Site Review 3

[JWeish]

Hello all,

This is my first post here although I have been reading the forums for quite a while.

I recently launched

http://www.titanws.com/index.html

and would appreciate any kind of constructive criticism you can offer.

I coded all of this from scratch in Textpad (except the navbar which I got from a CSS site). I'm a student/entreprenuer and would like the advice and critiques of the pros.

Thank you,
Jeff Weishaupt
Titan Web Solutions

http://www.titanws.com

 

[JWeish]

Just a note...

I realize there are hundreds of pages and I don't expect any of you to look through them all.

Just a general overview would suffice.

Thanks again ,
Jeff Weishaupt

 

[ChrisHunt]

Just looked at a couple of pages. First impression is good - it looks professional - but it's rather text-heavy. I think you need to break it up with a few images.

Under the hood, it validates, but there are a lot of deprecated attributes like [tt]bgcolor[/tt] and [tt]align[/tt] that could be defined in the CSS.

You could also code more efficiently to use more built-in HTML tags. For example, where you have

<b><a href="design-basic.html" class="tws-hd-16px">TITANDesign Basic</a></b><br />
&#8226; 5 pages custom design<br />
&#8226; FREE contact form<br />
&#8226; 3 images &amp; your logo per page<br />
<font color="#ff0000">From $249.95</font> | <a href="design-basic.html">Learn more >></a><br /><br />

I'd put

<div class="package">
<h2><a href="design-basic.html">TITANDesign Basic</a></h2>
<ul>
<li>5 pages custom design</li>
<li>FREE contact form</li>
<li>3 images &amp; your logo per page</li>
<li class="price">From $249.95 | <a href="design-basic.html">Learn more >></a></li>
</ul>
</div>

Then you can use CSS to style the elements to your requirements, something like:

.package h2 {
  font-size: 16px;
  font-weight: bold;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
}

.price {
  color: #f00;
}

You can use the [tt]list-style-image[/tt] property to get your preferred bullet image.

Taking this approach will take less bandwidth, be easier to maintain, and lead to a more consistent look - at the moment some of the package features get bullets and some don't.

Oh, and I had to snigger at this:

We offer a money back guarantee on our web hosting services [...] We reserve the right to refund a pro-rated amount or no refund at all.

Not much of a guarantee is it?

-- Chris Hunt
Webmaster & Tragedian
Extra Connections Ltd

 

[jazz88]

The whole look of your site is clean & minimalistic. So, when I open "domain names" page you have several images illustating each point. They don't look good: they are "jaggy" and the brown mass that goes with "catch-all the..." is just strange looking. In my opinion there is no point in using these images at all. They do not add anything to the visual impact or to the content. I'd either replace them or discard them. (you can find some decent custom shapes you could use at

http://share.studio.adobe.com

they are free but you have to register)
Then, your home page. The "14.95" grabs more attention than the company name "Titan". I think you could work more on your logo so that it grabs more attention and is a focal point of your page.

 

[JWeish]

Thank you for your replies. They have both been insightful and helpful.

ChrisHunt: You are right, it is text-heavy and I am sad to say that graphics are not my forte; it is something I am in the process of learning and becoming more proficient at.

Thank you for your suggestions for my code. I am always looking for better, more efficient ways of doing things so I appreciate you taking the time to help in that manner.

jazz88: Like I mentioned in my note to ChrisHunt, I am not very good at custom graphics work. Thank you for your suggestion to use the free custom graphics. I will look into that. Again with this theme, my logo is not very good and it surely doesn't "grab attention" so I appreciate your observation there.

By the way, that brown glob was a baseball glove.

I guess the most obvious thing for me to do at this point then is to become more proficient at doing graphics or outsource that to someone else.

Thank you again for your comments and suggestions. I appreciate your time and effort to help me out. If there is anything I can help you with in the future please let me know.

Jeff Weishaupt
Titan Web Solutions

http://www.titanws.com

 

[Foamcow]

Some very low cost, royalty free images from

http://www.istockphoto.com

might be a good addition.

Look at adding them to the banner, or to a box on each page above the main text area.

Nothing wrong with your logo really, save perhaps the shadow makes it look a bit fuzzy. Have a go with a lighter shadow. Also maybe move the "web solutions" a tad closer to the "Titan".

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Toccoa Games - Day of Defeat gaming community
Target Marketing Communications - Advertising, Direct Marketing and Public Relations
"I'm making time

 

[jazz88]

I didn't mean that your logo is bad or that something is wrong with it . Just that it could be improved

 

[Foamcow]

Didn't notice your comment jazz88
I agree with you. I think making the logo less "fuzzy" would help it a bit.

Foamcow Heavy Industries - Web design and ranting
Toccoa Games - Day of Defeat gaming community
Target Marketing Communications - Advertising, Direct Marketing and Public Relations
"I'm making time

 

[JWeish]

Thanks guys for your comments and suggestions. I will give them a try.