Website Review and Suggestions

**scorpionagency** · 09-12-2007, 05:27 PM

Ok, Now for my work in Progress (A website never really being Done

).

This one was done on a Joomla CMS back Bone. For some reason I just Love Dark Designs so I designed it specifically for that passion. (Kinda warning you ahead of time in case your eyes are sensitive to the change)

http://www.scorpionagency.com

So far the downfalls I have seen are:

URL's that are not Search Engine friendly, to compensate for that you'll notice I have 4 forms of navigation - Left 2 level Css, Top single level Css, Right Large Buttons, Bottom (Footer) Hyperlinked plain text -
Slow Loading for Dial-Up users due to the heavy image use (Seems to load within 2-4 seconds on DSL)
Old monitors with the Bulbs starting to burn out won't be able to view the site in its entirety, Along with Monitors set at low color/brightness.
The concept Adds to an already saturated Market.

it is Unique & one of a kind as far as design though, However I am now asking for your Opinions. Besides what I have listed that are working against me here, What do you think?

**blue-dreamer** · 09-12-2007, 11:38 PM

478k's worth of images is way too much for a home page IMHO, even for broadband.

The left menu is a bit busy for my tastes

**scorpionagency** · 09-12-2007, 11:56 PM

Agreed, it is rather Image heavy, I have been pondering alternatives to maintain the dark graphic appeal & shorten the load time... Still in debate.

if anyone knows how to speed up load time without having to remove any images, maybe some additional server side options to achieve it, it would be very helpful to me.

**vangogh** · 09-13-2007, 12:56 AM

Did you optimize the images? There are some that look much larger (file size) than they need to be. Still you have too many images. You don't need them all. For example no one will be digging or stumbling your home page. There's no reason to. Only place those images where it makes the most sense. And you really don't need everyone of them.

It's not just the size of the images. Each one makes a request on the server which slows things down. Decide which ones you really need and get rid of the rest. You can use them all on the site, but they don't all need to be on the home page.

The dark background doesn't bother me at all, but keep in mind it's your potential customers that need to like it. Not you or me. They might and I'm not saying not to use the light on dark design, but if your customers would like it the other way around that's how it should be.

The background is too busy for me. It's nice and I appreciate the work. I even like how it morphs into the header. But it's too busy and distracting, especially with all the images. It makes for a very busy page with too many things calling for my attention. When I land on the page I have no idea where I should look and the last thing that stands out is your content.

Are you familiar with .htaccess files? How about PHP? If you are familiar with either you can rewrite the URLs so they are search friendly. It's ok to have parameters, but the ones with id in them could cause problems.

Search Engine Optimization with PHP is a good book that will teach you how to set up the URLs. There's a similar book by the same authors using asp, but since your server is Apache I assumed php is the way to go for you.

**Colorifer** · 09-13-2007, 05:52 AM

Background too heavy at scrolling

**blue-dreamer** · 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scorpionagency

Agreed, it is rather Image heavy, I have been pondering alternatives to maintain the dark graphic appeal & shorten the load time... Still in debate.

if anyone knows how to speed up load time without having to remove any images, maybe some additional server side options to achieve it, it would be very helpful to me.

The point about using images on a web page is to only use them if they add real value. You can still have a great looking page by using decorative imagery more subtley and you also gain because you use less.

Optimising your site will take a bit of work but it can be done, as vangogh said, you need to look at optimising your image file sizes as this will save a huge chunk of download time.

let's have a look at your page info

Documents (1 file) - 59 kb
This is the html for your home page, 59k is way to much. Your table based template doesn't help, convert this to a CSS only layout and you should be able to save 30k here.

Images (57 files) - 480 kb
Firstly 57 images for one page is too much, image header_short.png is a massive 158k, you should be able to optimise this down to 20-30k.
Look at all other images and otimise them as .gif or .jpg - should be able to shave 50-75% off the current file sizes

Scripts (4 files) - 15 kb (30 kb uncompressed)
Not bad

Style Sheets (1 file) 11 kb
Not bad

You should be able to get the page size down to under 200k which means that it should load twice as quick as it does now. If it was my site with the same content I'd personally be aiming for nearer a 100k page.

**scorpionagency** · 09-13-2007, 02:03 PM

Wow, Both Steven & Blue-Dreamer.... OUTSTANDING Review advice... It all makes perfect sense.

May take me a bit, however I will get started on .Png Conversions to .Jpg along with eliminating some imagery to lighten the load a bit..

Thanks!

**vangogh** · 09-13-2007, 07:34 PM

Eric here's a web page speed report from WebSiteOptimization.com. If you look to the right you'll see their book which talks all about how to improve download times. It was one of the first books I read when getting into web design and it's always in the back of my mind when developing.

If you look you'll see your home page has 57 images. When I was designing my site I struggled with how I could turn 8 images into 7.

**scorpionagency** · 09-28-2007, 08:41 PM

Updated... I took some everyone's advise & converted .Png's to .Jpg's along with deleted some imagery all together in order to achieve faster load times & smaller file sizes.

I ended up going with a smoother, cleaner, glassy look & feel (seeing that it was a bit busy before)... Not sure if you guys even remember what it used to look like. (First sig Link)

**blue-dreamer** · 09-28-2007, 09:28 PM

I vaguely remember! I see you've done a lot of work, well done, it loaded a lot faster for me.

I still think you would be able to shave some kb's off your images so I did some tests...

header_short.png - save as a .gif, I got from 55kb to 35kb without loss of quality (saves 20kb)

sidebar buttons - save as .gifs, I got one of them down to 6kb from 9kb (saves about 18kb on all of them combined)

footbar1.png - save as a .gif, reduced from 32kb to 10kb (saves 22kb)

tip7.png - save as a .gif, reduced from 44kb to 15kb (saves 29kb)

bullet.png - save as a .gif, reduced 26kb to 53bytes (saves 25.5kb)

Combined you can shave about 114kb off the total image size, that would reduce your total page size from 309kb to under 200kb - that's over half the size of the original page.

Try it and see your page fly!

**scorpionagency** · 09-28-2007, 09:31 PM

Thanks, I'll play with that some more in a few days... weekend being here & all

**vangogh** · 09-28-2007, 10:34 PM

Eric it's definitely a big improvement from where you were before. I agree with blue-dreamer that it can still be improved, but you've definitely done a lot of work.

One thing that can improve download time is removing whitespace from your code. It won't have the same impact as optimizing your images, but I've seen it make a big difference in some cases.

I try to use a single space instead of a tab to indent for example. If a tab is 4 spaces then that saves 3 characters for ever tab you convert to a single space. It doesn't seem like much, but it can add up over an entire page and can make the difference when you're trying to squeeze out an extra few seconds.

Go for the images first, but spend a little time cleaning up whitespace in your files too.

**scorpionagency** · 09-28-2007, 10:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

Eric it's definitely a big improvement from where you were before. I agree with blue-dreamer that it can still be improved, but you've definitely done a lot of work.

One thing that can improve download time is removing whitespace from your code. It won't have the same impact as optimizing your images, but I've seen it make a big difference in some cases.

I try to use a single space instead of a tab to indent for example. If a tab is 4 spaces then that saves 3 characters for ever tab you convert to a single space. It doesn't seem like much, but it can add up over an entire page and can make the difference when you're trying to squeeze out an extra few seconds.

Go for the images first, but spend a little time cleaning up whitespace in your files too.

Great Idea.... I'll look further into that too after I finish up on the basic image optimizing.

Thanks

**scorpionagency** · 10:27 PM

I had 2 hours available today & did the header / Nav / x2 footbars / Cross referencing Banners / & News Flash Avatars.... I not only converted most to .Gif & a few to .Jpg, i added the glass feel as well so it would all match & blend better with the rest of the layout..

Slowly but surely progressing.. www.scorpionagency.com
(Note: You may need to clear your cache to see the changes)

I'll get a bit more done Monday after my schedules clear.

**vangogh** · 09-29-2007, 10:39 PM

It's definitely getting faster. I checked the speed optimization that I linked to in one of my posts above. I always use the 56k modem as the standard and shoot for under 8 seconds over 56k.

Earlier today the home page of the site took 70 seconds to load over 56k. It's now down to 59 seconds. That's a good improvement for two hours work. You can still do more of course, but you're improving.

If memory serves when I first checked the page before you started it was taking about 180 seconds to load.

**scorpionagency** · 10:50 PM

Yep, I got it at 184 sec. my first check & this time was 59.50 sec.... By Tue. (If all goes as planned) I should have it between 15-30 load time (Hopefully).

Joomla was designed Heavy to begin with.... Even their SEF Links Mod is insufficient & requires footer Nav to compensate for the deeper pages past the 2 page theory.

**scorpionagency** · 11:41 AM

ok, Finally had time for a bit more tweakage on my site. I eliminated the (SMF) Simple Machines Forum that was Wrapped (iframed) - Tacky - & Integrated a FireBoard.. I redesigned the fireboard to both match my overall site design & went with (Mob) Mafia Theme... Members Avatars = Originally Designed Mafioso's, Post Ranks are Bullet Holes, Etc...

I also integrated the CB Community Profiles system (To extend on the Webmaster Mafia Forums & provide a bit more interaction).

(Now the forum area, Publisher area, Directory area, & Profile area are all integrated into the same database now & only require 1 login Vs. the 4 it did before. - Only exception is the Digital Downloads, thats still a separate login at this time -)

Still playing with a few Ideas on the Webmaster Mafia theme. With the new Progress in the equation, what are your Opinions thus far?

**vangogh** · 10-23-2007, 09:36 PM

Eric it looks like you added back a little time, but I think reducing the number of logins is a great advance.

The overall look seems somewhat dark to me for a typical marketing/design firm, but that doesn't mean you can't go with. It's certainly going to be appealing to a subset of people looking for either design or marketing services. Keep in mind who your target market is if you haven't already. I think you have, but figured I'd point it out.

The site is still heavy on images for me, though it's much cleaner than when you first posted. It's definitely been improving as this thread moves along.

**scorpionagency** · 10-24-2007, 08:24 AM

The fun part is balancing Time, Seo (On-page / Off-page), Sem, Design, Work flow, Monetization, Updates, feature Integrations, Client services, Etc, Etc.. Kind of a constant juggle & a building process.

Seems like every time I update one part, it retroactively offsets another (A back & forth balancing war).

The never ending website saga can be quite hair pulling at times..

Slowly but surely, It's all coming together like a puzzle, Baby steps it seems..

I still have SO MUCH to do

....

My main downfall is that I am too stubborn to have one of my sub-contractors do any of it for me (Some psychological trust issues & a hard headed thought process of "If I don't do it myself it won't get done").

Thanks for the Input, It has been very helpful...

**vangogh** · 10-24-2007, 04:05 PM

Glad I've been helping Eric. I completely understand the sub-contractor thing. It's not easy for me either, though I'm learning.

Balance is a good word. Sometimes making one thing better makes another less better. Many times it's a trade off and the goal is finding the right balance for you. Even more complicated is there probably isn't only one successful balancing act.

Let your own skills and passions lead you a little in the direction you take. I mentioned above the darker background. Some people will hate it and immediately leave. Others will love it and be sold right away. The trick is figuring out who's in which group and what other things appeal to them and finding out where those people spend time so you can get your message in front of them.