please critique my site

[CalebG]

Well I finally got the updated website up and running, please let me know what you think, Ive found a couple minor things so far but more eyes would be better, youll find it here http://www.naturalimagesphoto.net And yes I'm aware the header detracts from the page but I dont make much $$ from this yet so it stays for now. thanks all.

[5x5 photography]

I really like the site, the covered bridge pictures are nicely done.
The Online photos link did not work for me though.
All in all I really liked it, very professional.

[CalebG]

thanks, I had to use the go daddy ftp as I couldnt get dreamweaver ftp to upload, and so the online prints link is still in my root directory on the computer, I hope to resolve the problem soon, any other comments from anyone?

[Faolan]

It's not very professional having an advertising banner across the top of your page... Especially from a hosting company. You have no control over what they advertise.

You broke the first rule, have text content on your main page. Pretty pictures but who the hell are you and what do you do? If a person used that as a landing page they wouldn't have a clue.

The code is a mess, but no suprise there as it's a M$ edited content mixed in with some Dreamweaver stuff. In addition the CSS declarations are all over the place.

Pages are too long for a 768px screen so you miss a lot of data you have below.

No obvious contact details - that should be in your main menu...

You're using tables for site layout. That's poor web design practice.

Read the FAQ in my signature and rethink your site as at the moment it's not doing your business any favours.

[Hikin Mike]

I don't see any ads, but I'm also using FF and AdBlock. ;)

You have two sets of keyword metadata tags, yet no description metadata tag. There's very little relative content on your home page, coupled with no description metadata tag, I doubt Google will even index you....at least very high.

Read "Faolan's" links and this one too...
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=472885

Good luck. :D

[Karl Johnston]

The gods of web design have parted the waves and illustrated the messy floor surface of your sea of riches!

Repent! Repent! Repent!
8)

1. I think the godaddy ad needs to be the chief concern to remove
2. The online images link leads to a 404 error
3. I find it a bit difficult to locate the Contact Us link in the Contact link
4. I think your about section should be first, and I would suggest moving the Covered Bridges link completely or merging it with your photo gallery.
5. I think the site order should be: About us, What we can do (merge your wedding invitations link with a bit about the services you offer), Photo gallery, Contact

My site is pretty organized, though Moses and Neptune (Faolan and Mike; I mean that in a loving way!) would beg to differ! My code is also a mess, but not to worry Im no web designer myself.

Most people like it, though, and most people I work with arent web designers or designers of any kind...so it suits me.

[Faolan]

My site is pretty organized, though Moses and Neptune (Faolan and Mike;...)

:p

That's the first time I've been ascribed to being a God/Prophet!

It's not just about the 'Net, it's about usability, accessibility and legibility. It's about good design practices for presenting information.

The real God is Google, and that's the one we all hearken to. Spiders like clean, well coded sites otherwise you won't get anywhere in the SEO world.

[CalebG]

Ok I read the above links and understood a little. Coding a site in notepad is well beyond my capabilities so how per-se does one code a clean site in dreamweaver? I am a total noob when it comes to dreamweaver,I was told it was the tool for website building. My wife and I did the site with the help of a lynda.com tutorial which as good as it was still leaves alot of gaps, I would love to be placed higher in google as I couldnt even find my site on google. I will try to implement the your suggestions if I can figure out where to plug it in. Any other tutorials I can get that would be helpful? Or would I be better off taking a class at the community college? thanks for taking the time to reply.

[Faolan]

Clean code refers to:

Properly formatted tags.
Using rem markers to show areas to edit (such as <!-- CSS for IE here --> or /* for CSS.
The coding in proper structure to browser specs to make consistant reading: HTML, Head, Body. In this case the site has CSS mixed in with meta-tags and then elsewhere.

A clean site would also have the CSS properly seperated from the structure. It also means that you have the minimal code possible in your page allowing the CSS to properly formatting it.

Best advice to get how a site fits together would be start looking at professional websites, but be careful there is a lot of bad ones out there. Also Dreamweaver is a professional tool that's not really forgiving of you making mistakes. it's a good tool but it doesn't hold your hand.

A college course would be a good start, but many don't teach the more advanced CSS/(x)HTML layouts using layers. Eric Meyer is a good author to read up on this, I think he has some stuff on Lynda not sure also look up Andy Clarke and Molly Holzschlag. Most of the tutorials on Lynda that I have seen are not really for beginners. Web Monkey would also be a place to learn as is the W3C school itself.

[Hikin Mike]

My site is pretty organized, though Moses and Neptune (Faolan and Mike; I mean that in a loving way!) would beg to differ! My code is also a mess, but not to worry Im no web designer myself.

Neptune = Mike LOL!!! But I want to be Moses! :p I'm not a web designer either, I just know enough to be dangerous! :lol:

[CalebG]

I do have an html for dummies book somewhere, maybe I can pull it out and learn what all this stuff means, It mostly sounds like greek to me. thanks again for the input, did we at least do ok for our first website? I guess I will be spending some more time learning dreamweaver.

[Faolan]

Forget Dreamweaver and use something like Notepad. It will teach you how to build the site without any complications. Dreamweaver is great once you know what you're doing, but like any pro tool needs care. It will also complicate learning CSS/HTML if you're trying to learn DW at the same time.

I would also spend the time learning about site design, things like grid layout, user feedback and so on. The code is only a small part of user experience visiting the site.

[Menelaus]

First impressions:

1. Homepage is too tall to display without scrolling on my 1280x1024 monitor! Unacceptable.
2. Font colors are dull, given the dark backgrounds.
3. Your banner should be an image, not text, in my opinion. There is nothing attention-getting about the homepage right now.
4. I hate flash slideshows on the front page, because if you have a slow connection, it can appear broken.
5. Your galleries are flash and give me zero control. Not user friendly in the least. Plus, when I click the slideshow, I get random images. Click the wedding flash, get a pic of a pregnant gal with her shirt jacked up.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but your side has a long way to go. You need to think about using all of your screen space, rather than expanding vertically. I would up the contrast of your fonts (and establish 2 colors for fonts, one for headers/captions, one for body text). I would create a very simple banner image, even if it's just text; that way you can use a interesting, aliased font. I would ditch flash for your galleries, or at least let the user control the slideshow. I would also increase the size of the pictures in your galleries.

Again, those are my first impressions.

Keep at it!