Website Review and Suggestions

**smokin gun** · 11-25-2007, 02:52 PM

Hello. I need some suggestions to spice up the following site.

http://www.texasbredgreyhounds.com/

All input will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Shane

**fastreplies** · 11-25-2007, 03:08 PM

If you work on this site more than 5 minutes, then you had wasted to much time.

Is this your first site?

fastreplies

**joder** · 11-25-2007, 03:16 PM

For starters:

Colors need to be pleasing to the eye.

Don't open links in new windows.

Bold font is for emphasis. Everything is not meant to be emphasized.

Get a logo.

If you want to build web sites, my advice to you is dump Front Page and learn how to code.

**Watts** · 11-25-2007, 04:09 PM

personally dont like it, yup wrong font and no layout at all, needs big improvment, my suggestion get a template if you cannot code!

**duderawk** · 11-25-2007, 04:56 PM

Information-wise it's really good, explains your service/product well and easily navigated.

Design-wise it's a bit bland, reminds me of the free-site builders.

For the business it's very serviceable, but for a eye catcher not so much. Good work on content, needs more work on style.

I would go with a graphic header w/ a logo, and a left or top nav bar.

**athand** · 11-25-2007, 07:35 PM

Hi

Shane nice site, i just would try another background and play a little bit more with the colors else good...

**Iwonitlive** · 11-25-2007, 07:59 PM

would suggest centering your tables also use a different color on pages the green is not very pleasing.

**freelancevote** · 11-25-2007, 10:32 PM

I think your website needs a 100% makeover. It's way too simple.

**SPWebmaster** · 11-26-2007, 12:16 AM

I like the site and have some suggestions. One thing you can do is use Style Sheets along with more images will spice it up. I know you are probably thinking that more images means a really slow load time but, if you do it right you can have organized columns of information and pictures without having your content running away off the page.

One of the things I like in a website is a main container showing where the page begins and ends whether it is taking up the whole browser window or you have it restricted to 800 pixels in width. One example of this is this forum. You see how the header of each post is a image with gradient, (light-to-dark) or visa versa. This helps to bring attention to the readers eye along with the reset of the table. Also your images in the table borders don't have to take up any bandwidth at all and can be repeated throughout the page easily.

Please look at this website as an example. http://sourceportservices.com/magicvalleypets/
In this site I used a 1 pixel height image on the right and left sides of the tables. and on the header and bottom I used 1 pixel wide images because all of those extra kylobytes were not needed for the look I wanted. The biggest images of the whole table border are the corners to give the rounding effect. I did this using Adobe Photoshop. It has a slice tool that you can use to make your images into an HTML table. From there you need to edit then farther and use style sheets or CSS to have it repeat the image for the table cells background either on the Y axis or the X axis to give the desired effect.

I also designed two Dogs breeding/selling websites similar to yours...
http://sourceportservices.com/lhasastuds/
&
http://windsweptkennels.com

You could look at the contact us form on the Lhasa Studs & Pups website. I used a form to send the email to the person I designed the website for instead of giving there email address out to the mercy of the internet. I simpling used PHP's mail functions to send the email to the address in the PHP code of the form was filled out correctly, thus keeping their address hidden.

Please review my sites and tell me what you think as well.

Thanks,
Source Port Webmaster

**fastreplies** · 11-26-2007, 12:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SPWebmaster

Please review my sites and tell me what you think as well.

You just did it

He need start with basics and learn how build pages using tables or CSS
The stuff you're talking about is not for FrontPage Editor.

fastreplies

**SPWebmaster** · 11-26-2007, 12:31 AM

Yeah I agree I 86'd FrontPage seven years ago and never went back. For years I did everything in MS Notepad and Debugged by hand. Frontpage sucked at that anyway. I found Macromedia Dreamweaver's Code Coloring and auto closing tags about 1 year ago and love it. Only ever use it for Code though never even used the Design Editor view. Never really needed too. I like testing the look and feel better manually in IE and Firefox. You?

**fastreplies** · 11-26-2007, 12:42 AM

Lets not steal Shane's thread

fastreplies

**Cecille** · 11-26-2007, 11:04 PM

Your site has a slow loading time. That's because of your too much big images.. Maybe you have to work out for it....

**smokin gun** · 10:14 PM

I never said that I built the first site. Just looking for suggestions to spice it up some for a friend. Here is what I have come up with so far www.greyhounndauctions.com. The free banner ads will also not exist when finished.

**joder** · 11-27-2007, 10:18 PM

That one looks better

The image of the greyhounds looks stretched. I would use another one.

Center the contact info.

It would be nice if the counter could be smaller or non-existent.

**brianluce** · 11-28-2007, 12:23 AM

I don't like the cattle skull bones.

I also don't like the long spans of horizontal text.

Overall looks decent.

**smokin gun** · 11-28-2007, 12:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brianluce

I don't like the cattle skull bones.

I also don't like the long spans of horizontal text.

Overall looks decent.

Check the update www.greyhounndauctions.com

**LadynRed** · 11-28-2007, 03:14 PM

Lose the funky counter, it's sooo 1997 and they're far from accurate - besides nobody really cares what it says.

You need to forget using XHTML since you apparently have no idea how to code for it. If you insist on using the XHTML doctype, then you must close EVERY TAG. That means every <img> tag must be closed like this <img src=xxxxx.gif />.
Every BR must be closed: <br />
Every meta tag must be close <meta xxxxxxxxxxxxxx />

You've got a slew of validation errors, validate your site.

**smokin gun** · 11-28-2007, 10:06 PM

You are absolutely correct. I have no idea what XHTML even is? I use the templates on godaddy.

**joder** · 11-28-2007, 11:01 PM

Then how do you plan to implement any suggestions?