Aquaholic Corals Needs a review :)

This looks good overall. I like the graphic header a lot. You have created a nice, appropriate look and feel right from the start. I do feel that some of the details could use some work. I feel that the header graphic colours could be a little brighter and more saturated. The whole thing feels just a little bit dull to me. I also think that the navbar could use some work. It's rather small and boring. Check my website for an easy and good looking navigation solution.

The main body text is difficult to read like that. Plain old verdana would work better. And why are you using H1 tags for paragraphs anyway?

Is hobbiest spelled right in the header there? Ummm..... okay, I had to check that - hobbyist is correct.

Another thing I noticed is that the body text starts off off with a negative slant. "I always hate it when..." I think it would be best to start on a more positive note and keep a more upbeat atmostphere for the site.

Thanks Megan, I agree the navagation is boring. I will check out your site. The site does need some more detail as you say. I just have to figure out whats going to work so it doesn't take away from what I want people to look at... the corals

The H1 tags I used with an old CSS I had made up already for another site. Why shouldn't I use them that way?

I never even thought to check the spelling of "Hobbiest" cause it looked correct, but thanks to you I guess it is not LOL.

I will brainstorm and try to come up with a more upbeat Intro.

Your text will look a lot better, and be more visual if you change to #EEEEEE. Try it and see. I would also change the intext links to #00FF00, the times text works for me, I guess because I use it. But you can get a lot more information, in less space with it. If you want to use that smiley you have to copy a jpg, save it to your website folder, and do an image link to get it to show. I have one on my site.

Ok I have changed a couple of the things and added a news scroller. But Now I need to figure out how to get the links from the scroller to open in the parent window and not open in a new window. Anyone?

I still have to change my H tags to the proper tags, spice up the header and change the intro text.

I looked at it, I don't believe you can do that with this particular script. You may have to find one that will. Or maybe some of the code-heads here can figure it out.

I like this, its a very nice design; neat and clean. I especially like your header design and header graphics. The only thing I think you could change is the side nav, perhaps you could try making the text size bigger to make the nav stand out a bit.

Ok You've got a cool header, now you need a cool menu, adjust the padding on the content, make it a little smaller... Make the content a little livelier, you could base the colors on the corals, not just blue as water... The scrolling thingy aint needed there, just adds up difficulty to the site navigation (even if you open it on same page)...
Your on a good start here dude...

This is the type of site we look for. It is relevant, serves a nich, and does not have redirect links. People that come to this site are more interested in content than design.. good effort.

I will mention something in your coding caused our spider to reject your site.

I like your site so I did an over-ride of the spider and added it to our top featured listings (no charge).. you can check out your listing by going to any of the sites in our network of 411locate.com and do a "keyword" search using any of the following keywords.

"Corals,sps,lps,zoanthids,mushrooms,ricordia,acanthastrea,coral,corals"

Good job and I wish you success.

I found the links on the left side to be a little confusing.
What is LPS and SPS? The other ones are more descriptive but still not clear.

I personally think acronyms should be spelled out unless you are sure your audience will know what they mean.

I too liked the large graphic header. Not to repeat everything that's been said, but the colors could be a bit brighter, and the "From One Hobbyist to Another" text needs to be bolder and with the curve more, in my opinion.

From the standpoint of someone who has absolutely no idea what the stuff on this site is (and has very little interest in it), the sidebar is a bit confusing, including the little box with a marquee. I'm not sure if there will ever be more than one product in that box, but if not, I would leave it fixed, not in a marquee. I think a large white border on the right would also be good to separate the sidebar from the main content a bit.

I'm not sure what you have available to you, but if you have PHP or CGI, I think a form would be easier (and more professional) for your contact page and orders. Also, some of your wording could be a bit more professional-sounding. I noticed on one page you referenced the people browsing your site as "peeps". That may lead people to believe that you are very immature and may look somewhere else for what they need.

That's my two cents. Good luck with your site and business.

Wow thanks for all the feedback people.

This site is still a work in progress so all your comments and opinions are much appreciated.

The news scroller I thought would bring attention to what is new. Yes its a little empty right now but It is going to fill up real soon. Either that Or I guess I could make a "New Additions" page or something.

I am still trying to figure out what to do with the navigation thing.

For those wondering SPS= Small Polyp Stoney LPS=Large Polyp Stoney, its how corals are classified. 99% of the people in the hobby knows what it stands for but I should probably spell it out to be on the safe side for those new to the hobby and might not be sure what it is.

Dirty_Dawg wrote: This is the type of site we look for. It is relevant, serves a nich, and does not have redirect links. People that come to this site are more interested in content than design.. good effort.

I will mention something in your coding caused our spider to reject your site.

I like your site so I did an over-ride of the spider and added it to our top featured listings (no charge).. you can check out your listing by going to any of the sites in our network of 411locate.com and do a "keyword" search using any of the following keywords.

"Corals,sps,lps,zoanthids,mushrooms,ricordia,acanthastrea,coral,corals"

Good job and I wish you success.

Thanks Dirty, I am interested in why your spider rejected my site.

I will adjust the padding for the content and see how it looks. And I agree the usage of Peeps is inmature in nature or "above you" sounding.

There, I think I replied to everyones comments... Thank you all again for taking the time to give me feedback so far. It is helping me so much.

~Joe~

I'm not going to repeat what everyone said, I promise!

Here is an alternate scrolling script that I have employed on my own project (fomsc.ca) that pauses every "slide". I prefer it aesthetically, but it's up to you - just another option! And, if you wish, with this code you can move the actual content to an external .js file so that you can use it on all your pages.

And one suggestion to brighten things up. The td in which you place your main text/products currently has the backgroun colour #151826. Even just lightening up this area slightly (try #6A81AA or a similar medium grey-blue) will change the look of the page. This will also slightly narrow the contrast of the text and background, making reading an easier task for the eyes.

I really did not see again that would cause our spider not to crawl your site. So I put your code on one of my servers and the spider did not have a problem crawling the site.

I conclude from that information that is possible your hosting company has a firewall that blocks spiders.

Only a guess on my part, but if they do I would suggest finding another host. A site like your's could easily be hosted for under $7.00 per month. Again I an only guessing and I would call them first... they may be the greatest hosting company one the Web, I don't know.

It is in our database because we did an over-ride. I checked Google and Yahoo they don't have your site in their database so maybe they can not spider you either.. I am sure they would want your site.

Best of Luck

Hmm cant find that one.

This is the scroller I used:
http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex2/mikescroll.htm

And of course, you can change scroll speeds and pause times and such. It's a great little script. Good luck!

I have changed my navigation setup. What do you think?

Http://www.aquaholiccorals.com

The idea is good! I like how the box edges are all flush with the edges of the scroller.

But again, too me the yellow's a little hard on the eyes! I'd like to see a less-saturated yellow - take the colour from the paypal logo (#DED15B). And When you hover you cannot see the text at all. I would suggest instead of the grey that you maybe take one of the blues from your beautiful logo (#6599C1) and have the text change to your backgrond colour (#1E2138) on hover. One last thing - I don't think you need the "Navigation" header. The font does not match any other on the page and it is implied.

Good work. Looks great.

Godaddy is a large hosting Company, and I have a few small sites parked with them as well. I have never had problems crawling the sites.

As I mentioned I did not see your site with Yahoo or Google.. maybe it is to early.

Anyway no did deal, I just thought I would mention it to help.

Regards

The menu now is quite ok, I still dislike the scrolling, but its your choice anyway, all I want to comment about now is the mouse-over color of the menu, its bright, choose a darker color pls...

Changed.

I tried some other yellows but I just didn't think it looked good, So I'm trying orange that matches the orange zoanthids in the header. Along with a dark blue hover color.

I thought you said orange, I see its blue like your content color... Its good, subtle... how does it look in orange?
Heres another suggestion, maintain the blue mouseover one just make the text color change also with the mouseover event to orange... I think it would look cool...

They should be orange now, forgot to change my css for links visited and non visited.

I like it Great work

Do review how it looks in FF. It's still good, but not the same appearance that it has in IE.

Thanks wwwben

chicgeek. The only difference I see is the background color in the scroller isn't there and the links are a little lighter in color. Is that all your seeing?

No, for your nav "buttons" the hover appearance is different. It is even hard to tell that there is a hover effect to some degree.

It still looks decent, but I was just pointing out the discrepancy in case you wanted a uniform look over browsers.

Ok thanks

Still got problems with the navbar eh? Well most of the time youll get stuck there... So check it out with different browsers, or recode the css navbar for easy editing...

Looks really good .. easy on the eyes and well laid-out.

I like your choice of colours..nice.

one small thing i noticed was the blue box above the left navigation menu...not sure why it's there, but it gives an unfinished look to the site...

I really really like the graphic header, it is very cool! I would use those colors more in your page for some more unity. I think that the background should be lighter as well, but I know you have heard that already!
Also I would change the yellow text in your nav bar to a color from your logo, and make the rollovers more noticeable.

Super job though, I really like it!

Theme - very good, color combination very attractive
Informative - Info is enough to guide your visitor
Navigation - Simple and straight forward
Compatibility - there is no "hand click" symbol over the picture on Firefox, it's just a cursor.