Review my site: SkrekLAN Technologies
Well, I have reviewed some sites on these forums and I think it about time someone else gives me feedback, instead of me always dishing it out.
Anyways, my address is this http://www.skreklan.com
I am fairly new to web design, I have only been doing it a few years.
Feedback welcome!!!
Megan posted this at 19:53 — 5th January 2004.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
Is this from a template or did you design it yourself? it does look rather template-ish (generic design that could fit a variety of topics).
A couple of small things: CSS doesn't seem to be working on bottom row of links in Opera 7. They're showing in the default colours. That bar also seems to only appear on the front page. The "Web Development" header seems to have too much of a drop shadow. Mousovers on the top row of links lack "punch". May want to add a contrast colour like orange there instead of going with another shade of blue.
Content seems rather generic as well. It's not entirely clear what the focus of the business is. The opening paragraph mentiones e-commerce but the "about" page talks about developing websites and one of the download pages offers server specs. Content should be developed more to focus on selling a serivce. There is no "services" page here to describe exactly what you do.
Overall this design is nice but lacks character. Looks like lots of templates I've seen. That said, it could be a lot worse. Better to use a template than a bad home-made design.
Another comment: The name SkrekLAN seems ackward to me. Hard to wrap your mouth around that word. May want to reethink that. Find something that's easier for people to say, and therefore remember.
P.S. Reviewing sites is not a chore
Megan
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cjb_89 posted this at 20:05 — 5th January 2004.
They have: 17 posts
Joined: Nov 2003
i was looking at your pages and i noticed that on the home page ,the blue logo at the top the words "Shreklan Technologies" is under all this crap "%%&&%^*&^*%f458094369q8345ttg5643654986548658r but on all the other pages "Shrekan Technologies" is above that stuff. I dont know if you meant to do this or not, but I would make "Shreklan Technologies" in the same place on all the places
mjs416 posted this at 20:26 — 5th January 2004.
They have: 127 posts
Joined: Dec 2003
The top graphic is from a template, but the rest of it is my design.
Thanks for the reviews. I will try and refine the site to be explicit as to my business being web design.
The name SkrekLAN, is a play on words using my last name and LAN . I thought it was quite creative, but lol......thats my opinion.
The shifting of the SkrekLAN technologies was a mistake, Ill have to change it.
teammatt3 posted this at 00:45 — 6th January 2004.
He has: 2,102 posts
Joined: Sep 2003
You want to start a web design business and you say "I am fairly new to web design" in this thread.
Anyway the only thing I have to say, is add a line at the end of each page on the right, so it closes the layout, IMO it would look better with a little line there
mjs416 posted this at 00:55 — 6th January 2004.
They have: 127 posts
Joined: Dec 2003
Well, I guess I should have said this is intended to be a side business. I am currently taking all of the feedback and thinking of a new design. I appreciate the help.
Renegade posted this at 10:52 — 6th January 2004.
He has: 3,022 posts
Joined: Oct 2002
First off, I dont' like the "trendwhorish" type of graphic that you have used for the header. It looks very out of place and makes the top of the site too packed and busy. Having said that, I guess you could tone it down a little - ok maybe a lot - make it more balanced out and fitting with the rest of the page.
Having underline titles may confuse the user. Try using bigger text and making it bold, that way, your viewers will not hover their mouse over it thinking that it will take them somewhere.
The body text is way too small. Text sizes that small should only be used in footers and "fine-print" such as a small note to a user.
For the footer, try having the navigation links more readable. Blue on dark grey does not work too well.
For the links in general - try adding some interactivity. Make them do something on hover. Things like changing text colour and/or text decoration (underline) and/or background colour are usually the most common.
I would say you have moderately clean code but I see you use Dreamweaver
Just try using CSS instead of the font tags that you currently have.
Its a good start - keep it up
taff posted this at 11:34 — 6th January 2004.
They have: 956 posts
Joined: Jun 2001
A couple of quick things:
I find the site quite sluggish. I'm not sure if that's the code, the server, or a bit of congestion this morning. I'll check again later.
You have a fair bit of horizontal scroll at 800x600 and I would personally consider centering the layout for higher resolutions.
Also, you promote search engine submission on your main page yet your own site scores a 0/10 on Google's PR system. You might want to try and fix your own placement before offering this as a service .
.....
mjs416 posted this at 14:27 — 6th January 2004.
They have: 127 posts
Joined: Dec 2003
I offer search engine submissions as a free addition to the purchase of a web design package from me. I never said I could obtain top rankings for sites. Many designers, at least around this area, dont even submit their clients site to search engines at all- so I feel what I'm doing is better then nothing. Considering my site has only been active for 5 months, I wouldnt expect any miracle rankings. BTW, whats your score on Googles system?
As mentioned above, I am hearing that the top graphic is the major eye sore. I am in the process of figuring out a new approach to the site. I really like the layout, I just need to play arounf with some graphics.
Edit: Megan, sorry for not starting the thread with the proper title. I wont let it happen again.=)
Edit^2: I had originally tried to avoid CSS, I recall reading several times that CSS is not compatible in some browsers. Is this true?
taff posted this at 00:44 — 7th January 2004.
They have: 956 posts
Joined: Jun 2001
If the site is new, then it'll take a while. I think it is your wording that caught my eye - "Does Google know my site exists?" - which immediately drew my eye up to the Google bar for the answer.
My site is currently ranking 6/10 but that seems to fluctuate. I was as high as 7 briefly but have also slipped to 5 on occasion.
.....
rosanda posted this at 14:03 — 7th January 2004.
They have: 25 posts
Joined: Nov 2003
not bad, but i like the header image most, don't know why, but maybe because i love blue.
The site looks very neat and the text is nicely laid out..
Nice site....
Rosanda
http://www.websolutionarchives.com
http://www.templatearchives.com
mjs416 posted this at 16:08 — 7th January 2004.
They have: 127 posts
Joined: Dec 2003
How do you find what rating your site has in google?
Megan posted this at 14:24 — 6th January 2004.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
Sorry, forgot to fix the thread title before. Changed now to reflect posting agreement.
Skrek is your last name? That's the part I had trouble with. Maybe it's just me .... It is a creative combination though. Actually, Skrek isn't too bad on it's own, sort of like Shrek. That's a sharp edged wored as far as sounds go, so it could be the combination of that and a softer word (LAN). Sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned it!
Megan
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abraham posted this at 15:50 — 6th January 2004.
They have: 11 posts
Joined: Nov 2003
HI
i think you can put some picture to your site, coz your site has too many text. Let me don't want to look it again.
Busy posted this at 21:42 — 6th January 2004.
He has: 6,151 posts
Joined: May 2001
The basic CSS is valid across the board, (even NS4.*), but when it comes to 100% layouts then it gets iffy, using CSS for text decoration, links, colours, backgrounds .... is fine.
but one day soon hopefully everything will be supported, microsoft just needs to catch up.
As for your site, I think you need to change the order of things on your site, or at least the sizing of them. in English we read left to right, so the eye is always looking left first, but on your site the main content is on the right, see where i'm going ?
whats with the big brown/black area above the banner it doesnt't appear to do anything and forces the content lower. ok I now see it matchs the bottom section?
ever thought about narrowing your body margins
the 'welcome to ..' and 'featured info' should be bold, not underlined, even using heading tags and CSS to resize them would help your search engine placing, but again your content is last to be seen.
The bottom links are hard to read, blue on dark brown/grey but think that was mentioned.
your example page has broken images.
good start, bit of fine tuning should be good as
The Webmistress posted this at 16:25 — 7th January 2004.
She has: 5,586 posts
Joined: Feb 2001
You need to download the Google toolbar and then when you open a site in IE you will see the PageRank shown on the toolbar. The PR of a site is linked directly to how many sites link to that site.
Julia - if life was meant to be easy Michael Angelo would have painted the floor....
davidjaymz posted this at 18:54 — 17th January 2004.
He has: 193 posts
Joined: Jul 2001
how does google rank your site? like not your score... but how does it come up with that score?
Scooter Beast posted this at 02:37 — 18th January 2004.
They have: 3 posts
Joined: Jan 2004
I was suprised to see only a monochrome layout with pretty straight forward drop down boxes as navigation. I found your sample jobs to be much more engaging. FWIW the link that had the word "Mafia" in it didn't work.
I also noticed that you had a mix of fonts in the Fire station site (the home page has a bunch of Times New Roman defaut stuff and the rest looks like arial or Tahoma). Same thing on your contact page.
Minor comments coming from a guy who has only been trying to get his own 3 week old site (0/10 Google 259,000 Alexa) cleaned up!
Regards,
Harvey
gas-scooters-on-the-web.com
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