Please give me your opinions on almost finished site

[idontdisconnect]

Opinions anybody...its almost finished, just need to change some text and add some...Thank you! www.getpeaceofmind.com

[Dream Lady]

Re: Please give me your opinions on almost finished site

Looking Good! I like the white text on the blue background. Looks clean and neat and easy to navigate. You home page link on your contact us page is not working. Also you may want to title your pages under page properties. Also I would center your pages (find that under page properties also) Do you have just a few pictures that you could add for effect and color? Good Luck and like I said looking good!

[idontdisconnect]

Re: Please give me your opinions on almost finished site

Thanks for the help..I have changed the things you recommended. Can anybody tell me if this site seems to download slowly or s it just my computer? Thanks...

[larazovich]

Re: Please give me your opinions on almost finished site

It downloads okay for me, but then, I have cable access..
Couple of comments.

Overall the site is easy enough to get around, information is presented clearly. I am not a fan of black backgrounds, as people generally use white text and I find the contrast hard on my eyes. That is just my opinion, though, lots of p[eople like it. I might go for a slightly less contrasting color, like off white, though. Don't know.

Anyway, on your pages under your menu buttons you have some other boxes with information in them. I clicked on some of them, thinking they were also buttons. I don't think I would be the only one to confuse this.

Also on your investigate the investigator page you have several things underlined. Website convention has this meaning these are also links, but, they are not. Could be confusing.

ALso on this page in the first bulleted item there is some strange dark blue text, can't read it, don't know what it is supposed to be, probably a link of some kind. Same under third bullet point.

Finally, although the bullet points are effective, having them only makes it seem like the site is only an outline, know what I mean? Perhaps some text blocks would help.

Good work, nice site
Good luck

Regards,

[idontdisconnect]

Re: Please give me your opinions on almost finished site

Thank you Larazovich...I took your advise and changed the underlined text. The dark blue blobs you were refering to are indeed links. I changed the size so people could see that they were links more clearly, but I cant find a way to change the color from dark blue...does anybody know how to do this?

Can anybody suggest how I might make good use of some text boxes, so, as Larazovich pointed out...it wont just look like an outline? I am in a predicament, when lawyers, proffesionals, and anybody who is likely to use a PI reads the sight, they dont want to read alot of text that would just seem elementary to them. However, the guys that have never used a PI could benefit from the text.....so, I dont know really how to combine the two....any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.....

[Bethers]

Re: Please give me your opinions on almost finished site

I deleted your other thread asking for a site review - you can only have one thread for that - and this is it. Feel free to keep this one going :)

As for text - how about doing some bulleted lists - the professionals will see what they want in them. You can make the different bullet points links to other pages - with more info on each item - for the other folks.

[larazovich]

Re: Please give me your opinions on almost finished site

Thank you Larazovich...I took your advise and changed the underlined text. The dark blue blobs you were refering to are indeed links. I changed the size so people could see that they were links more clearly, but I cant find a way to change the color from dark blue...does anybody know how to do this?

Can anybody suggest how I might make good use of some text boxes, so, as Larazovich pointed out...it wont just look like an outline? I am in a predicament, when lawyers, proffesionals, and anybody who is likely to use a PI reads the sight, they dont want to read alot of text that would just seem elementary to them. However, the guys that have never used a PI could benefit from the text.....so, I dont know really how to combine the two....any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.....

When you do a text link there little box under appearance that says style and has a drop down, which may or may not have anything in it. You can click add and it will give you the option to change color, make it bold or italicised, underline.. and will give you those choices for the link, for the active link, for the hover and for the visited link.

About the text - I think Beth's suggestion about making the bullets links to more info is brilliant. If you set the link so that it has a different hover color it will be obvious that it is a link, and folks can go there or not.
Great idea.

[Dream Lady]

Re: Please give me your opinions on almost finished site

Looks MUCH better. The added credit card logos, picture, and contrasting green in a few places, adds a lot to the look of the site. I noticed you put titles in, but you may want to re do a few of them. You want your titles to contain the main info on your page. ie. Your Surveillance page maybe would have the title: Surveillance | Investigative Reports | Survelliance Video | Private Investigators
That's just an example and each page should be different.
It also looks like you have bolded your text. You may want to rethink that, because, I find with white text on a dark background, when you bold it, it is harder on the eyes. I would not bold and preview and see what you think. Same with the italics. It appears all of your text is italics. May want to only use that as an emphasis.

Anyway, that's all my nic-picking for today. Great job! If I ever need a PI, I know who to call!

[idontdisconnect]

Re: Please give me your opinions on almost finished site

Cindy, Liz and Beth, thank you very much for your imput. I will change many of the things you suggested. I'm finding that just when I think the site is almost finished, thats when the REAL work starts! Yikes!(LOL)

I wanted to ask someone about submitting to search engines. When I use the Vodahost service it checks the website for problems. I've got many.

Its saying because I have "hidden" text on the site search engines will deny the listing. Basically to come up with some of the effects, I wrote text over text. For example, I wanted a shaded look to my logo, so I wrote the text in black font, then I put white font over it, slightly off. I wanted to use the buttons that light up when I scrolled over it, so I used the Blue Voda buttons then added my images over them, again slightly off.

Is this what they are talking about when they say "hidden" text? Its not like I'm doing subliminal mind programming here. I also notice that on the logo and the buttons when I sign on with a slow computer the bottom text will show up, then the top text. I would prefer, at least with the buttons (surveillance, backgrounds, etc) that I just use the original BV buttons, but for whetever reason they dont let me make them hyperlinked. Why would this program have buttons that dont allow them to link?

And finally, (sorry for the long post) this submission review program says my metatag descriptions is to long, over 1000 characters. I'm confused about metatag description..is this the one that goes "Between the head tags" ? because when I put it "between the head tags" it shows up down the html script somewhere. Also am I supposed to add different keywords for each page, am I supposed to add metatag description differently to each an every page depending on what text is on the page?

Is there anybody on this site that is an expert and, for a paid fee, will just handle the submission and metatag mumble jumbo for me?

Thanks again for your help

[Dream Lady]

Re: Please give me your opinions on almost finished site

Well, in my most humble opinion, Beth is the SEO expert on this forum. If you look in Beth's signature line you will see some SEO info that she has so wonderfully put together for free for us to use. I do believe Beth hires herself for this purpose, so you may want to access one of her sites and email her. She is the lady when it comes to SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

As far as linking the buttons. Did you use the navigation menu feature? If so, if you double click on the menu it will bring up where you entered your text. Highlight each line and click on edit. There you can put your link in as well as alternate text when you do a mouse over. Make sure you type you link in full, ie. http://www.getpeaceofmind.com/process_service.html. You need to put the html at the end.
If you didn't use the nav menu feature did you just link the text individually? The button you used, does not look like one of bluevoda's. Did you make that yourself? You can make your own button and have access through bv. There is a thread by Naval Design on the forum that addresses how to do this. And yes the hidden text is probably all that you mentioned above. Before you submit to the search engines, make sure you at least read Beths SEO guides and hopefully chat with Beth. There is a lot more you need to do to your site to be SEO ready.

P.S. If you are like me, You will find that your website is probably always a work in progress!! lol

[Vasili]

Re: Please give me your opinions on almost finished site

Very professional, Tony, and your site finally demonstrates the best of form for cognizant Content: your use of bulleted lists and supporting text is exactly what W4 websites are becoming and what the public is beginning to expect.

Yours is a perfect example of how a tight market and specific information can be successfuly "briefed" to attract and maintain the interest over a broader spectrum of visitors to actully plant that "Branding" effort for recollection purposes (even those who are not specifically looking for your services feel compelled to read, given the concise presentation, and that plants the seed).

Technically, your site is ready, and despite your feeling the need to tweak it ever so further, it already surpasses the standard.

Congratulations!

[idontdisconnect]

Re: Please give me your opinions on almost finished site

Thank you everyone for the good advise. When I have more time I will put into place some of your recommendations...

[McBuff]

Re: Please give me your opinions on almost finished site

I like it fine. . .love the clocks at the top. ..nice effect. . ..I would say it was a bit. . .just a bit slow to load. . .but not seriously bad.

[zuriatman]

Re: Please give me your opinions on almost finished site

Good Job.

To me it is a job well done. The dark blues to highlight your shady work, the white fonts which bring forth a glitter of hope, the red color to highlight the explosive nature of the job and the yellow ray of sunlight that says all is well again. I like your use of the few bright colors to bring out the overall presentation of the page.