it looks like there is more continuety to the whole process.

What you mentioned about the page widths, were you referring to the differnce with widths between my site and the Ameriplan enriollment page?

The reason for my choice of color (the green background and the red and blue) is because these are the questions I get asked about the most when it comes to people who are interested in any dental program. It was my thinking that these colors draw the users eye towards that information first.

Do you feel that this worked of what would you do instead? I have looked thru your site and I respect your input greatly and I thank you for taking the time to do this.

Thaks Linda. Could you please give me a bit of feedback on the things that Vasili mentioned as far as the colors (green background and the red and blue text) are concerned.

I should also state to everyone who is volunteering their time to help me with this that I have absolutely no artistic abilities what so ever so I am taking all of your advice and criticism very seriously.......I still can only write my name with crayons. Pens just totally mess me up

Awwww, Moto....I went thru again, and actually, your sites look better than the AmeriPlan sites.....don't sweat it.

I have been mulling around a solution for the boxed links you have just above the fold, however....haven't solved that one yet...but when I do, I'll pop over a whisper.

And I too, think there is a bit of disconcerning design on the AmeriPlan disclaimers and such...(even in the left nav bar) a LOT of mention of "IBO" which I know refers to you, but to the common visitor might look as if they are being swaggled into an MLM offering, like Quixtar or something. Note the Florida disclaimers at the top of the legal mumbo-jumbo? There's a reason for that......

I know you can only do what you can, and believe me, you've taken this further (and finer) than I've seen elsewhere.

shhh! Try This:
1.see the shade of blue at (approximate place) your left nav bar at "About Us" button? Use that as fill-in for the buttons (all the plans).
2.change the border from black 2 pt to bright neon blue 1 pt
3. definitely remove yellow highlights and re-type/re-link to "Click Here", "Compare Here" or even "Choose Here" or "Select Here"....play with this

You might have to change the tint of yellow on the titles...if you think you need to go brighter and you already are, then try to see if changing the font to Arial Black helps...it's still universally read, but sometimes it won't fit where Arial would...color should then adjust bright.

Small things, Moto....you've done so much already, time to make something warm to drink as you bask in all the praise.

(It's the smallest of things that seem to trip me up, however...)

Thanks Vasili. I would like to state emphatically that I am not into the whole MLM thing. I got into the Ameriplan thing because they had this bundled benefit that included this dental program that actually works really well. Of all of the dental plans I sell, this is one that is actually worth the money. I am a licensed health insurance agent and this little discount plan is actually much better than just about all of the dental insurance plans out there. It is also much cheaper than insurance and has no limitations to its use. Of the 30-40 of these that I have sold, all of my customers that have it really like it. I can't say that about all of the health insurance policy customers I have. Everyone of them has some complaints about how insurance works. Any how, enough about that.

I wish I could get rid of that whole IBO thing.....freakin drives me nuts.

Do let me know if you come up with something. Same goes for anyone else.....Like I said, I have very thick skin so be as brutal as you like.....I'll get over it someday.....

Moto

All I can suggest is to play around with your colours different shades etc ...until your happy with the result ....sometimes less is more and I personally would drop the yellow only because i'm not a fan of bright clours on bright colours ..if you know what i mean ...its not very kind on the eyes , hope that helps you a little

I thought I'd put on a new look, since I got me new bars!
(Gracious! I cleaned up well, didn't I?)
Or.....should I go back to my old avatar???

Anyway....try Regular Arial - Bold in the same neon bright blue as the 1pt borders on the Plan buttons.....Make them as clean, and it might fall into that continuity thing that is so important without losing import, if you know what I mean.....

Hmmm....since when do I dress up for Forums?

Linda- I agree about the bright color on bright color! I'll be changing that!

Vasili-Thanks for the input about the blue fill-in. My wife kept saying there was something she didn't like about that page and it turns out that changing that color "fixed" the problem! I'm changing the box color, and removed the yellow highlights, then I will work on changing the links text and the yellow font in the boxes, too. I am trying to find a good neon blue color, but all I have now is that bright royal blue that is in the BV pallette. That should work?? We'll see how it looks.

BTW, looking very spiffy in the suit, almost respectable....

Moto

I'm not sure where the thread is .... but Andy123 has a real handy little tool you can download for free ... i have it now its called a colour detector ...its brilliant! ... you just point your arrow to any colour and it gives you the numbers to put into your colour pallette ....say you see the exact colour you want just point to it and you have the numbers to input into BV ....its great! ..i'll have a look see if i can find the link

Originally Posted by Lincslady

Moto

I'm not sure where the thread is .... but Andy123 has a real handy little tool you can download for free ... i have it now its called a colour detector ...its brilliant! ... you just point your arrow to any colour and it gives you the numbers to put into your colour pallette ....say you see the exact colour you want just point to it and you have the numbers to input into BV ....its great! ..i'll have a look see if i can find the link

Here's the link to Andy's stuff:

http://netisopen.com/computer/web/webpagestuff.html

Have fun!

Thanks Amanda .. there you go Moto :o) you'll love it

Thank you!!! I'm back to work on the site with all the great tips! I should have some changes up by later tonight-time to go eat dinner!

Thanks to ALL of you for the thoughtful and helpful input, I know it will make a positive difference in the look of the site.

Your welcome, enjoy your Dinner :o)

Originally Posted by motoxxx

The site is not quite done but before I go too much further I would love to get some input to see what you all think. I have optimized alot of it using severla types of tools but for some reason am not et indexed byt any of the search engines. Any all feedback is very welcome! I have thick skin so let me have it!!!

Well done motoxxx. I navigated through numerious pages and did not encounter any issues. Don't worry about not getting indexed by search engines. How long has your site been up? Make sure that you include your site for all free inclusion searches. To optimize your web for search engines, there are many things that you can do. Make sure you have a robots.text file uploaded to your servers, a small example below. Are you interested in PPC or a high page ranking. Different objectives require different strategies. Also, google may take up to 2 months or more to index pages. Hope this helps.

<META name="revisit-after" content="15 days">
<META name="robots" content="index, follow">
<META name="Rating" content="General">
<META name="Robots" content="All">

WG

WG-

I haven't even gotten so far as to make my SE plan part of basic BV creative strategy....thanks for the reminder to pepper my file with robotags like you mentioned above....Sheesh! Too busy to pay attention to basics...must be slipping in my old age!

Thanks WGreene. I believe I have allready uploaded the txt file but I am not really sure. Where on the FTP section does it go? Does it go in the folder with the rest of the site info? Does it just get uploaded as a note pad file?

I have signed up for Adwords and Adsense but mostly I need a high page ranking for some very competitive terms for my industry. As far as optimization goes, I am actually using about 4 different types of tools and cross referencing between them to make sure that there is a general consensus between the SEO software programs that my site is in good shape. I would really love to have someone who has some SEO experience look at my site and make some other suggestions as far as the SEO approach I have taken is going.

Clean, well layed out design, and professional looking site, checked some of the links quickly, I found it easy to navigate too! Excelllent start and good luck!

OK I took out the yellow and I am redoing the header and taking into account many of the SEO things I have learned recently. I would like some more input if anyone is up for it. The dental page has also been updated.

Hi Moto,

Your site is looking really good ..much much better without the yellow, tho youve made the font blue on blue and its really hard to see , when its clicked on i know it goes to black but its hard to see first off...maybe a good idea to do the blue to white?

The dental page looks good to now ... well done nice job

Well done, its looks very nice. Much luck

welldone

Thanks for looking everyone.

Linda, I have tried to get the links to not be blue when clicked on but for some reason no matter what I do they still come out as blue after being cli9cked on. I have gone in and edited the hyperlink sytle sheet and I am still having no luck with that.

I certainly do appreciate your input. I am still trying to get found by the search engines....BETHERS!?!?!?!??!?! Can you hear me?????

Hey Alien, I have a great story for you if you are interested.......

Originally Posted by motoxxx

Thanks for looking everyone.

Linda, I have tried to get the links to not be blue when clicked on but for some reason no matter what I do they still come out as blue after being cli9cked on. I have gone in and edited the hyperlink sytle sheet and I am still having no luck with that.

I certainly do appreciate your input. I am still trying to get found by the search engines....BETHERS!?!?!?!??!?! Can you hear me?????

Hey Alien, I have a great story for you if you are interested.......

Right click on your page/page properties/background/
there you will see
Link
Visited Link
Active Link
You can choose any color you want..On mind they dont seem to change until you preview/and or publish them.

with hyper-link:
highlight what you want to hyperlink/click hyperlink button/edit styles/add/then click on each link to change color.

Hi Moto

If you follow Kates instructions you should be ok.

Motoxxx: If your screen name is your hobie I am sure you learned about insurance the hard way, Ha! Ha! Being a simple idiot I don't know how much good my imput is to you, but I found your Index too busy. now if you will please see mine CircusPet.com and tell me what you think.

superior, a well thought out website that looks like it took a lot of time, very professonal