Totally redone!

[eribbit69]

Hello All,
I've had my site up for a year now...it's not doing very well. I took out all the cutesy graphics and made it a little more user friendly. Please tell me what you think....Also, I thiought I had the page width at the max but looking at it online, I see lots of space on the right side.....any comments will be helpful!
Thanks in advance!

[Dori]

Re: Totally redone!

Good morning Elena,
To center your page, right click on the page and chose Page Properties, click Center and you should be fine. If, by chance, Center is already checked, you need to change your page width as you have extra 'unneeded' space on the right.

PixResize your photos... your pages take a while to load and my computer is lightning fast. For those folks that are on dial up... they might jump off your site before everything loads.

Taking the 'cutesy' pictures off the site has helped a lot! You have done a great job.

The only thing that I would suggest changing is the bottom of your home page. You use up a lot of good 'real estate' with your counter, guest book, etcetera. Most people know what a 'Guest Book' on the web is now, so you could omit the header. In my opinion, counters are tacky and useless and can be manipulated.... webwise people know this.

Last, but not least, reduce the font size on your buttons. 'Plant Han...' just doesn't look professional.
You have done a super job and I am glad the site is doing well for you! Keep up the good work.

[Dream Lady]

Re: Totally redone!

Elena: Looks good! You have done a great job. Ditto to all the Dori mentioned. The only other recommendation I have is to add Alt Text to your Nav bar buttons. You do this by selecting your Nav Bar, click on properties then click on each item and say edit. Right under the name is the Alt Text line. So for example, instead of seeing www.septemberschild.com/index.html ...you could type in the Alternate Text of say...Home Page. It just looks better when you put your mouse over the text on the nav bar. Congratulations on being in another gallery. Great work!

[larazovich]

Re: Totally redone!

I would echo what Dori says about centering.
YOu say you had your screen with at the max? I am not sure what you mean by that, but I do know that a width of no more than 800 is generally thought of to be the optimal with for most possible viewers..
Also, I see the obvious note about screen resolution at the bottom of the page, and I wonder if the majority of your shoppers are savvy enough to know what you are talking about. I suspect there are more that know they can shop on the internet than those that know how to work their computers. That being said, maybe a smaller note would suffice, if you need a note at all.
The business of piz resizing is also very important. I, too, have a speedy computer and I didn't wait around for the whole pages to load, as it was taking way too long. The only page with pics that loaded fast was your home page - the products pages were way slow for me.
Using the resizer should significantly reduce the 'weight' of the pages.
Also, about fonts. The scripty kind of font you use on the home page, and a couple of other pages is pretty, but definately not as easy to read as the plainer font you have used in other places.
On some of your product descriptions, your text is 'stepped on' by your Buy This button, and in one case it is over the price!
Perhaps reducing the size of the font one notch might cure that, as well as the font on those two buttons where there is more word than button...
Your macrame is some of the most beautiful I have ever seen; lovely work.
You say you have not had much luck with your site. Have you talked to Bethers, or someone, about checking if your site is optimised? I have no clue about that stuff, but I know if properly attended to it can make or break you site..
Good luck!
Oh I almost forgot. You have that flicker box linking to an online album.. I found that by accident. It could work as a nice way to add more details and vies of your works, but as it is - the size and where it sits with no direction - I thought it was an ad and onlyu clicked on it by accident..

[eribbit69]

Re: Totally redone!

Thank you for your responses!!!! All of the advise is so useful....I'm excited to get right on it. I'll talk with Bethers about optimising my site (very confusing stuff)
Thanks, I'll post again when I"ve made the changes.
Beautiful sites by the way.