Review request: LifeLine Acquarium

It looks quite nice, i like the dark blue background. The first thing i notice is the small gray text up the top, i don't think it should be up there between the logo and the nav, it would be better in the main text cell. Also i don't think you need the navigation at the top AND down the side, the links are just the same. Maybe have different links on the side one? To specific sections or something. Just a suggestion. Other than that, i like it. Great colours and everything. Nice one!

Thanks you very much for the review, DaveyBoy.

The reason for the small gray text at the top is to help keep my key words high on the page, in order to receive better search engine results. I read up on meta tags and ranking well in search engines, and they all seem to suggest keeping key words high on the page. What do you guys think of that is it true?

About the dual navigation bars, yea I will change them a bit once I have more products and info to add, they will be different.

Very dark at first, can see that white text becoming hard on the eyes after a while.
Instead of using the keywords at the top (they look like spam words) redo your layout. take off the top navigation (and keep your left one the same as the index one on all pages) use either a right navigation section or use a blank td section above the naviagtion, like so:

 
content

navigation

As text readers (search engines etc) read across the page, the empty cell will be read first, then the content section, then the navigation (this method is great for addon search scripts too).
This way your keywords (contents text) is still first on the page.
Things like "welcome to lifeline ..." could/should be an tag as it has keywords that will help your search placement, anything with keywords should be text, not graphics (also helps speed load time as well)

Quote: Originally posted by canada_dry
The reason for the small gray text at the top is to help keep my key words high on the page, in order to receive better search engine results. I read up on meta tags and ranking well in search engines, and they all seem to suggest keeping key words high on the page. What do you guys think of that is it true?

True, but that doesn't mean that you should do it like this. It's normally best to phrase it as an introduction to your site. Here it's quite obvious that you're just doing it for the search engines and that doesn't look good. Instead, rephrase it as an introduction to your site (i.e. "We provide aquarium controllers for fresh water aquariums..." etc.) That way you'll please the search engines while providing more information to a first time visitor.

In general I am finding that there is a heck of a lot of text on here. I'm unsure as to what I should read first and what I really need to read before delving into the site. Everything under "beta testers needed" could go on another page, for example.

Another problem which adds to this is the lack of strong graphics and navigation. Your header and navbars are very weak and tend to be overwhelmed by the large blocks of text. Work further with the CSS to make those navbars stand out more (bold the text, and use brighter background colours). The header graphic could also be enlarged and given more visual impact. It would also help to place a product photo on the front page.

I really don't like how this navbar works as you move around the site. That full left side set should be kept on every site - it doesn't seem to serve any purpose. However, there is really no reason why you need a top navbar and side navbar with the same options. Maybe you could use the left side only for subnav so people would be forced to use the top navigation bar for primary linking.

If you're going to make links yellow, don't use that colour for other text as well. It's confusing.

Thanks everyone.
I’m trying a slightly different approach to the lay out; I’ll repost my new design in a few days. I hope you all re-check it for me.

Thanks again for taking the time to view my site,
Mike.

I got this error

HTTP Server Error 503

You site looks incredibly cluttered and slow loading. Try splitting up or cutting out some of your text in the content area.

The grey navigation bar colours doesn't seem to go along too well with the rest of the site and the same too for the balck navigation on the left, maybe another shade of blue would help?

In your source code you have:

You can get rid of the extra tags and combine them both together to give you this:

Ok, if this is your old design and your in the process of fixing these things, disregard this...

The first thing I notcied at your site was the long list of words put on your page for the search engines. I know you have it (sort of) phrased like a sentence, bit it's too small and reads too much like a list of keywords to be for anyone other than the search engines.

This is called spamming the search engines!
That is one of the most unprofessional things a webmaster can do.

If you actually talk about these things on your site, then the search engines will find these words in the text of your pages.

If you feel you must put them all together on one page, create a "Welcome to our site" paragraph that explains what the visitors can find at your site. Do not make your sentences look like a list of keywords though!

The other suggestion I would make is dump the side navigation completely. It's nothing but a repeat of the top navigation (which is directly above it). On your inner pages the side navigation doesn't expand to include any additional pages in that section, so there's absolutely no reason for it.

Other than that I think your doing fine.
You should get rid of the date in your top nav bar on your inner pages and make that spot a link to your home page.

Well, I've probably griped at you enough.

Enjoy what your doing!

Ok everyone I totally re-done the navigation menu, and cleaned up the site quite a bit, please let me know what you all think of the layout now. I want to be sure it is ok be for I submit it to the search engines.

Thanks to all of you who gave me the great advice, it is greatly appreciated!

http://www.lifelineaquarium.com

Great improvement!
Your changes have made all the difference.

Best of luck with the search engines and sales!

Thanks! Karen!

Your home page takes 18 seconds to download at 56K. That's way too long for a home page. I'd shoot for 8 seconds.

Your logo, the aquarium pic and the award banner appear to be the culprits. You should optimize/compress/split these images.

I like it.

I didn't see anything at all... I'm guessing the server is down or something. That could be troublesome in the future... make sure your host is reliable.

Quote: Originally posted by oce222
I didn't see anything at all... I'm guessing the server is down or something. That could be troublesome in the future... make sure your host is reliable.

Slight server problems, all is working fine now.

Here are my thoughts on it, for what it's worth.

I also like the dark blue as someone mentioned, which is surprising for me, as I almost always dislike dark backgrounds with light text. The primary detractor I saw was the black/teal menu bar that switches to red on roll over. It's a bit harsh. You might consider changeing the black to a complimentary blue with white text, and on roll over just change the font color to teal or something similar.

But I'm a techy, not an artist.