Web Hosting Talk : Advertising Forums : Community Reviews : Web Site Reviews : need site review

[peoplefisher]

Hi all. Please be so kind as to review www.knology.net/~outsource/.

I realize the content may not "ring the bells" of many here, but if you could look with respect to design, layout, colors, load time, search engine optimization, etc. I would appreciate it.

[Reptilian Feline]

The design is nice and simple, but the image of the computer (Outsorce) isn't a good picture. Try and find one of better quality.

Search engines...
You can easily remove the keywords marked in red, and make a longer description instead. Keywords work on percentages. Too many of them, and they will be meaningless.

<META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="piano, voice, music, lessons, piano lessons, music 
lessons, voice lessons, vocal, vocal lessons, applications training, bookkeeping, data entry, 
desktop publishing, spreadsheet, word processing, web design, website development, worship flags, 
custom, banners, ministry, custom-made, Christian, flag, worship, banner, church, praise and worship, flags, worship arts, scripture 
banners, praise flags, ministries, worship weapons,">

<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Your complete resource for Music Instruction, Business Workflow 
Solutions and Quality Worship Flags."
</head>

I don't know what you mean by "worship weapon"? Maybe Coat of Arms?

Also...
Change the name of the images from "Pic002.JPG" to something with meaning. Remove the word "image" from the alt-tags and put some more meaning into it instead - alt="We have worship flags at low prices" instead of alt="Worship flag image".

The navbar is made in shockwave. You might look into the more html/Javascript/php style mnues instead. I think they are more compatible.

[peoplefisher]

Thanks for the info. I thought the meta tags had already been changed, but looks like I missed a few . Definitely gonna change that.

Couple questions about your other comments for clarification. It is my understanding that the purpose of alt tags is to give people who have turned them off or have text only browsers a description of what is actually in the pic. Read a lot on another forum that leads me to believe using alt tags to add extra content beyond the scope of what the pic actually contains would be considered spam by some SEs, particularly Google. Is this information incorrect/outdated?

When you say html/Javascript/php style menus would be more "compatible", could you give an example of how the shockwave is incompatible? Do you mean that it would be more compatible to use something else b/c not all people have a shockwave plug in, or b/c design-wise it doesn't fit the site? Please forgive my "newbieness" but what does php stand for? The goal behind using the shockwave navbars is to add a little activity to the site without using flashing/rotating graphics. Of the other options you mentioned which would help me achieve this and be more compatible? Since I'm a relatively new "designer" (and I use that term very loosely) and only am familiar with html the other script languages are unfamiliar to me. Have any suggestions on where there might be scripts/generators that would help me make the switch?

[Zopester]

To answer one of your questions: alt tags should be semantically meaningful. The best way to look at this, is to read your source code. Look at :

<td rowspan=2 align=center><img src="Pict0008.JPG" height=60 width=85 alt="Music Studio image"></td>
<td><a href="music1.html"><font size=3><b>ACK Music Studio</b></font></a></td>

A screen-reader and text-only browser will read/see this: "Music Studio image ACK Music Studio". Not particularly helpful. Just change your alt descriptions to be descriptive and you'll go a long way m'boy!

I'd argue giving your images meaningful names isn't as important. As long as you specify alt tags the name of the image will be ignored by text-only browsers and screen readers. And Google doesn't care about images anyway.

[Reptilian Feline]

The alt-tag is primarily for text-only browsers, but keeping the info short and to the point, is OK. You don't need to put the word "image" in the alt-tag. People who turn off images will know that anyway. Here is another example:
<img src="ads.gif" alt="ads image"> is bad
<img src="ads.gif" alt="Find ads here"> is good

You can also add a title-tag with some more info.

I was thinking that not everyone has shockwave installed. That's why I suggested something else. If you take a look at my own site, you will notice a menu on the left side. It uses javascript, mouseover effect and imagemapping, all roled into one. I have the link to the tutorial somewhere.

PHP is a scripting language that is used for database access, e-mail and forms, and (as I have just tried) including content that is used on more or less any page throughout a site. Using it to place a footer, menu or header, is very easy, and only requires some cut and past, and some re-naming of file-extensions. (Something I picked up in about 5 min)

[peoplefisher]

Thanks all. Those replies are very helpful. Will print this thread when it's finished. More feedback from others would still be appreciated - - you guys might come up with something different! Again, thanks.

[peoplefisher]

P.S. Reptilian Feline, if you find that tutorial I'd love a link to it!

[Reptilian Feline]

Tried reply ot post, tried PM and tried e-mail-button. Nothing works so I try posting this instead... I'll ask the mods to move it if this works... it belongs with this thread: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showth...hreadid=116650
<<Mod Note: Threads Merged>>
OK.

Here is the link. I had to do some digging for it, so when I found it (again) I put it on my site as well.

http://www.webreference.com/dhtml/column2/index.html

It's a low bandwidth imagemap with mouseover. If you need help customising it, just PM me.

[peoplefisher]

Thanks for the link! I will definitely be checking this out and I appreciate the offer of help. If needed, will definitely contact you. Thanks again everyone for all your helpful suggestions. To implement them all will take some time, as you're all well aware, but probably will do them all