Website Review and Suggestions

**Spacyjane** · 03-21-2007, 12:53 PM

Hi,
I've had this site for about 2 years now. I do not have any formal background in webdesign so it has taken me a great deal of time to
design the layout. I wanted it simple and easy to navigate. My colors
I painstakingly chose so I'm satisifed with them but.... my main page I think
needs some revamping. any ideas?
Thanks in advance
http://www.modernabode.com

**travelagent** · 03-21-2007, 01:41 PM

I'm sure you've put in alot of time on your site, but IMO you didn't put in alot of "Web Designer Thought" -- don't take this as a mean thing to say, but you really should scrap the whole site and start over ... don't use Yahoo SiteBuilder, but get a good quality HTML Editor.

1. The NavMenu is terrible.
2. Quite a few of your pics in the center are not clickable, yet others are.
3. Get rid of the alphabet crap in the center.
4. The links in the center run together and word-wrap.
5. Get rid of the tiny calendar as nobody looks at those.
6. Get rid of the "20th Century Modern" web-ring; along with your guestbook and blog.
7. Remove the chat link, as most of the time you're not there anyway, unless you hire a 24/7 staff.

Last, but not least, get away from tables and learn CSS, where you can have a table-less design, because currently you have a whopping 551 code warnings, where the majority are duplicate quotation marks.

**USA Domain Bank** · 03-21-2007, 01:58 PM

I agree with travel agent. Also, if you have a problem with design, you could go and buy a website template, a graphics editor and an html editor and make the site yours.

However, the best and quickest way is to hire a Web Engineer to do this for you. If you are using the site for marketing products and selling items, a Web Engineer would know what needs to be achieved to optimize the site.

I am sure if you asked on this site for a quality Web Engineer, you would get plenty of talented people who could re-do your site so that it is useful and profitable.

Mikel @ http://usadomainbank.com

**Spacyjane** · 03-21-2007, 02:34 PM

WOW! That's discouraging but i'm glad i have found this site. I had compliments on my site, i guess they were just being nice. i've made some of the suggestions you made, deleted the calendar, blog, guestbook. as you say noone has really done anything with them since i put them on there. i've also changed my navigation bar on the main page. do you think it is salvagable now? with more changes
thanks

**Spacyjane** · 03-21-2007, 02:35 PM

and what is CSS? Is it something the average webmaster can learn ?
thanks

**travelagent** · 03-21-2007, 02:44 PM

CSS is Cascading Style Sheets -- so named, because you can use one "sheet" (a CSS file uploaded to your server) to easily control your site with less coding.

You can learn CSS by going thru the W3C Tutorial

**ostudioo** · 03-21-2007, 10:43 PM

I am not really feeling the design. Look's too old and confusing. I can see that you are trying to go with the overall theme and concept of your site but I don't know if you should keep it that way. The content of your site is overall great, but I am not feeling the design. I don't much about web-designing but as a surfer, your website didn't really catch my eye.

**gsmile** · 03-21-2007, 11:02 PM

I think you should go with a style that's more sleek and modern. I see the style you're going for, but I'm not sure it will look good.
Your header image needs to be improved-- maybe use an image or something. This one looks really bad.
Good luck on it!

**robthebuilder** · 03-22-2007, 12:20 AM

I think this would fall under the qualification of "busy". Very unusual setup, unique in a sense. I think it kinda has a retro feel to it, and I'm guessing this is what you are shooting for since it is mid-century. However, it is filled with info cluttered and bunched up. But, it is unique, definitely a plus for that.

**Spacyjane** · 03-22-2007, 12:29 AM

thanks for all your comments guys. i wish i had the time to learn css. i have revamped my main pages this evening and updated my banner. please let me know if this is a better look. i'm working on deleting clutter as you say and am changing the left navigation bar to run horizontal instead along the bottom or top of page. i want my site to be as eye catching as possible and welcome any commments that will get me there. thanks
JP

**tanjh** · 03-22-2007, 06:31 AM

The design is not too bad but perhaps bigger fonts would be better.

**plaksel** · 03-22-2007, 02:12 PM

Hi there!

Seems you do need a css designer to make your site look good!

www.csswebdesigns.co.uk

**travelagent** · 03-22-2007, 02:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by plaksel

Hi there!

Seems you do need a css designer to make your site look good!

www.csswebdesigns.co.uk

Be sure and fix your errors on your HTML side...

Code:

line 22 column 29 - Warning: <img> element not empty or not closed
line 23 column 29 - Warning: <img> element not empty or not closed
line 24 column 29 - Warning: <img> element not empty or not closed
line 25 column 29 - Warning: <img> element not empty or not closed
line 34 column 63 - Warning: <img> element not empty or not closed
line 48 column 13 - Warning: <img> element not empty or not closed
line 22 column 29 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 23 column 29 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 24 column 29 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 25 column 29 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute
line 48 column 13 - Warning: <img> lacks "alt" attribute

**astroviineet** · 03-23-2007, 06:07 AM

The design is good themes to site every few mnths, as people love change.

viineet jain

**Spacyjane** · 03-23-2007, 08:19 AM

travelagent...
I'd love to hire a CSS but am not in that position yet so will have to work with what i have. i'm loving all your suggestions and have acted on some of them. my rating have gone up already from page 4 to page 2 in a google search. now, i'm wondering, how do i get rid of those html errors you mentioned on line 22 to line 48. do i go into notepad and delete these. thanks so much for your help in advance
JP

**travelagent** · 03-23-2007, 08:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spacyjane

travelagent...
I'd love to hire a CSS but am not in that position yet so will have to work with what i have. i'm loving all your suggestions and have acted on some of them. my rating have gone up already from page 4 to page 2 in a google search. now, i'm wondering, how do i get rid of those html errors you mentioned on line 22 to line 48. do i go into notepad and delete these. thanks so much for your help in advance
JP

Okay; let's work on one thing at a time regarding errors -- I need for you to place a Doctype Declaration at the Head of your site first; so go here and choose one ... once you've placed the correct one, it may / may not get rid of some of the errors.

**Spacyjane** · 03-23-2007, 12:45 PM

Hi,
ok, i checked another website that uses yahoo sitebuilder and this is the doc type code they use. i inserted into my notepad just before the head section and saved it.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" >
<head>

I dont know if this tells you anything or not and i'm not sure where to go to check for errors. i really apprecaite your help. can i be your pet project? lol
JP

**gl3nnx** · 03-23-2007, 12:53 PM

just a suggest dude ... i think you need to modify your logo.

**Spacyjane** · 03-23-2007, 01:29 PM

too tacky?
JP

**travelagent** · 03-23-2007, 01:47 PM

Okay, "pet project" -

-

Rule #1 ... NEVER copy from another site unless you know what you're doing, as you'll end up copying their errors ... read and learn from not only sites I, and a few others send you to, but experiment until you get it right.

The code you show wasn't placed in the proper manner -- so, copy and paste this EXACTLY as it is, and we'll go from there:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html>
<head><title>Modern Abode - Mid-Century Modern Originals</title>
<meta name="revisit-after" content="3 days" />
<meta name="description" content="Mid 20th Century Modern Classic Art, Ceramics, Clocks, Glass, Handbags, Jewelry, Lighting, Metal, Objects, Plastic, Pottery, Seating, Shoes, Tables, Textiles, Tiki Kitsch original pieces." />
<meta name="keywords" content="mid century modern, mid century, moderne, contemporary, modern, off beat, design, mod, midcentury, modern era design, turn of the century, mid-twentieth century" />
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow" />
<meta name="distribution" content="Global" />
<meta name="Rating" content="General" />
<meta name="Author" content="Mid-Century Modern Originals" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en" />
<meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="TRUE" />
<meta name="copyright" content="Copyright © 2007 / Mid-Century Modern Originals / All rights reserved." />



<style type="text/css"></style></head>