suggestions on a more proffessional site

[Pippy]

Hi People,
I was hoping that someone could look at my site and see how I could make it look more proffessional.... I also had a look at the templates for sale.. I like the concepts, but I am not real keen on the graphics... What I really need is templates with all the gizmo's but to be able to add my own designs. If anyone knows of anything like that, or is willing to help me tweek up my site for a price,please let me know... I know your time is valuable and your help would be greatly appreciated ... Also I would like to put out a newsletter once a month... I will need to get the people to sign up to a newsletter and what do I use to produce it.
www.rocksrevealed.com
warm regards Louise.

[sedona]

Re: suggestions on a more proffessional site

Hi Louise...

You seem to have figured out the basics in order to have gotten this far and probably could accomplish your goals on your own if you keep at it.

What makes a professional looking site after all? There are many accomplished designers here that might add to my thoughts but I would suggest:

Cleanliness or simplicity of design and ease of navigation above all else, not too bold and not too blah, continuity from page to page, and the devil is always in the details (leave NOTHING undone). Uniqueness is something we usually strive for but not at the expense of the basics.

There is a ton of reading available both in our archives and on the web on colour and font choices, page size and optimization and the almost never ending options available to you. Are you willing to put the time into your product?

I could clean up your index page in ten minutes by moving text and images so they didn't overlap (and so, evidently could you) but would that be enough? Maybe it's back to the drawing board for a fresh start (sometimes not the worst idea).

Look at lots of sites and try and classify them as to which strike YOU as being professional and not. What are their common denominators?

And, always, if you don't have the patience, time or whatever for what should be done, there ARE folks here that would be willing to do it for you. But even this option requires that you formulate a more defined notion of what you want.

And, btw, your newsletter is no big deal and not really a part of your site beyond a signup form. You just create it using a word processor and send it out.

Good luck....

[flyer13]

Re: suggestions on a more proffessional site

Hi, Louise. Ken is right. Simplicity is something. Maybe one passage per webpage is enough, more so you have so many menubars(imagine 26 all). Why can't you summarize your menubars into 5-6 categories (you can place most of the stones under one section only like Gallery for example). That will leave 5-6 menubars your clients could navigate to get to other contents. All in all you have a great site just a little reorganization.

Demet

[galinbradwarn]

Re: suggestions on a more proffessional site

Verry nice site, i had the same problem ( multi Pages ) i took 2 days to regroup and was able to make 25 links move down to 10 links .
what i did was multi group my items and knock out some of the relisted items i had over looked Blue Voda did help me reset all the code fast.
and btw a very nice site you have, mine is on Candles tonigh i will be reuploading it i will post it here so you can see what i did to shorten my link tabs

[Collectors-info]

Re: suggestions on a more proffessional site

Would look better if you made a universal & consistent template for all pages & did away with all the starkly moving parts. When moving around the site, i felt like i had gone to another site on many of the pages.

[Pippy]

Re: suggestions on a more proffessional site

Thanks Guys,
Thanks for all your suggestions and all taken on board.... head down.. bum up.... yes it needs cleaning up... I put that dam broom away somewhere !!
Thanks Louise.