idlplumb Posted November 20, 2010 Share Posted November 20, 2010 http://www.idl-plumb.com Please let me know the good and the bad and what you think I can improve on. Don't mind the ads, they are temporary to help fund getting the forum up and to hire someone for a proper logo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
upp Posted November 20, 2010 Share Posted November 20, 2010 its a pretty plain site, but as far as programming you could add a contact form to your contact page so that the user could email you from there, this could be done easily with PHP and theres plenty of tutorials out there that could show you how to accomplish this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewooleymammoth Posted November 21, 2010 Share Posted November 21, 2010 I would take the text out of the center of your banner. Its ruining the flow. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tecno40 Posted November 23, 2010 Share Posted November 23, 2010 Here's what i would do to improve it. *make the center wider (the ideal width is 995 px) *combine the text at the top of the page with your banner Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radar Posted November 25, 2010 Share Posted November 25, 2010 I happen to agree with thewoolymammoth on the text over the center of your banner (The Ideal Plumber Serving the Los Angeles Area) -- this should be removed. Instead of displaying the email address on the contact page, i'd definately opt for a contact form with some capcha for protection. Displaying the email, means spam is on its way! On the photos page, the spry element that you used directly from Dreamweaver CS5 is horrid (ive used it once for about 3 days)... It is choppy, not reliable, the information that you can add to the image is in a hard to see location... not easily made database driven... you'd be better off finding a different javascript gallery... something that'll take your list of images (you'll need the large images and thumbnails just like the spry version you're using) and display them similar but without the automatic animation.. Get rid of the Home link in navigation bar, instead make the header image link to the root domain... it's a hidden home link, but trust me people find it. Think of your SEO... With your titles all the same on every page, you won't rank well in SEO... the meta-description, keywords, and of course page content all needs to be different on each page as well (some developers skip the keywords in meta-tags all together, but I personally still use them). Get rid of your inline image height-width settings, upload the images the size they need to be displayed at and just call the image. Remember alt tags on all images not just some, but all... The most top left handed images alt tag should be your main keyword.. Currently it is 'Ideal Plumbing' but when I need plumbing work, i'm not searching for Ideal Plumbing, I am searching for Plumbers Salt Lake City or something like that.... again your SEO... get your javascript out of the pages, include it through an external JS file. While the ads will potentially drive more clients away (i hate ads) they're not intrusive too much so you could get away with them. Remember that often times (no matter what business it is), a website can be your first impression to your customers. With this being said, having a design specifically that appears to either be a sub-par free template, or one from a do-it-yourself box that was purchased from office max can deter customers... Although having just done a search for Plumbers North Hollywood and looking at the 2nd, 3rd and 4th place sites and their current pagerank, seo practices, designs, etc.. it actually wouldn't be too difficult (even using the design you have now) to get ranked within the top 5 for the keyword Plumbers North Hollywood. Ultimately what I think it is going to take, is a little thinking on your side and for you to decide whether the do-it-yourself type style is good enough for a business as strong as 'Ideal Plumbing'. If it is, then continue on where you're going. If not, then it'd be in your best interest to contact a few design and development companies (I can name a few if you wish), and recieve quotes from them on building your site from scratch. Whether or not this is financially viable for you right now isn't the point of getting the quotes. The point of getting the quotes is to potentially see what type of a price-point you'd be looking at for the site design, programming and logo design for the plumbing business website which would then give you ball-park figures to save up to (even 50 a month in savings toward the website). Welp, I think I have rambled on enough on you for today. Hope any part of what I've said helps you and your website in the slightest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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