Website Review and Suggestions

**mlovet1** · 08-27-2010, 10:01 PM

Hi everyone,

Just "finished" my company's site up (never really finished, always tweaking). Would appreciate some feedback and suggestions on layout and usability. I know iframes are somewhat controversial, but let me know how they work on your browser, are they really annoying and not functional?

Here's the site: http://www.hortassistlandscaping.com

Thanks!

**TWD** · 11:08 PM

Overall, a pretty good effort but it's not quite professional standard.

First up, I'll give you 2 strong arguments against iframes.

1) You can never really tell how high your visitor's browser
window is. Some people (like me) have lots of toolbars
which cuts the vertical space.
So for example, when I visited your portfolio page, I was
unaware of the image controls because they were "below
the fold in the iframe

2) iFrames are problematic from an SEO perspective.
The browser sees the iFrame as a completely seperate
page from the surrounding frame. So it's poison for
building PageRank.

Other than that, I'd have a rethink about the big black
graphic on the right of the page. It makes things look
kind of unbalanced and isnt very attractive anyway.

On a positive note, I like the logo, but the rest of
your page header looks very busy

**mlovet1** · 08-27-2010, 11:30 PM

Hey TWD thank you so much, that was incredibly constructive and helpful. I definitely will redo the header and change the background. And hell, I'll even get rid of the iframe for the portfolio's sake if nothing else, but the search engine results is pretty major indeed! Again, thanks mate!

**mlovet1** · 08-29-2010, 01:39 AM

Redid some of the issues:
-No more iframe
-Got rid of the background image
-simplified header

Any suggestions on what needs to be done to improve the professional feel of the site?

**TWD** · 08-29-2010, 02:21 AM

Its better.

3 More suggestions.

1) Try to add padding and consistent margins to all your text and photo images
2) Try to use consistent fonts and font colors. Two or Three for the entire site.
3) You see the white "halo" of pixels around the logo and the logo text?
Thats a problem with using GIF images. You should redo those images in PNG-24 or better yet, PNG-8 without the transparency.

And for bonus credit try adding a favicon. Is a post by me on this site somewhere about how to do that.

**MWanted** · 08-29-2010, 02:53 AM

Good looking website. Keep up the good work. You can try adjusting font size which is looking a little bit odd. Also you can try validating your website according to w3c standards.

**mlovet1** · 08-29-2010, 06:40 AM

I believe I've addressed most the issues you both have suggested (minus the w3c validation). Also, MWanted, could you point out which section the font was looking odd? or do you just mean overall it looks odd?

Thanks guys I really appreciate the help. Now i just need a graphic designer to lend a hand hah.

**TWD** · 08-29-2010, 07:48 AM

Add a margin to your image elements as well.
At the moment the text is slammed right up against
you pictures.
Also, check your site in a few different browsers.
In my browser (Firefox 3.5) the menu on the home page
wraps around to the next line. Might need to make the
width of your menu items smaller.

Overall, I think it looks 10 times better than when you started.
Well done !

**mlovet1** · 08-29-2010, 01:23 PM

I'm currently using style=”margin: 10px 10px 10px 10px;” in the img tag which doesn't seem to be alleviating the issue of text crowding. Any suggestions there?

And for the menu, I can't seem to find the "Goldy Locks" size for these things because in my browser (Safari 5) they are actually a tad bit smaller then the table itself.

Thanks TWD, appreciate all the feedback!

**ThailandForum** · 08-29-2010, 02:21 PM

Nav bar wraps for me, contact is the next line down, the facebook thing looks a bit odd, all scrunched up under the phone number, the top lot of text matches the image height, the bottom lot of text looks messy as it doesn't match the image height.

**mlovet1** · 08-29-2010, 04:33 PM

I reduced the size of the menu elements, hopefully it won't wrap for you guys anymore. Unfortunately, on safari the menu is much smaller then the table now. Is there a universal way to resize these using css so that browsers won't change it up?

Changed the bottom image up Thailand, thanks for the suggestion.

**ThailandForum** · 08-29-2010, 04:46 PM

Nav bar looks fine for me on firefox now as does the bottom of the page, as long as it looks fine on the most popular browsers your going in the right direction, as for safari I'm against killing animals for fun, well apart from cats of course, and poisonous snakes, scorpions, big beasty spiders, mossies, hmmm, this may turn into a never ending list.

**mlovet1** · 08-29-2010, 07:25 PM

I'd say you are correct Thailand. According to google analytics, the top 5 browsers to see the site are Firefox, IE, Safari, Chrome, and Mozilla. So as long as you firefox people are happy, I'm happy hah.

As for actual safaris, I think those are only for really rich people who have power and control issues..

**ThailandForum** · 08-29-2010, 10:50 PM

If your building websites for a living it has to show correctly in all browsers, you cannot put "This is best viewed in" whatever, your site displayed alright and the info was readable, thats the most important thing, now just tweak it for seo and looks as you go along, I probably got about 100 pages that don't display correctly, the info is there for people and most likely within the next 12 months I might get round to cleaning up my rubbish html

**mlovet1** · 08-30-2010, 04:32 PM

Added a favicon TWD, how much bonus credit is that TWD? Redid the artwork section too. Is anyone else still seeing the menu wrap around?

**TWD** · 08-30-2010, 10:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mlovet1

Added a favicon TWD, how much bonus credit is that TWD?

Plenty!

Menus look fine to me.

**de12** · 08-30-2010, 10:55 PM

So as long as you firefox people are happy, I'm happy hah.

**mlovet1** · 08-31-2010, 05:14 AM

Ok I just finished a somewhat major design revision. Please review it and let me know if theres any positioning problems with the images in your browser. Thanks everyone.

**VirtuosiMedia** · 08-31-2010, 06:28 PM

It's a good start, Matt. You do some good things by listing your phone number and accomplishments, as well as showcasing your work.

A few observations:

Showcase your work on your front page. Landscaping is a very visual medium and every picture on the site should be your work, not stock photography or macro shots.
Make it very clear on your front page what you want a visitor to do. Give them incentive to do that and make it visually obvious.
Go with a solid background on your banner rather than the gradient. If you keep the gradient, make it a little more subtle.
Try to avoid using the glow effect. On your logo and header text, it makes it look more blurry and unprofessional.
You may want to be a little bolder with your colors. They all fade out into pastel or white at this point and the overall effect isn't as strong as it could be.
Don't use images for text in navigation. You can get the same effect by using a CSS sprite and using real text. The images make it bad for SEO and for screen readers.
The background color doesn't quite work. Mint green isn't normally associated with landscaping. Also, your background image at the bottom doesn't repeat for larger monitors.
Don't include art as a part of a professional landscaping site. While it's very good photography, it isn't relevant to getting you landscaping work and really should have no place on the site. If you also make money doing photography, make another site specifically for it.

If you're interested in inspiration, I have a landscaping website that I did in my portfolio that you can look at for ideas. Hopefully this will help you.

**mlovet1** · 08-31-2010, 07:40 PM

VM, those were incredible suggestions, thank you so much.

i TOTALLY forgot about css sprites, man that'll really save some loading time for viewers, thanks.
I took off the glow effect and I agree, much more solid display of our name.
Reset the bottom footer to repeat, need to find a better bg color I suppose.
As I get better photos of us actually working (the ones I have are mediocre at best) I'll be replacing a lot of the stock photos especially on the first page.
As far as the artwork section, I neglected to explain on the page that customers or just visitors will be able to order prints of the photos. They were taken by locals here in Baton Rouge and I feel it brings in an element of the community to our business. That was the idea at least.
I like on your client's landscaping site how the free estimate menu is on every page. Good thinking. I'll also make the Services section a lot more in depth.

Thanks again!