Design Portfolio Site

[adamlorusso]

Looking for some feedback on my portfolio site, any comments are welcome on either the site itself or the selection of work in the design section.

 

I should probably mention that I am a print designer and do very little dabbling with web design so their might be some awkward/"invalid" coding here and there (a la page-break tags in the html). After reading enough tutorials and taking an abbreviated css class this is what I came up with:

 

http://www.adamlorusso.com

 

 

Thanks for your time!

[ignace]

- Your homepage commits Search Engine suicide. Get the text out of the image and place it into the html. The effect you want can easily be achieved using some CSS applied to the paragraph that contains your text.

 

- Your keywords do not nearly match your text.

 

- The user never knows where he is. Highlight your navigation links to indicate active page.

 

- Your user will most likely land on your homepage don't make him click more to find more information. A very good example is this portfolio (http://www.legacydesign.co.uk) All information you may seek is on this page. Who he is, what he does, where he lives, what he can do for you and how you can contact him.

 

- I can submit the form empty. And once submitted I land on an unknown page with no identifiable interface with your website. Keep consistency among your pages.

 

- Please do write your own form submission script and don't use someone else's messages like these are ugly and don't contribute to value increase towards prospects:

 

Thank you for your submission

 

This form is powered by Jack's Formmail.php 5.0!

 

- As you are apparently blogging I highly recommend integrating it as it increases your value towards prospects and gives you lots of keywords

 

- Both your HTML and CSS are invalid.

 

- All page titles are the same. Create a title specific for each page to increase SEO

[adamlorusso]

Thank you for your suggestions, some of them I completely understand and will work towards fixing. I have a few questions on a couple of your suggestions though. Thanks again for a ton of feedback, it's greatly appreciated.

 

 

 

- Your homepage commits Search Engine suicide. Get the text out of the image and place it into the html. The effect you want can easily be achieved using some CSS applied to the paragraph that contains your text.

 

Are you referring to the "Whether it's Death Metal...." quote? Can I re-create the text in a p tag and just send it -2000 pixels off the screen with css as well? I've heard of this being the correct way to display image as text without removing the text itself for search engines but that might not be proper.

 

- Please do write your own form submission script and don't use someone else's messages like these are ugly and don't contribute to value increase towards prospects:

 

Not sure how to do that. If you have any links on how to fix this problem, or at least create a personalized 'thank you for submitting page' that would be greatly appreciated.

 

- As you are apparently blogging I highly recommend integrating it as it increases your value towards prospects and gives you lots of keywords

 

You mean integrate the blog as an actual part of the website instead of using third party blogging (ie Blogger)?

 

- Both your HTML and CSS are invalid.

 

I'm aware and trying to work through it, like I said I'm only dabble with web designer (I'd rather take up problems with a grumpy printers than IE6).

[ignace]

- Your homepage commits Search Engine suicide. Get the text out of the image and place it into the html. The effect you want can easily be achieved using some CSS applied to the paragraph that contains your text.

 

Are you referring to the "Whether it's Death Metal...." quote? Can I re-create the text in a p tag and just send it -2000 pixels off the screen with css as well? I've heard of this being the correct way to display image as text without removing the text itself for search engines but that might not be proper.

 

Yes.

 

- Please do write your own form submission script and don't use someone else's messages like these are ugly and don't contribute to value increase towards prospects:

 

Not sure how to do that. If you have any links on how to fix this problem, or at least create a personalized 'thank you for submitting page' that would be greatly appreciated.

 

It's not that hard. It can be as simple as:

 

<?php

$errors = array();
$show_form = true;
if ('post' === strtolower($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'])) {
    function is_valid_name($value) {
         // do stuff here
         return true; // or false based on above code
    }
    function is_valid_email($value) {
         // do stuff here
         return true; // or false based on above code
    }
    function is_valid_message($value) {
         // do stuff here
         return true; // or false based on above code
    }
    function clean($value) {
        $value = trim($value);
        $value = strip_tags($value);
        $value = htmlentities($value, ENT_QUOTES);
        return $value;
    }
    $_POST = array_map('clean', $_POST);
    
    $name = $_POST['name'];
    $email = $_POST['email'];
    $message = $_POST['message'];
    
    if (!is_valid_name($name)) {
        $errors[] = "$name is not valid.";
    }
    if (!is_valid_email($email)) {
        $errors[] = "$email is not a valid e-mail address.";
    }
    if (!is_valid_message($message)) {
        $errors[] = "Your message is invalid.";
    }
    
    if (0 === sizeof($errors)) {
        $show_form = false;
        
        $headers = array(
            "From: $name <$email>",
            "Reply-To: $name <$email>",
            "Return-Path: $name <$email>"
        );
        
        if (!@mail('your email here', 'your subject here', wordwrap($message, 70), implode(PHP_EOL, $headers))) {
            $show_form = true;
            $message = urlencode($message);
            $errors[] = 'E-mail was not submitted due to an internal server error.'
            . ' However your inputted data is not lost and there is another option for you available to send your e-mail'
            . ' by using <a href="mailto:your email here?subject=your subject here&body=$message">your own e-mail client</a>'
            . ' (link contains additonal data that will pre-fill your e-mail).';
        }
    }
}

if (!$show_form) {
    ?> your personal thank you message <?php
} else {
    if (sizeof($errors))
        echo '<p>Your message something went wrong</p>', '<ul class="form-errors"><li>', implode('</li><li>', $errors), '</li></ul>';
    ?> form here <?php
    // don't forget: <input type="text" .. value="<?php print isset($_POST['name']) ? $_POST['name'] : ''; ?>" ..
}

 

 

- As you are apparently blogging I highly recommend integrating it as it increases your value towards prospects and gives you lots of keywords

 

You mean integrate the blog as an actual part of the website instead of using third party blogging (ie Blogger)?

 

No. Integrate it. Read the RSS feed using PHP for example and display it on your website.