Critique my site please

Welcome aboard Annette,

We do ask that before you post your own site for critique that you comment on at least three other's sites. Not only does it help them to have a fresh pair of eyes look at their sites but it will help you see what others are doing and what kind of feedback has been given.

I really like the layout of your site. Very clean and proper. I bookmarked http://www.badastronomy.com from your link "And Some More"; it's kind of interesting.

A couple errors (just to be picky ):

-On line 37 and 127 on your homepage, '/font size="2"' should be '/font' (note, replace ' with greater than or less than signs- the forum won't let me post them)

-You didn't close your beginning 'tt' (line 21), 'table' (line 14) and an number 'font' of tags.

All your pages seem to be fine, at least all the one's I clicked on (most of the one's on your hompage).

Again, I like how you set up the templates on your site. It's really nice to see originality.

Regards, Brian

It really does look very good. Nice fast load time on a dialup, too.

One thing made me curious... You're using a logo that says 3excuses.com but your site is being hosted on your ISP.

So I checked the domain thinking maybe you've reserved it but not gotten around to getting it hosted yet and it's apparently still available. If you are planning to use the domain name in the future, you should probably reserve it now so someone else doesn't. And if you're not, I would probably take the ".com" out of the logo.

Thanks for the replies. Much appreciated.

I know the HTML is terrible - I need to start over again to code the whole thing properly. At least I know HTML a little better now. Big learning curve!

The name - I have a great deal of trouble trying to find a suitable name, hence not reserving the domain name (all the good ones are taken)!! Feedback on the name / logo would be appreciated. Does the name make sense given content of site? Is the logo explanatory enough?

Any comments on how I could make the homepage a more inviting place? I'm worried that people see the homepage and exit the site rather than delve in. Navigation - is it user friendly?

As I said in the original post, I'm new to The Webmaster Forums - I like the feel of the place. Cheers to all.

Annette

Annette,
Welcome to Webmaster. A couple of things. Looking in the whois record, I see no one has registered 3excuses.com . It looks to ripe for the picking. Now on your site.

• Logo - the logo that you have is okay. It needs something though. Maybe a caricature of a wimpy 'no excuse' guy. Right now it is more of a title than any kind of logo.
• Code - your code looks okay. I would try to stay away from using as many nbsp's. Try using cellspacing to give you the indent that you are looking for. I also noticed that your images are in the same directory as your pages. That is usually not a good idea. Things can get a bit jumbled up that way. Create a directory called images and call the image like so ... img src="images/picture.jpg".
• Style - your middle table is 525px. This is kind of small in my opinion. I usually go 700-760px. This would also help to prevent your page from being quite so long. I would consider using a stylesheet or having a style section in the head of your page. You could do your most of your page formatting there. Instead of something like this:
  link="#000098" vlink="purple" alink="Red" you could use this (the style tag would have <> around it):
  
  STYLE
A { text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold}


A:link { color:#}



A:visited { text-decoration:none; color:# }



A:active {  text-decoration:none; color:# }



A:hover { text-decoration:underline; color:# }
/STYLE
  ' This would give you an non-underlined hyperlink that changes color and underlines on mouseover

Overall I think that it is a good start.

Quote: Originally posted by Annette35
The name - I have a great deal of trouble trying to find a suitable name, hence not reserving the domain name (all the good ones are taken)!! Feedback on the name / logo would be appreciated. Does the name make sense given content of site? Is the logo explanatory enough?

The point I was trying to make in my last post is that, to me, it seems rather pretentious to call your site "3excuses.com" when you don't own the rights to that domain name. If someone else were to register that domain, you would be infringing on their rights, I believe.

As for making it a more inviting place... it really strikes me as a personal page in search of a focus. It seems rather of a hodgepodge of stuff that is of interest to you, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with having a personal page of your own interests, just what is there about your site that will draw an audience and make them want to bookmark the site and come back again?

For example, I have a number of personal sites about different topics, and they are all separate sites, not under one umbrella site that tries to be a one-size-fits-all. One is about a particular breed of cat (not just about *my* cats or cats in general). Another is about 1/8 scale gas-powered radio controlled car racing, one showcases my (lame) digital photography, one is about computer overclocking/watercooling/case modding.

All very specific topics about very specific subjects with very specific audiences. That is what makes them inviting to those particular audiences... the fact that what they want is the core topic at the site.

I think it is easier to promote a site and get traffic if it has a definite focus. Like I said, there's nothing wrong with having a strictly personal site of your own interests. It's just that you can't expect the world's going to beat a path to your door to see it.

Anyway, best of luck to you with it!

Colours - I like the colours!

Logo - It's ok but to me looks like a heading with some links. The 1,2 & 3 are hard to read what they are at first and definately look like they should be clickable.

Name - I agree if you are having that name in the logo then you need to buy that name, otherwise decide on a domain name & then do your logo to match.

Links - I found it a little confusing what your site was actually about & the links don't really help! And some more goes to astronomy??!!

Banner - The join here banner, did you make it online using one of the free services? The Excuses Newsletter is in red, I'd make it orange as the site as it sticks out like a sore thumb to me.

Thanks for the feedback. I have added a little more explanation to the homepage and am working on a new banner for the newsletter - yes it did come from one of the free online services. I had planned on an image map for the top heading/logo - will get to that real soon. And the domain name thing.

I'm really glad people liked the colours! And thanks for the coding for the links.

My intention, if I should decide the site is good enough to promote and put out there, would be to promote the Now It's Serious page. Much more work to be done.

Appreciate all your help and advice. Cheers to all,

Annette

Hello Annette,

I visited your website and roamed around. I found the navigation to be fine and layout crisp.

The only fault I found during my brief visit was the fact it was not your domain.

Nice design!

Looks good so far...

Ben
FREE - "1001 Webmaster Resources"
http://webresources.hostingbee.com

Hi all,

Just wondering if people would take a peek at the new header I have done up -
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~annetteramsey/headereg.html

I'm new at both websites and graphics. The header is only a mock-up (needs to be redone with a lot of polishing) - but I was wondering if I'm on the right track.

Suggestions for how to make the basic layout of the page more jazzy would also be appreciated. If someone knows of a good tutorial, or can explain to me (in simple english please ), how to do the curvey bits on a table edge, this would be great. I understand this has something to do with spacer.gifs but don't know what to do.

Thank you,

Annette

I am not an authoritarian on fonts but the "S" and "E" don't seem to go with the flow of the "erious" "xcuses".

Looks like you are on the right track though.

There are several ways to make rounded corners. Here's a link that explains.

http://www.ruku.com/upone/rounded.html

DM

I appreciate all the comments that have evolved with the posting of this critique. I have made many changes thus far to the site, and believe I'm heading on the right track with all your comments.

Thank You!

WOW, I blinked and your site loaded, 1st thing came to mind was, clean & uncluttered, I checked out 3 links and all the layouts had a consistant look about them. With my limited knowledge I can't fault it.

Well Done

Ickbar

I like the layout a lot, its really clean and uncluttered. AND you used my two favorite colors, blue and orange Keep up the good work, you can only improve!

I have to add this:

Is there a reason you made your logo look like a banner? Is that so that people will have a readily dispensible banner for their own networks? That is what I think when I see a site do that. Spend some time integrating or devulge your secrets!

K

Quote: Originally posted by Keegan2
Is there a reason you made your logo look like a banner? Is that so that people will have a readily dispensible banner for their own networks? That is what I think when I see a site do that. Spend some time integrating or devulge your secrets!

Umm ... didn't quite understand the question. Plain english please. Call it a 'should have been born blonde week"!

The logo looks like a banner because I am new at this and haven't come up with any great ideas for a logo. If I should become creative then there is the problem of making it a reality, given I am a complete newbie at graphics.

But I'm learning heaps! And loving it (... most of the time).

Thanks to everyone for their responses.

Quote: Is there a reason you made your logo look like a banner?

You did answer the plain english question.