Finally gave myself a crash course in Adobe’s Dreamweaver today… ugh. Trying to set up a site for the business and I kind have got it but if anyone out there has any tips or advice I’d take it
Obviously its still under construction. lol.
:BEER
Put your nav “box”…somewhere…besides in the middle of the page.
Get rid of “site under construction”. If you visit a site that says this, run away, far far away.
Center your truck picture so it doesn’t run off the screen and cause scroll bars. If you see a site with scroll bars on the index page with a maximized page and your resolution is 1024x768 or above, run away, far far away.
I’d bet you’d get more bang for your buck putting content in there first then worrying about looks.
Better yet, use an opensource CMS and just fill in the content/pictures.
I’m going to decipher what you just said tommorow lol… on my wide screen monitor that all looked perfectly centered… is it off??
Ahhh I just noticed the header stays centered weather small or wide screen… I positioned the other items based on the full wide screen positioning.
sigh… more to read tomorrow.
TY for pointing that out.
Made some changes, not a lot but much better!
Have to wait until spring to get some usable photo’s of our jobs.
If using Dreamweaver you have the ability to view the site through different browsers and different resolutions. I’d recommend using that feature too.
hey my step son is going to school for graphics design if you want he can help you out (no charge )
“on my wide screen monitor that all looked perfectly centered… is it off??”
First sign your new to this and didn’t hire a professional. As Craig said you need to look at your site through multiple browsers at different resolutions. These days that includes a mobile device. If you make a site that looks pretty on your computer you can give yourself a pat on the back, but if it looks ugly on your potential future customers computer you may never see them.
On my screen the text is way too big and in your face. Doesn’t seem like a friendly company to me. If I was looking for a bad @$$ rock band then you’ve got the right feeling being projected, but many of your potential customers likely want to get some very basic information off your site and that is it.
I’ve never visited a store that sells blacktop sealcoating and can’t really imagine myself doing so. If you do in fact have a retail location you want people to visit keep the google map. If you don’t want customers to think, “gee he is the other side of town I better find someone closer because he may charge extra for having to drive here.” The google map is a cheesy gadget that I don’t think will benefit your business being on the home page.
Have to say you have at least one thing dead on most people new to site construction fail to accomplish. The name and phone number are clear and easy to find. If you have to click company info, contact info, then click for a list of phone numbers… people need to get information quickly. Don’t change that, keep it on the main page easy to find, maybe just a little smaller font.
While you play with your site you may want to just put up a logo and phone number and test anything you want to try out on a page besides the index.html
Not a bad start. Post when you have more so we can look over it again.
Thanks Jon, nothing is finalized and my customers wont even start looking at this until the spring. Good pointers, I need to change the font, I was trying to get something up to see how the whole publish thing worked. I had a pin on google map a while ago and I just had to “renew” it.
I could see having a pin on google map so people can randomly find you there or in google earth, but not sure I see the benefit of having it on your site. I can think of more reasons to leave it off your site then to leave it on. Someone in PA or MD might think because your across state lines you may not travel that far and not even bother to contact you for a quote.
I spent years building websites and training myself to do it for a living, but then I set up a reef tank and left all that behind me. Things are very different now. Trying to relearn it all again myself for my business.
As a person that knows nothing about web design I think it is a rather good start. If I had a blacktop driveway I would hire you.
To echo some of what Jon said regarding location … Say something like “Free estimates in PA/DE/MD …” - not just free estimates. That works into the site WHERE you do business.
I’d also recommend knocking the size of your logo down. 1000 x 400 is a bit large. Maybe use some of the more common sizing, like 728 x 90 or 728 x 210 or 720 x 300. These sizes are some of the larger “common” banner sizes. Also, top to bottom, I’d recommend menu first and THEN the banner logo.
Or, like Ian recommended, look for a good, open-source content management system, find a template you like for that CMS, and tweak it to your liking.
All good advice, the current layout was just a basic site tutorial I was following to get the idea on how to set it up. I have the some basics down now and will be working on content and resizing things. Very good feed back thank you all and I’ll keep listening to advice.
It is a good start. Looks good on Mozilla Firefox browser.As someone else stated check it on other browsers like Mozilla Firefox (I think this is most commonly used now), Internet Explorer, Netscape.
I am using a laptop with 1280x800 standard resolution. On 1900x1200 the actual site is a bit on the skinny side. I can see just about the whole site without having to scroll down.
I would add a “About us” tab give a brief description of your company and the services you provide or have provided. If you did a big job somewhere commercial see if you can use them as a reference on you’re site. Maybe even add the about us on the main page to add something to it so its not so plain looking.
Get that “contact us” link up and running now. Google map should be in that link not on the home page.
If I come up to websites that have dead links I do not go back to them. I understand you do not plan on the full launch till spring but it is a good thing to get them open so potential people might think of you when time comes.
Overall for the business a simple but informative site is best. A lot of older people prefer the simple things and for a lot for the general public you do not need a super crazy site for blacktop. This is you’re site do it the way you feel is right. Good start GolfC
Forgot to add make it known that you serve the tri-state (what states and how far away) area and the state you are in. I see the site and you have nothing mentioning this right now. not everyone will look at the google map and say hey I know where Hockessin is.
There’s no lack in customers, we’ve got 4,600 repeat customers. Business has been established for 21 years but Tom (the owner) is old school and I’m trying to bring him up to the tech age lol (I made him get an android lol) Hell up until a few years ago he still had the ENTIRE database on a clip board! hahaha…
I haven’t worked on it today (grand turismo 5 needed some beating lol) but I will get it done.
[quote=“TimH07, post:15, topic:3796”]
There’s no lack in customers, we’ve got 4,600 repeat customers. Business has been established for 21 years but Tom (the owner) is old school and I’m trying to bring him up to the tech age lol (I made him get an android lol) Hell up until a few years ago he still had the ENTIRE database on a clip board! hahaha…
I haven’t worked on it today (grand turismo 5 needed some beating lol) but I will get it done.[/quote]
xjunk or ps3?
Grand turismo is solely on ps3
Updated! Check it out and let me know what you think, still have to make the subsequent pages and link them, work in progress!
Thanks everyone for looking and the input!
It is looking better… good job.
[quote=“TimH07, post:18, topic:3796”]
still have to make the subsequent pages and link them, work in progress![/quote]
I’d trim the top menu to ONLY the working pages. Add in the others as you develop them and get rid of the under construction stuff.