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Apr 11, 2009 3:46 PM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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I`ve finished my site a few days ago and I`d love to hear what people have to say about it. Please post any comments here or feel free to email me your responses. Thank you in advance for your viewing and responses!

-Shawn



pertrai1

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Apr 12, 2009 10:49 AM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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Shawn, I can`t see much wrong with your site. Only major suggestion is to make your logo a png with transparent background. Make sure you get the png fix to add for IE 5.5 & 6.

Rob

CraigL

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Apr 12, 2009 7:07 PM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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http://www.northcountrydesign.us/

Hi Shawn :-)
I didn`t see much difference between FireFox 2.x and IE 6 rendering, so the PNG may not be an issue. It`s usually only a problem with a background color different from white.

All in all, it looks nice, but I think you could make some changes that might be more elegant. For example, instead of making me scroll the main page to read about who`s in the company, why not have an "About Us" page, and put all that info there?

Another thing I expected but didn`t get was clickable links on your three primary graphics. The postcards, brochures, and whatever is that third one below the two offers.

What I`d thought would happen is I could click on the "1,000 Postcards" graphic and go to a whole page dedicated to explaining what I can maybe buy.

Then I looked at the sidebar menu, and couldn`t see anything that said "Postcards." Nor did I see anything about "Products," so I felt let down, y`know?

I went to the Portolio tab, and there I was able to click the Kinney Drug flyer. Okay...nice, but I had a sort of "so what?" response. I`m guessing that taking my time to load the Flash (or whatever) image was useful, but not really.

What I would have preferred would have been a new page that showed the larger version of the flyer, but with some explanation....a sales pitch. It could`ve said, "We create a weekly flyer for Kinney Drugs, one of which you can see here. The project involves this and that, complicated stuff that we do with no problems. Generally speaking, a flyer like this costs about $1-million....." and so forth.

In other words, you have what I`d call a passive Web site. It sits there, and leaves it up to the visitor to decide where to go, when to go there, why to go there, and what`ll happen when they go "somewhere."

I`d like to see a more active site, showing me where to go next, why, and what I can find out or get when I arrive at the next page. :-) Like that.
Apr 13, 2009 12:41 PM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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http://www.northcountrydesign.us/

Hi Shawn :-)
I didn`t see much difference between FireFox 2.x and IE 6 rendering, so the PNG may not be an issue. It`s usually only a problem with a background color different from white.

All in all, it looks nice, but I think you could make some changes that might be more elegant. For example, instead of making me scroll the main page to read about who`s in the company, why not have an "About Us" page, and put all that info there?[/quote]

Done. I was in the process of a site overhaul. :)

[quote]Another thing I expected but didn`t get was clickable links on your three primary graphics. The postcards, brochures, and whatever is that third one below the two offers.

What I`d thought would happen is I could click on the "1,000 Postcards" graphic and go to a whole page dedicated to explaining what I can maybe buy. [/quote]

Understood. I need to make a "complete postcard / brochure" section describing everything about the process and flesh it out for the audience. I`ll make sure to get right on that & thanks for the suggestion.

[quote]Then I looked at the sidebar menu, and couldn`t see anything that said "Postcards." Nor did I see anything about "Products," so I felt let down, y`know?

I went to the Portolio tab, and there I was able to click the Kinney Drug flyer. Okay...nice, but I had a sort of "so what?" response. I`m guessing that taking my time to load the Flash (or whatever) image was useful, but not really.

What I would have preferred would have been a new page that showed the larger version of the flyer, but with some explanation....a sales pitch. It could`ve said, "We create a weekly flyer for Kinney Drugs, one of which you can see here. The project involves this and that, complicated stuff that we do with no problems. Generally speaking, a flyer like this costs about $1-million....." and so forth.

In other words, you have what I`d call a passive Web site. It sits there, and leaves it up to the visitor to decide where to go, when to go there, why to go there, and what`ll happen when they go "somewhere."

I`d like to see a more active site, showing me where to go next, why, and what I can find out or get when I arrive at the next page. :-) Like that.



Gotcha! I`ll try to add more meat to my website. I didn`t think the audience would care so much about the details of the previous projects I`ve done. I was showing those as examples of what I`m capable of... but I suppose if a company is looking for me to design 20 page circulars for them, they`ll want to know that I have a good understanding of what goes into the production of one. :)
vwebworld

posts: 1237

Apr 13, 2009 1:17 PM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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hi Shawn,
 
I`m not sure if your home page is finished... I know (per above posts) you`ve been working on your site.  So, the following may already be in your plan...
 
When I hover over the banner on the home page it says "Click on the slide!"... so, I do.
Nothing happens.
 
SEO - The title of your home page is "bring more business to your business"... while it may be your tag line... is it important for your SEO?  In other words... are your targeted keywords in that page title?
 
~Roland


-------------------------

Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter
Apr 14, 2009 7:39 PM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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Hrmmm, I just fixed up my front page (as well as my portfolio) and hopefully now the navigation works on the promotional items.

As for the SEO on the home page ... I should put "North Country Design - Graphic Design and Print Advertising" ?
vwebworld

posts: 1237

Apr 14, 2009 7:50 PM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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Hrmmm, I just fixed up my front page (as well as my portfolio) and hopefully now the navigation works on the promotional items.

As for the SEO on the home page ... I should put "North Country Design - Graphic Design and Print Advertising" ?
 
Since your domain name is north country design, it is not important to use those words in the title. If you use them they should be second after your most important targeted keywords.
 
"graphic design and Print Advertising" are those the keywords you`re targeting? Have you done some research to see how competitive they are? 
 
You can remove the word "and" it is not important and is a "stop word". It can be replaced with "-" if you`d like.
 
Because you use Joomla... SEO is a little different. Depending upon how you have Joomla configured the title of each page may come from the title of the content or you can over ride that and enter meta data of your own.
 
Also, the url of your pages can be made more viewer friendly/
 
~Roland
vwebworld4/14/2009 7:51 PM


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Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter
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