Site Feedback Appreciated

[wantstolearncfm]

Right, here we go, another site to take a look at

This site is for my personal web design business, although my pages as of yet are not particually great, and one of my clients still isnt online, but thats not the problem.

The website is located
here unfortuately its running off my home connection but it should give you an idea of the site.
My graphics and layout are normally very poor, on this site i feel more confident (wheter that is good or not is yet to be proven).
Anyway, please can i have all feedback about the site, ways to improve it etc..
I am particually interested as to what i should put into the meta tags on the top of the pages, and what the page looks like in Konquerer.
Out of interest simple SEO question, is this page friendly?

Cheers All
Wantstolearncfm
Getfirefox

http://getfirefox.com

 

[hotfusion]

I don't think you need any extra meta information - you have a title and character set, I see no need for any others. It seems keywords are ignored by the major search engines.

Regarding the site, I understand this is in the early stages of development so I won't mention smaller issues. The thing that first hit me was the background colour. I had the immediate impression that I was viewing the page through a smokey haze as there was little contrast between the background and the images/text. Nothing really stands out visually, although in balance it was very easy to read and easy on the eyes. Perhaps experiment with darker shades for the background.

Make of that what you will.....!

Regards, Andy.
**************************************
My pathetic attempts at learning HTML can be laughed at here:

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/andyspatch/index.htm

 

[wantstolearncfm]

Cheers Andy,
Took your adivce and have changed the body css style, it seems to offset the table colours much nicer now, the idea is for the website to seem smooth and not too in your face.
Im one of the "only use flash where its needed" people, total flash sites annoy me!
It seems to looks quite sleek to me now, definately the best site i have personally made.
Now about the smaller issues, what would this be, i would like to get them all rectified.

 

[ChrisHunt]

Personally, I don't like the grey background - it sets a rather "down" mood for the site, and many pictures and colours will (and do) not look good against it. That said, the white text and orange links contrast effectively with it.

The contrast is less good on the menu bar, the white text being lost on the lightest grey. The way in which the background changes on hover is a bit ugly - I'd change just the foreground colour.

The text used throughout is a little small, and can't be re-sized in IE. Don't be afraid to use sub-headings, bullet points, colour etc. to break up your text and draw attention to different parts of it - most people scan web pages for the bits that interest them, rather than read it from top to bottom.

I'm not sure what the purpose is of the image in the top-right - the one with "Problem Solved" in the middle. If it doesn't have one, lose it.

The [tt]alt[/tt] attribute is supposed to have alternative text for people who can't, or don't want to, see your images. It should convey the same information as the image itself does. For your top-left logo the alt text should be "DSP Computer Services", i.e. the same wording as the image. For purely decorative images - like the ones on each side of the text - the correct usage is [tt]alt=""[/tt], explicitly telling screen readers that the image contains nothing they need to worry about.

Carefully proofread and spell-check your copy, for example:

This site has been set up to help show webites designed by DSP Computer Services

webites?

Your copy is pretty uniformly horrible. It's quite verbose at times:

This site has been set up to help show webites [sic] designed by DSP Computer Services, and offer that very service, web design.

I don't care why you set up the site. I don't want to hear about the site, I want to hear about you, something like: "DSP Computer Services provides a top quality range of services in the fields of web design and custom PC construction" (OK, my copywriting skills aren't brilliant either, but you see the change in emphasis).

Sometimes your language in unnecessarily (or prematurely) technical. Say I'm a small businessman wanting a website, on your front page I see

DSP Computer Services specialises in PHP and CFM based websites

That sounds really complicated. I just want an ordinary website - maybe I'll go elsewhere. Similarly, on your Web Design page you talk about "W3 Standards", without explaining what they are or why I might care about them (note: most clients don't care about such things).

Try to look at the site from the perspective of a potential customer - what do they know? What do they want to know about you? What I want to know on your "Web Design" page is "what do you do and how much does it cost?" - what you give me is your portfolio (strange, because there's another page for that) and some technobabble.

On the PC Manufacture page, I suggest you spec out some actual PCs - processor, memory, cards, etc. and actual prices, stressing that they are examples and can be customised to meet exact requirements. You need to point up areas where you beat the competition - Why would I come to you, instead of Dell, or PC World?

Finally, the contact form. If you're looking to deal direct with the public, you need to include a postal address and other real-world information. You also need to think about what you ask for - why do I need to tell you my date of birth in order to get a quote? Mind your own business! An explicit notice saying that you're not going to sell my email address to spammers (or that you are) would be good for visitors not familiar with the Data Protection Act 1998 (UK)

Enough feedback for you?

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[wantstolearncfm]

Cheers for the mega post chris most appreciated, the text i respect is overly it was basically just to fill the tables out, simple stuff.
So you reckon that using actucal pc specs is ok?
The whole overly techinical bit, well im coming round to that again it was just shoving in some text in the place job.
How would i make the text resizeable in IE then?
On the W3 Standards i disagree their, i know that i need to add more detail as to what they are, but businesses would care if they knew about them, i did mention about the site rendering correctly in "all" browsers.
What colour would you suggest then, i went through several styles, and each one looked worse than the grey, hence why i stuck with it?

Anyway, thanks for the mamoth post, ill have a look through the main suggestions and give it a whiz,

http://google.com

http://support.microsoft.com/

CF Reference
The links of my knowledge