Heritage Home Inspections

Hi tstach,

There are lots of ways to keep navigation on every page without using frames. Do a search here on the forums for "PHP inlclude" or "server side include". You could accomplish exactly the same thing without the awkwardness of frames. You'll notice that hardly any big sites on the web use frames anynmore - do they feel difficult to navigate to you??? Just wondering

The site generally looks okay. The navbar is quite nice and the colour scheme is good. There is no logo, which is a problem. Doing up the site text in an interesting font with some sort of graphic or icon would be a big improvement.

The site does a good job of explaining what the home inspector has to offer. I think it would be nice to have a photo of him on the job on the front page - it would tie everything together really nicely and show the human element. I like the way the text is written in the first person rather than a cold third person or plural style.

I also think that the whole site could "sell" a little better. A set of bullet points on the front page (rather than wordy paragraphs that people won't read) would get the key points across more quickly. It's good to have the "contact me" link at the bottom of every page, but I think it could be more integrated. The horizontal rule signals the eye to stop reading, which means people may miss that link. Keeping it in with the rest of the text would draw the user to click on it. That contact page should also include a forum instead of just an email link. That will get people going right away. A form could also prompt them for a few key pieces of information.

Good job overall. The setup is nice and the site communicates well.

Hi Megan and thanks for taking the time to review my first try at HTML.

As I think back on why I went with frames, I guess that one of the issues I thought I would have had otherwise was having menu bars and banners on all the pages (in just HTML) would have meant that I would have had to make multiple changes whenever I had to modify the menus/banners, etc. Only knowing HTML at the time drove this decision. I'll have to look at this PHP and find out how I can use it.

I do have a logo, however I cannot get it to look right in the banner. I drew up an original logo for my business in AutoCAD. From AutoCAD, it can be saved as a bmp or a wmf file. The problem is that when I scale it down to the size I need to fit in the banner frame, I lose so much of the graphical content that you can't even read the company name in the logo. I've opened this up in Photoshop and saved as jpg and gif. No luck. I don't know if it was because this was originally done in AutoCAD or what, but I would still love to include it. Any ideas on this?

Thanks for bringing up the wordiness on the front page. That is an excellent point. The second page in the site (the one I am trying to get the reader to go to) has a bulleted list. I'm thinking that I should move this up to the front page.

Also, I like the idea of putting a form in to contact me. I did this site in my old Frontpage 2000. I think there is a means to create forms in there. I guess that it could be set up so that when the submit button is hit, the form is emailed? Or does the form end up going somewhere in a folder in my hosted account? I'll have to look at this.

Thanks again!

i think it looks ok, but a bit dull, a logo would look good i bet, and a better layout

The downside to bad frames is webmasters choose to fix the frames, your site for me at 800x600 can not be fully viewed, the left navigation ends half way through the 'contact me now' link and looking at your source there is an important image that could clinge the deal. Another downside is I can't bookmark any of your pages or send them to friends or family. Would be easier to go to your competitors. Sad but true.

I think you should rename a lot of your pages, (although would be wasted on a framed site), servo1.htm isn't helpful, where as home_inspection.htm as keywords for search egines etc. Some pages are named well.

Another bad things about frames and modern browsers is frames aren't compatible with tab browsing. now if i right click and choose to open in new tab, several pages at once (which I often do), I am left viewing the content page only, no links, no menu, no nothing. You do have a javascript redirect if out of frames but what if javascript is disabled? (like I currently have as previous site had snow flakes and junk).
Ok I'm slightly off you do have some links on pages but not a full navigation (you've done a pretty good job to combat a lot of these issues thou, good on ya)

As for the colours they aren't very inviting, the layout is clean and tidy but the colours need to be maybe more earthy, more relaxing.

You did a pretty good job with the CSS and layout (apart from the frames )

I don't think you need a template, I believe you have it in yourself to do it. I have faith in you.

Although a navigation very handy at all times (fixed in postition) seems like a good idea it can have bad effects. Say you name your links to well - make 50k, fly to moon, win lotto ... and your pages are content heavy, no one will read the whole page as the nxt exciting link will always be in eye site saying 'click me, you know you want to'. So is best to let the user read all the way to the bottom and either go back up or use a link at the bottom (bottom perfered on longer pages)

Depending on your link structure, navigation can be across the top and across the bottom or down a side and across the bottom (if page is longer than 600 - wont fit on 800x600 without scrolling down.) Although this is by no means written in stone.

The golden rule = KISS (keep it simple stupid)
Use these forums, we have lots of sections, on all sorts of topics so if you get stuck just ask away, we are here to help.

OK, I've made some major changes. Basically, I scrapped the entire design and went with a css for the new non-framed site.

It has just been put on the host.

hhiky.com

For those of you who reviewed and made comment on the original site. Thank you. I took most all comments into consideration for this new design. I think it will work so much better.

I don't have the individual page files renamed yet and I plan to scan in a hard copy of my logo tomorrow to see if I can get a better resolution this way.

Please let me know what you think about the changes.

Thanks!

Thats heaps better, knew you could do it

One thing though is the navigation. really you need the word inspection after the keywords or you'd end up with things like "radon gas" which read quickly could look like "ramdon gas".
At 800x600 the current navigation is over 3 lines, so am thinking a vertical navigation might be better, could try it without the word inspection and try get it down to 2 lines but may need some seperation somehow.

Looking very professional now to btw

Loved the site - didnt find it difficult to work out what you do nor to navigate round it. I didnt think it was dull. In fact I found it sort of comforting which is possibly the feeling of reassurance you want to give to your customers with problems (I never knew all that about termites).