Review SaltwaterFlyFishers.com
Well this is my first post (sorry I promise I'll try to review 3 sites). Been reading the forums for some time now and my web site is finely starting to come together. I choose a CMS (Xoops) because im shooting for an interactive community style site based mainly around the forums. Im trying to make a check list of stuff that needs to be done before I start adding content and my SEO campagin. All feedback is welcome. If you have any ideas that would add to my site, tips, spelling errors or reccomendations please let me know I'd love to here them. Any tips of speeding the site up??
http://saltwaterflyfishers.com
Busy posted this at 21:32 — 17th January 2005.
He has: 6,151 posts
Joined: May 2001
Welcome to TWF mizt, Please review a few sites ASAP.
If you have been lurking for a while you will know members that do not review sites do not usually get any if many reviews.
Thanks
Debspicks posted this at 02:14 — 18th January 2005.
They have: 13 posts
Joined: Jan 2005
Overall very good
It might be just me but I usally look for a contact link
on sites I use often.I did'nt see yours maybe I missed it.
I liked the pictures very much they where clear and detailed
worth the wait for the loading time which was good.
Megan posted this at 15:05 — 18th January 2005.
She has: 11,421 posts
Joined: Jun 1999
This is a really good start. You've got a nice design here that doesn't look too CMS-ish. I am getting a horizontal scrollbar with screen width at around 800px but it's just the links that are cut off so that's okay. YOu might want to move the search box so it doesn't get cut off there as well.
One big problem I see, and I say this a lot around here, is that the font size is way too small. You have to remember that pretty much anyone over 45 needs reading glasses. They can't read that tiny text! If this is a big part of your target audience you should really change that font size to make it more comfortable for them. My opinion is that sites should try not to stray too far from the default font size. In a sans serif you can go down to around 90% or so - and make sure you use relative units so people can resize it if they need to.
To speed up your site, look into converting you layout from tables to table-free layouts using CSS. There's a lot of extra code with tables that slow things down. You've done a good job creating an attractive layout without a lot of images.
One more thing - the mouseovers on the navbar need to be more noticeable. I can hardly see that little grey-lighter grey change.
Megan
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fifeclub posted this at 15:34 — 18th January 2005.
He has: 688 posts
Joined: Feb 2001
Looks good. Looks unique enough that it doesn't look like every other CMS site out there. Did you create this whole site from scratch? Because I don't see the normal "Site created using Xoops" credit (or whatever system may be used) anywhere except for your Gallery page. Speaking of which, on your gallery page you made the font size a measly 8px and anything under 9px is more or less not legible. More or less you're not giving credit where credit is due.
Otherwise I'm all for giving yourself credit at the bottom with a bluebaywebdesign ad on the bottom, but that ad seems way to big and bold for this site. It's bigger than your logo and it distracting. May I suggest a text "designed by" link or using a button size graphic instead.
And as a minor point, you've got an escaped bracket on your text link, under your right-side links section.
Overall looks nice and clean.
heebiejeebieclu posted this at 19:38 — 19th January 2005.
They have: 527 posts
Joined: Aug 2004
You have 1 post in your forums. Perhaps you should consider removing them? There doesn't seem to be much demand.
mizt posted this at 23:09 — 20th January 2005.
They have: 9 posts
Joined: Jan 2005
Thank you very much for your guys reviews. If chagned some of the reccomended stuff and try to speed the download time up a bit. Next plan is some link building and content building. Once the ball starts rolling on the site everything will be a cakewalk when it comes to content until then... Please feel free to countiune to review the site and let me know. Yes, this is xoops CMS and the theme is by AstonThemes (My first profit will go to them) then banner ad on the bottom is more a place holder of where my banner rotation will go assuming I get some avertisers else it will be google adsense. This forum seem to be the most helpful one I've been to. The only post not worth while was the following
Sorry Man but IM MAKING THE SITE!!! Thats why I wanted it reviewed.
| Saltwater Fly Fishing |
Saltwater Fly Tying |
jdiben posted this at 14:46 — 21st January 2005.
He has: 14 posts
Joined: Jan 2005
The site looks great. However when I try to view it on windows xp with IE I get only a runtime error on line 419. It worked fine on IE with windows 2000 and firefox so it may just be my computer. Maybe someone else here with XP (all updates installed) could test it on IE.
In the source of your home page you have the following unparsed php code.
<?phpini_set ("include_path", ini_get ("include_path") . ':../:../../:../../../:../../../../');
include ('ad_network.php');
echo $ad_network[0];
?>
Joe
Joe
GimmeItNow.com
Gift Registry For Any Occassion
artsapimp posted this at 16:48 — 21st January 2005.
They have: 330 posts
Joined: Apr 2000
Great site. Very easy to navigate. Once this is in production and your content matures send me a PM. I live pretty close to Daytona Beach, FL and a lot of my co-workers go off-shore fishing quite a bit. I'm sure I can get you some regular users once this is done.
I see exactly what fifeclub is talking about with the web design banner. In my opinion, this banner doesn't need to be removed all together if you want it there. My suggestion is to place a 1 pixel border around the banner so it seperates itself from the rest of the page. With the border it will look like an advertisement instead of part of your content. Otherwise, fifeclub is exactly right, it is distracting.
Free Math Test
Fun Math Games
heebiejeebieclu posted this at 19:31 — 21st January 2005.
They have: 527 posts
Joined: Aug 2004
Woah. Ok. Sorry. I forgot. Silly me. Great Site. Well Done. I'll shut up now.
mizt posted this at 02:19 — 8th February 2005.
They have: 9 posts
Joined: Jan 2005
Well, the site is starting to grow nicely. Now the marketing starts. Would still like maybe a few tips on how I could speed the site up. Also what about a mod_rewrite? Would this help my search enigne placements any? What about link building (anyone interested in giving me a good deal on a pr 7 or
as I still have no pr. The banner on the bottom is actully part of phpadsnow so hopefully I'll be able to get a decent rotation so the banner won't be so blunt.
| Saltwater Fly Fishing |
Saltwater Fly Tying |
jca posted this at 18:37 — 8th February 2005.
They have: 6 posts
Joined: Feb 2003
Overall the site looks good. Nice work. A few minor points:
It looks like you're missing images in the lower two corners of your table -- your shadow effect around the edges end abruptly in the lower two corners.
You may want to think about incorporating an accent color in a few spots, since you are using so much blue in your layout.
The text in the main cells seems a bit crowded -- perhaps more cell padding around some of the blocks of text?
Keep up the good work!
jca • devoter.com :: poltical community weblog
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