Website Review and Suggestions

**scorpioserve** · 01-19-2007, 04:21 AM

Please check out my site as thouroghly as possible, this has taken some time to put together and I just need some constructive critism.

This is a South African site with the best internet connection currently available in the country, and it is still slow, if you could also comment on speed.

http://www.higuide.co.za

Scorpioserve

**Wuoshi** · 01-19-2007, 05:03 AM

Looks good. Maybe clip the height some since there is alot of unused space in the bottom, would decrease the scolling.

Spelling error, "usefull" is "useful"

**jenyfari** · 01-20-2007, 04:26 AM

The homepage loaded pretty quickly - took about 3 or 4 seconds. Selecting from the drop-down boxes took a bit longer.

In my opinion the pictures on the company details pages should be smaller. The information about the company (ie. company name, email address, telephone etc) should be above the fold but the picture above the information takes up so much space.

**scorpioserve** · 01-20-2007, 04:35 AM

Thanks guys your help is reatly appreciated, please keep the reviews coming they are invaluble, especially considering that this site is full of true webmasters, coders, and seo professionals.

Scorpioserve

**starlington** · 01-20-2007, 08:46 AM

Well speed is not an issue with your site, I think its a good speed. Front page opened up in 2 secs for me and the layout with color sounds good to me. But the empty space at the bottom of the page needs to be removed. And the advertising link that you have placed, acccording to me is not very suitable. Rather you can just add a small tag "Advertise with Us" somewhere in the bottom right of the page, would look more better. Moreover, that front page introduction paragraph could be stretched with few more contents or specialities highlighted would give it a proffesional look.

Secondry pages also din't took time for loading. So speed is not a issue at all. And I must say that the title images are decorative. And here on the pages of shop information I guess if you put Company Description prior to Company Details, would give a good browsing experience. As users would naturally like to read about the company first & then if suitable they would contact the company.

Overall design & structure is great with pleasant colors.

**greenrocket** · 01-20-2007, 10:53 AM

The speed is fine from my stand point

Good design and I like the colors and the layout

Good job

**boboman** · 01-20-2007, 05:11 PM

You got a missing drop shadow on the right side. Maybe you want to add it?

**Brai** · 01-22-2007, 08:50 AM

I think you can shorten the length of the homepage, you don't need to scroll down that much.

I also think you should change the scroll-down boxes so they differ from the submit button.

I think the reason for the slow connection is because of the amount of images used and their size.

**scorpioserve** · 01-22-2007, 11:30 AM

Great guys, thanks for all the comments good and bad I love them all. Thanks. I will be making all the changes tonight.

**kgemini22** · 01-22-2007, 12:26 PM

Couple of things.

1. I would change the entire background to blue and allow the home page to remain white or visa versa. But it will be more difficult to read the text if the body is blue. You can not have a dark text on a dark background.

2. There is no navigation, most user's have a standard outlook on how they navigate a site. Try to stick with standard navigation methods if you decide to build other pages that are linked from home page.

3. What is the plan for the site again? It's pretty raw.

**netricksdotcom** · 01-22-2007, 12:31 PM

My experience is that it does load a bit slow. The images are too large and there is not any standard navigation. You probably are not using style sheets appropriately. The site is going to be difficult to SEO and market on line because of the structure, so if that is important to you, then I would make some changes.

Suggestion for change. Take it or leave it. Just my dumbass opinion anyway. Ha ha!
1. The light blue text on dark blue background is difficult to read. Not the best aesthetis either.
2. you have a very large picture as the header of each page, this makes the user scroll down to read he text, and without a proper navigation, the flow of the site stalls.
3. In your demo section, the move buttons are the same color as your date, this also adds to your nav issue. then the Home button goes to the top of the page... This is odd to me, again no flow.
4. In your demo section the text is in the image. all that nice text needs to be indexable by the search engines. That is your marketing power, and when you use text in an image, of course the search engines cannot read it, thus you lose that power. Suggestion, don't use text in an image.

5. As far as speed goes, your site speed, your hosting speed and your ISP speed are three separate things. You can host anywhere, and your site is small should it should load fine. You can look up tools online that will analyse your layout for you and give you load times. Like this here: http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

Good luck.

GR

**menerweb** · 01-22-2007, 01:47 PM

There are a lot of insufficient <br> codes at the bottom of pages.

**mgraphic** · 02:58 PM

Brutal and honest??

About you or the site???

**owenson** · 01-24-2007, 08:42 PM

Basic website but serves it's purpose why have an over complicated website. Previews in IE and Mozilla perfect. Good Luck.

**gl3nnx** · 01-24-2007, 11:15 PM

am not a very good web designer, but as you said you need a honest comments.. okay

heres my comment:

The site banner is too large, my screen resolution is 1024x768? if am going to change my resolution into 800x600, your banner will cover almost the half of the screen
interms of SEO, your site has a good TITLE, i think this is ur site's keyword, but i dunno if Google can crawl to your <SELECT> drop down list.
you put the W3 XHTML Valid logo, but when i check it in w3.org, it doesnt passed the XHTML validator.
Am using a Dial up, your site loads fast. thats good!
I think "The Home Improvement Guide" needs a customize logo and not an ordinary text font.

Good luck dude!

Quote:

Originally Posted by scorpioserve

Please check out my site as thouroghly as possible, this has taken some time to put together and I just need some constructive critism.

This is a South African site with the best internet connection currently available in the country, and it is still slow, if you could also comment on speed.

http://www.higuide.co.za

Scorpioserve

**rajansslance** · 01-24-2007, 11:34 PM

Hi scorpio,
Just now i have tried to open with Firefox browser.Its take little bit time.I dont know whether the problem is with your site or with my browser.
Any way very nice to meet you all here.Want to discuss more and more topics.
Thanks1

**chesty** · 01-25-2007, 09:51 AM

Like it! not sure about the light blue paragraph text against the darker blue background though... Speed is not too bad...
Good Luck!

**RanaD** · 01-25-2007, 02:29 PM

Home Improvement Guide? More like Home Improvement Specialist Directory.

I couldn't find a guide, found one specialist who could help me with adding a pool to my home in Port Elizabeth (where I don't have a home, but if I did, you know...)

If I was a homeowner, I would look in the yellow pages for specialist local help.

What is the idea of the site? If you wanted me to come back, you'd have to have some ideas for me to try out - some "Guides" as your name suggests.

I like the pictures, but they could be scaled down and still look pretty. They do load nice and fast, so no problem there.

Finally: What is the point of having this site? You have a great idea if you're going to introduce some ideas and guides, but as it is now, I could just as well visit the yellow pages website. I also would love to know how you're going to get traffic if you're going to ignore search engines, or make their "life" difficult.

Incidentally, I'm from South Africa, so I would be a potential return-client.

**katkac279** · 01-25-2007, 04:04 PM

I like it, nice pictures and good design. I think its great

**roy77** · 01-26-2007, 01:14 PM

brutal? i like hardore better

anywho... ur site looks fine, i do like the idea - supposed to be a directory???
looks cool - all you need is some links, maybe change colours upa bit. i can see silver light grey working with your banner there, but dont take my word for it. add more catagories and more submisions. wish the best of luck! Roy.