C. Rush Services

I think one of the reasons may be that people don't always want cheap web design. People are starting to learn that just like with print work, you get what you pay for.

You have no contact details on the site except for email. not at all professional. This might be new media, but people still like to talk!

.tk domain name? pop up banners advertising that you use a free domain provider is hardly going to make you look good to customers either.

Also... I could be wrong, but your layout looks disctinctly like it could be a template from a site like templatemonster.com. Did you design it yourself or use a template provider?

That layout is just temporary
I was going to buy a domain name, but when my business picked up!
Yes, well as I said, I'm a kid so there's no way I'm giving my home telephone number.
So you think I should get a domain name and raise my prices.
do you also think that putting up some example work and adding more features would be good?

What is the purpose of serving your site from another domain through a frameset? The originating domain may get some SE traffic, but not the address you gave us.

You need to add a doctype statement (if you ever hope to validate your mark-up.)

Change your font units from px to % so IE users can adjust font sizes.

Very attractive site, but definately a template.

Right.
a.) Yeah - the .tk people do the fram thng so they get the traffic
b.) What's a doctype statement?
c.) When i design the site I will change the font thing
d.) What kind of prices do you suggest?

Here is something which would be minor except you are a design servicer: The "links" image is being blocked or smeared by some layer of blue in front of it. Looks horrible on my screen. I am using Mozilla 1.7.

Anyways, that would probably scare away customers.

Also on my 1024x728 laptop the text of your logo looks waaaay too small. In fact the e and s in best are right on top of each other. I'm sure a lot of potential customers are using laptops in high res mode.

Uh huh
All that should be fixed when I design the new site, so no design queries, please. I am more concerned about the things that andy mentioned - prices and stuff like that

Cheers

We can't comment specifically on pricing here, since it could be considered price fixing and that's illegal. We don't want to risk getting TWF in trouble. Pricing depends on a number of factors - expereince, quality of work, geographical location, market forces, etc. etc.

Honestly, I think you've got some work to do before you're ready to start selling your services. There are a lot of details that need to be fixed up in this design, and I see no portfolio. Look at what other successful businesses do with their sites. They will have a portfolio. They will go into detail about what services they are offeering. They will provide detailed contact information. They will not link to template monster sites, let alone frame them within the site. They will not try to get third parties to find them clients (!)

Some details about the layout you should consider for your next attempt:

The navigation menus can harldy be described as menus. They are plain old links, no hovers, no attempt to make them look like something more than that. Work on your CSS to create beter navigation areas. I also think that you should move your "links" section to the right side so it's not as prominent. The way that's designed it could be confused with an in-site navigation menu. And I can barely read the "links" header.

Also work on your logo. A lot. The basic structure is fine but your fonts are terrible. Good logo design is all in the fonts. You need to create something that's memorable and eye catching.

Overall this isn't a bad start but there's a lot of work to be done. I really don't mean to be so harsh but it's important to be honest with things like this too.

Yeah. Really thanks for this advice guys. I'm gonna give it a rest for the moment, concentrate on my school work, then come back in a couple of months and make a fresh start.
For now, I'm gonna post real hard, and try to be a moderator here!
(I'm already at 7.34 posts a day)

The site shows some real potential but bear the following in mind;

stay away from templates - they might be convenient but you can spot them a mile off. If you havent got the patience to design your own site, how do you expect customers to have faith in you ?

with all due respect, ( & I mean no offence ) I don't think your level of technical expertise matches the service your offering. I picked this up with the things you've mentioned in your previous posts. I do understand however, that your young & this is a very good start.Keep at it, your doing better than some people who have been in the business for years!

You seem to have a talent for initial concept & you seem to know what you want, but not how to do it. Offer a skills trade with people on here, so for example, you could do a logo for them & they could write some script for you etc

You must have contact details including a landline & an address. You could set PO Box up at the post office & perhaps buy a PAYG mobile phone, use that as your 'company' phone perhaps?

Becuase I genuinley think there may be potential here, if you want any help with PHP/ Java / Perl / C / HTML / DHTML or SSS etc then please let me know & I'll help you out as best I can . No catch, just nice to see a youngster ( no offence ) getting into web design

Oh, by the way, I'll host your site if you wish for FREE on a large IBM server. I'll register your domain name for FREE too! I'll only do this however for twelve months until you get yourself going - BTW this ISNT a catch. Your helping me by becomeing my first customer ( non-paying ) on my new web server

What should I offer then? I want to do it, but I agree with you - I don't think I have the expertise. I have this trial thing of Adobe GoLive so I should be able to use that. I think, however that I can do quite good logos - at a much better quality than I can do websites. Please, I really need your advice here on what you think I should do.
Thanks for your offer and I might need it to do a login thing here.
Counting on you guys for support here,
HJC

You need to go back to basics with your design & sketch out on paper a unified format including colours & layout etc for the site. The content comes later - get the basics right, a good solid coded HTML document that works. This will help it to load quickly. Try & get familiar with packages such as DreamWeaver & Frontpage if yournot already, they'll be a great help to you!

Why don't you put some examples of your work online - I for one would like to see some designs & logos to guage your level of experience - then you can start worrying about prices.

Think about doing a few for free - perhaps the first fifty people for example to gather interest.

OK. To make the proffesionalism high, can I use a GoLive template as a BASIS for my site?
Please?
Pretty Please?

of course - golives fine, but you'll get much more flexibility by doing one from scratch. You see, using GoLive, you'll always be working wihin the constraints of the template thats been created where as if YOU'VE created the template, there are NO contraints.

Your going to have to buy a big-bumper book of HTML I think - are you in the UK

I would rather use a WYSIWYG instead of learning HTML from scratch. Seriously I know I could do more.

Hmm.. But I have GoLive

I think I might use PHPNuke

UPDATE
-----------------------------------
- C.Rush Services has now been renamed to Abonae Web Services.
-domain abonae.co.uk should be up soon
- design should be PHPNuke but I have a standby

looks the same to me?

OK, it comes up now.

I think this could be phrased better: "Our aim is to provide the best value for money website and logo design" -- does 'money' refer to "value", or to "website" or to "logo" or to "design"?

Otherwise, I have nothing to add to previous comments.

It means that the website and logo design that I am providing is good value for money. Any way, that aim will change once i adjust my prices. I have now put up a tempory page. When I go back online I will either use PHP Nuke or another design.