Web Hosting Talk : Advertising Forums : Community Reviews : Web Site Reviews : My first site's template, pls help

[Nam]

This is my first site that I volunteer to build it for free for my old boss using Dreamweaver. Please review it and tell me how does it look? what do I need to change? somehow I feel it looks bored and unprofeesional... Thanks.

Almost forgot, the url is: http://www.namnet.com/bear

[BC]

Hi Nam,

Personally I think it looks fine. However, I suspect I know where the 'unprofessional' gut feeling is coming from : and that is with the use of the lilac and pale blue colors for the navigation bars. Quite frankly I think those colors don't really belong in your site and you should think about using more solid, darker colors.

I also suggest that with each product you highlight on the first page, you should add a little 'bio' or synopsis about each product giving details on each product - just enough details to 'suck' the user in to buy the product.

On your 'Build your own system' you've got the phone no. as 1-8888... ?

Personally I think it's quite easy to get around and not too bad. If you can use more solid colors it might help. Besides, most computer stores have to look 'conservative'..

[Nam]

Thanks a lot, BC. I will use different color for navigation bar on the left and the top.

Yeah, the products need more details, but I just don't know what to say, may be I just copy the "bio" from buy.com or similar ones, it'll save me some time for not thinking and correcting the darn English.

lol, thanks for the phone number, don't know how did it go that way since I used template function??? weird, huh?

Lastly, what do you mean by saying "most computer stores have to look conservative"?

[Chicken]

Agree on the colors. Conservative as in not all that flashy, and pretty calm overall. White background, etc...

[akashik]

well the color could use some work, though Burlee.com did pretty well with lilac *lol* Personally the cyan (light blue) at the top is far more in need of a change. I remember that one from my Commodore 64! The log needs a lot of work as well. As it's an online computer store I think the average user is going to be a little experienced on the net so they'll take one look at that and try somewhere else.

The images need to be larger too. Personally I don't think I'd buy anything I couldn't see, and that's on a 14" monitor!

Just rolled over something... Hmm.. yellow might want to be trashed along with the cyan. Umm, also is it just me or is 'Systems' slightly larger than the other headings?

Greg Moore
http://www.akashik.net

[Nam]

Thank you for good advices, I just made some changes follow your comments. Please take a look again. the link has changed to: http://64.177.84.102/bear/

akashik, what images need to be larger? My intention is fast downloading, if customers click to the thumbnail pic it will direct them to detail page, just like buy.com and others.

Here is another question: On the left navigation bar, I use CSS red hover link. But I want the top nav to be white, not light green and make it red hover also, how can I do that?

And please compare my site with the current site, which one is better? http://www.bearsystem.com . Thanks a lot.

[akashik]

I like the content design of the new one, but the overall look of the old one. Neither are enough to make me buy anything however.

As for the pictures, yes they need to be bigger (the products) fast loading is good, but I wouldn't poke at a tiny graphic that's poorly rendered in fear of seeing a much bigger one that won't give me any better detail.

Both sites logo graphics need a lot of work, as neither inspires confidence in me that I'm shopping at a reputable establishment.

Greg Moore

[Nam]

Thanks for great comments, akashik, I will work on logo, title and pictures, I agree that they're look too amateur. The website before is even worse, my boss focuses on local customers only (Bellevue, WA) and sometimes in Oregon because we're very busy already (he has very competitive price on CPUs, mainboards and memory), he doesn't expect to sell nation wide, he can't handle it.

You are so picky , j/k. It's very good to know, I'm beginner so I need a lot more time to imporve, remember, this one is for learning only as I do it for free. When the website is good enough to make you buy, I probarly won't work there anymore.

The bottom line is, besides logos, what else need to be added to make people feel confident? For order part, I just use simple email form via SSL and use our physic gateway, I think it's good enough. Anyway, thanks for your time.

[Edited by Nam on 11-19-2000 at 03:07 AM]