Website Review and Suggestions

**firstnamemike** · 03-12-2009, 07:56 PM

Hi,
I built our company's website using Microsoft Publisher, because I am trying to do it without the service of a web designer. I am relly unhappy with the overall look. I have seen other sites from pest control companies that show cool pictures of insects for example, but with Publisher it does not seem to give me too much flexibility to have images that fit in nicely with the text.

Is it possible to add another page to this website that can be designed better (not on MS Publisher) and still keep the other pages? I do not want to throw away all the work I have put in and I don't want to mess with our web rankings which are currently not that bad.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

www.pestproblemssolved.com

**chrishirst** · 03-12-2009, 08:20 PM

Were you hoping for a 1990s retro look?

and most of it is in images!!!

May I disrespectfully suggest that you start again with Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla or some other CMS/Blogging tool
AND LOOSE THAT BACKGROUND!! it's like a 1960s "Flock" wallpaper

I would like to say something positive but .......

and to be honest "web rankings" are absolutely the least of your worries.

**hartofalyon** · 03-12-2009, 08:25 PM

what's the point of adding another (better designed) page to your website? people are still going to see the current pages, which you're unhappy with.

**colbyt** · 09:04 AM

Chris is know for his blunt style. So don't be upset with his comment.

His observations were on target but could have been expressed in a nicer manner.

Lose the background and tone down the images. Go with a straight html presentation (think Google here) and I think your site will look more to your liking. More professional also.

It is a very retro look at the momnent.

**chrishirst** · 03-12-2009, 08:38 PM

And I thought I was being nice

(I rewrote the post twice

)

**KML9870** · 03-12-2009, 09:23 PM

If you are comfortable with MS Publisher I would follow Chris's suggestion of using a CMS. I haven't worked much with Wordpress or Drupal but Joomla can create a professional website with a little bit of knowledge and minimal time/effort. It is most likely available from your webhost in the control panel and is easy to install. Your content is what you want to keep. With Joomla you write "articles" for your page content which are easily updated or edited. There are many free layouts available so your site doesn't look like a cookie cutter website and after you are comfortable with the code you can edit your layout yourself. For more indepth info about Joomla you can visit their site at joomla.com.

**colbyt** · 03-13-2009, 09:08 AM

I hate the overhead and lack of freedom with all those cms products. Most of them are cheesy.

You only need one well designed page to use as a template for all the others. Learn a few very simple html tags and you don't need anything but notepad2 and an ftp client.

**firstnamemike** · 03-13-2009, 10:46 AM

To all the guys who just made comments on my site, I just want to express my gratitude. I have been researching Wordpress, but I need to spens some serious time at this. I also appreciate Colbyt's suggestion to try to learn some simple html tags and work from there.
I will start with Wordpress for now and see how far I get. I will also take a look at Joomla as KML9870 suggested.
Again, thanks a lot for the help! I will definately post my results.

**imnewhere** · 03-17-2009, 05:08 PM

looks nice

**Decaf** · 03-17-2009, 05:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by colbyt

I hate the overhead and lack of freedom with all those cms products. Most of them are cheesy.

You only need one well designed page to use as a template for all the others. Learn a few very simple html tags and you don't need anything but notepad2 and an ftp client.

That is of course only useful if you know how to code a site from scratch.

**colbyt** · 03-17-2009, 07:12 PM

Quote:

That is of course only useful if you know how to code a site from scratch.

Decaf,

That is absolutely true. My point was it isn't that hard to learn simple html based pages or php based pages that make use of includes to reduce the duplication.

I freely admit that I used an abomination called FrontPage to make my first few sites.

Then I spent the next few years rewriting that crappy code. I still use FP if I want to thow up a splash page or to edit a table based layout to remove the tables.

**texelate** · 03-19-2009, 06:27 AM

Something I keep telling my clients is 'cheap websites are more expensive'. Honestly do yourself a favour and get a professional to do it. A MS Publisher site like that will not only not add to your online credibility, it will damage it.

It's going to be a nightmare to SEO and as and when you get a pro on board he or she will just say you need to bin this. So what really have you saved?

I'd like to offering come better constructive criticism but I can't think of much. . .

**firstnamemike** · 03-24-2009, 02:09 PM

Hi Chris, Kandi and all the rest of you nice people that motivated me to learning about CMS tools, namely Joomla. I could not get over having such a "retro" site another minute. Especially after Chris' attempt at being nice.

I redesigned the site and I am very happy with the results. I watched a bunch of videos on Youtube and I actually met a nice guy (thru Youtube) who has helped me pretty up my Joomla tempate.

Anyway, here it is. It still is being improved, so again, if you do care to comment on it, I would greatly appreciate any criticism.

Thanks again,
Michael www.pestproblemssolved.com

**colbyt** · 03-24-2009, 06:21 PM

WOW!

If I had not clicked on the links in your first and last post (I really did) I would never have believed it was the same site.

Nice work.

**NewBreed** · 03-24-2009, 06:57 PM

I'd change the the left nav a:active background color to #99ccff and the font color to the dark gray you've been using. I think the white is kind of lost in the mix. Also on your links page, the hover color makes the links hard to read.

Good luck.

**chrishirst** · 03-25-2009, 02:35 AM

I can only agree with colbyt amazing difference. excellent job done.

I also agree with NewBreed in that some of the link pseudo-class colours need some attention.

BTW. Have you donated the old site to a museum?

**dalexdesign** · 03-25-2009, 04:07 AM

Considering that you have never designed a website before or it looks by your thread you did an ok job on your Joomla website. I would have done things differently however if your goal was to look more of an advertisement website than more for information than you did a decent job. Sure colors dont match well however you did do a good job espeically on the logo and the navigation.

**BDevil15** · 03-25-2009, 09:24 PM

Looks much better, its not perfect but it is an amazing difference your on the right track.