I've been working on a site with a simple design for my SOHO... web design and web application development. It's not complete yet. I'm going to put a bunch of more stuff on the right hand side of the home page, and the team page is empty. Working on that too. Every other thing (not as if it's much, lol) is functional.

http://www.definedworks.com/

So I would like everyone's opinion (if you can be bothered ) about the design, layout and colours, and what may be done to improve it.

Thanks.

Well its pristine enough. Maybe you can center it and remove that red side bar rioting with the all blue.

hum you site looks plain. Simplicity is professionalism but its just too plain. One more thing, I would encourage that you should do is to avoid more of the graphic intensiveness in the design and go for more of a style (css would do) touch. For inspiration browse through the sites displayed on www.cssbeauty.com, http://www.stylegala.com/, and don't forget google too

You really need to improve on that site. For a web design company, your site should look convincing

Shockreaction,

Why do you have ads on a business website? Are you intending to offer your web design services to people for free?

Seun.

Simplicity is the point, and I used CSS all the way. Plain is good too. I really hate bloat (excessive use of Flash and/or applets, flashy GIF animations, and such) that results in long loading times for web pages, and I don't want other people to experience that. I'm only going to put up a few good images that I can get ahold of later on. Besides, web design isn't really my major area of concern. It's practically a pain in the arse, but hey, if the pay's good, I'll have to improvise. It's basically web application development

The ads are just there as an additional source of income... Nothing major. I'd probably reduce the size when I get something else to put on the homepage.

Thanks for the input.

Seun:

Shockreaction,

Why do you have ads on a business website?  Are you intending to offer your web design services to people for free?

Seun.

What's wrong with having ads on a business website? Most biz websites have it...at least, it'll pay for hosting costs.
@shockreaction, make it simple and plain but professional and blue-chip looking like Microsoft, AOL, Adobe, etc. websites.

A few suggestions from another webdesigner:

- Try to avoid as much as possible the <div> and <span> tags. Try to use only <table>, <tr>, and <td>

- Eventhough you care about simplicity, but you still need to use simple images. Take for eaxample the design of Nairaland. It's all made of small images: the buttons, the borders, ...

- Since your menu buttons are images, try to use the rollover effect. It will make it look much nicer and pleasant. It will give simple animation to the website. As example, check the menu on my website's header: www.springsteenlyrics.com

- The titles you are using are also images. Try to give them more life. Use Adobe Photoshop.

- I advice you to start redesigning your website all over again, starting from zero. Start by designing it using Adobe Photoshop, and then start slicing. This is exactly what I did for my website. If you have no idea about Photoshop, and you didn't understand what I was talking about, then sorry, but you cannot be a webdesigner. Keep learning.

- I am trying to be honest here, and I hope my negative feedback will somehow be useful to you. I don't know anything about your scripting capabilities (MySQL, PHP, ASP...), but I can clearly see that your design is not professional at all, and doesn't show that DefinedWorks is a professional Internet and Web consulting company specialising in Web Application Development and providing solutions for companies who want to establish a web presence.

Please don't take this personally. We all start somewhere, and keep learning and learning and learning...

Following on the above, if you want your site to be readilly accessible to impaired users, then you must look into using CSS for page layouts. The Web Accessibility Initiative has denoted the use of tables in page layout as being deprecated. This has to do with the use of screen readers for visually impaired web users.

There are various resources on the net which will give u information about using your Cascading Style Sheets not just for style, but also for page layout.

Eddy Wehbe:

A few suggestions from another webdesigner:

- Try to avoid as much as possible the <div> and <span> tags. Try to use only <table>, <tr>, and <td>

I am suprised of what you said here. Do you know the W3C web standards? I encourage that you go ahead, and read them at www.w3c.org. The "div" acts as a container, and its recommended that you use them in the positioning of your web content. Besides that i would recommend you go and do some reading.

Eddy Wehbe:


- Eventhough you care about simplicity, but you still need to use simple images. Take for eaxample the design of Nairaland. It's all made of small images: the buttons, the borders, ...

A professional design does not require that you use images, infact to justify that you are a good web designer, you should be able to design corporate looking website, without a single use of any images.

Eddy Wehbe:


- The titles you are using are also images. Try to give them more life. Use Adobe Photoshop.

For a better site indexing it is recommended that you use text for the titles rather than images. Please read on Search Engine Optimization techniques. Although you might use images, but make sure you do have header tags that contain your title.

Eddy Wehbe:

- I am trying to be honest here, and I hope my negative feedback will somehow be useful to you. I don't know anything about your scripting capabilities (MySQL, PHP, ASP...), but I can clearly see that your design is not professional at all, and doesn't show that DefinedWorks is a professional Internet and Web consulting company specialising in Web Application Development and providing solutions for companies who want to establish a web presence.

Well your honesty is appreciated, but honestly, you need to learn more yourself. We all learn from each other.

I said "Try to avoid as much as possible the <div> and <span> tags. Try to use only <table>, <tr>, and <td>"
I dind't add anything else because I have a relatively limited knowledge about those 2 tags. I know that they cause problems when resizing windows. I don't want to say more, because as I said, I didn't bother going deeper into them. However, I'll investigate more about them before getting back to this point. Thanks for the link by the way.

A professional design does not require that you use images, infact to justify that you are a good web designer, you should be able to design corporate looking website, without a single use of any images.

Give me an example!

For a better site indexing it is recommended that you use text for the titles rather than images. Please read on Search Engine Optimization techniques. Although you might use images, but make sure you do have header tags that contain your title.

My website uses images as menus, and the header in which the title is contained is only an image. However, I rank #3 on google and #1 on MSN search when I search for "Springsteen lyrics", which is the main subject of my website. I am very professional when it comes to search engines optimization, and I have a very good knowledge about this subject.
I know that text instead of images increases indexing, and avoiding frames also increases indexing, but there are a lot of techniques that you can apply to get even better ranking!!!

Well your honesty is appreciated, but honestly, you need to learn more yourself. We all learn from each other.

I am learning, and I will always be. I was honest about my knowledge in the <span> and <div> tags, and also very honest aboput my knowledge in search engines optimization.

Well i am not in here for an argument, i am just sharing what i know and i think is correct, and if you felt offended. My sincere apologies.

An example, well i have no time to be searching for an example. Because if i can recollect what i said . I said that

"A professional design does not require that you use images, infact to justify that you are a good web designer, you should be able to design corporate looking website, without a single use of any images."

What i meant here was, its not a necessity. And if you are good designer, you should be able to achieve a good corporate looking website, without the use of images.


Now on your optimization techniques. Well i am not saying you didnt have a knowledge. But let me point out to you that your domain name is "springsteenlyrics.com" and its very obvious that when the search keyword is "Springsteen lyrics" your site would turn up. The domain name and the keyword of search is very close, it does not require an intense optimization.

Try searching for "bruce springsteen lyrics" , well it seems your site does not turn up in the first ten, So what do you have to say on that? Your website is well optimized?

And by the way, your web site uses frames?

Using "bruce springsteen lyrics"as keyword, I am ranking #8 on google and #4 on MSN search.

This is because some other websites are more optimized for "bruce Springsteen lyrics". The reason I concentrated more on "springsteen lyrics" and not "bruce Springsteen lyrics" is because the first one, statistically, is more used in searches.

I also rank #2 on google for "bruce springsteen bootleg artwork" and #9 on MSN for "bruce springsteen biography".

go to http://www.nedstatbasic.net/s?tab=1&link=1&id=2223433 and you will see how people are refering to my website, and what keywords they are typing in their search query

But let me point out to you that your domain name is "springsteenlyrics.com" and its very obvious that when the search keyword is "Springsteen lyrics" your site would turn up.

This is not true at all. Try searching for "Naira land", and you will see that you will never find www.nairaland.com
The reason is that search engines crawlers rank websites according to a very complicated algorithm. It also uses some priorities:
- Link popularity
- page title
- <h1> tags
- text contents (upper part of the pages)
- "alt" text on images....

It will take forever to go into the details.

I am not arguing here, I am just discussing, and I think this is what discussion forums are for.

Well "Naira land" wasnt optimized as the key word in his website. In fact Nairaland.com is not optimized for top rankings in the search engine. Check his source, and you wouldnt find the keyword meta. And yes you did optimize your keyword together with your domain name, and that gives it a preference.

<meta name="keywords" content="Bruce springsteen biography, bruce springsteen song, bruce springsteen picture, bruce springsteen lyric, springsteen lyrics, bruce springsteen photo, bruce springsteen secret garden lyric, bruce springsteen dancing in the dark, bruce springsteen concert, bruce springsteen live, bruce springsteen site, bruce springsteen tribute, bruce devil dust springsteen, bruce springsteen the rising, bruce springsteen street of philadelphia, bruce springsteen born to run">

Based on your keyword, if your site is properly optimized you are ranked only no 8th in google with the keyword "Bruce springsteen biography". . Just letting you know.

Now well i found your site with that keyword "bruce springsteen lyrics" at the 8th rank. So i guess i didnt look properly the other time. . Is "bruce springsteen bootleg artwork" part of the website? i mean the artwork? whats the relation to the content of the site. I taught it was a tribute site with lyrics. and thats where the keywords should be directing. Bringing up that really confuses me.

People reffering to your site too? Confuses me? we are deviating from the main issue.
well you are right about the requirements? and i did mention one of the requiremens, but i wasnt given a lecture on site-engine optimization.But come to think of it? I just re-commended that you read more on site-optimization, personally i am not a guru in that area, and i dont claim to be "know it all". And so it really amazes me, the way you take the whole issue.

- Google, Yahoo, and MSN, which are the major search engines, don't even look at the keyword meta tag. This technique was stopped years ago because webmasters were trying to stuff as many keywords as possible in that meta tag. However, I kept it on my source code because there is no harm in it. However, what is helping me more is my <title> tag. Check it out.


-

Based on your keyword, if your site is properly optimized you are ranked only no 8th in google with the keyword "Bruce springsteen biography". Just letting you know.

I have an amateur website only 15 months old, and I am competeing with old websites, with Bruce Springsteen's official website, ... and ranking number 1 to 10 is more than  enough for me. Remember, my website is only a fan website.

-

Is "bruce springsteen bootleg artwork" part of the website? i mean the artwork? whats the relation to the content of the site. I taught it was a tribute site with lyrics. and thats where the keywords should be directing. Bringing up that really confuses me.

Yes, it is the second most important topic of my website, and my Springsteen artworks are published here: www.springsteenlyrics.com/artwork

-

People reffering to your site too? Confuses me? we are deviating from the main issue.

No, not at all. The link I gave you shows how people are refering to my website. This means what keywords they are searching and through which searchh engine. I mentioned this just to prove a point I made before that people find my website through several kewords, and not only "springsteen lyrics"
Note: The statistics on that page are only for the my website's main page. I also have the statistics for all my website's 2000 pages, and they are all accessed through search engines searches. I would've ginen you the link, by accessing the detailed statistcis page requires authentication. Therefore, I copied it and pasted it below the statistics for Jun 2005:
Top 20 of 551 Total Search Strings
9.64% springsteen lyrics
2.81% devil and dust lyrics
1.96% devil and dust
1.68% bruce springsteen lyrics
1.68% dream baby dream springsteen
1.68% matamoros banks
1.31% frankie teardrop lyrics
1.12% bruce springsteen biography
1.03% bruce springsteen's wife
1.03% springsteen dream baby dream
0.94% bruce springsteen devil
0.84% bruce springsteen's first wife
0.84% devil
0.84% marias bed lyrics
0.75% devils
0.75% devils and dust lyrics
0.75% dream baby dream lyrics
0.75% sharon summerall
0.65% devil and dust springsteen
0.65% maria's bed
As you can see, the string "springsteen lyrics" is only being used 9.64% of the times to access my website.
I just showed this to prove you wrong when you said "But let me point out to you that your domain name is "springsteenlyrics.com" and its very obvious that when the search keyword is "Springsteen lyrics" your site would turn up."

-

I just re-commended that you read more on site-optimization, personally i am not a guru in that area, and i don't claim to be "know it all". And so it really amazes me, the way you take the whole issue.

Believe me I know a lot about search engines optimization, and I am just discussing. I am not taking anything personal.

- I also need to note that other websites (the commercial ones specially) pay to increase their search engines ranking. There are special companies for that, and they charge thousands of dollars to proffessionally optimize your website. Of course, I would never pay such an ammount since my website is a none profit project, but still I am competing with those professionally optimized websites.

- Thsi thread was supposed to be about shockreaction's website, but since we brought up this topic...

Personal attacks are not allowed on this forum, please.

It's just a discussion Seun, not an argument. Discussion forums ARE FOR DISCUSSIONS... within a limit. kazey didn't cross the limit because I didn't feel offended about anything, and I don't thik I crossed the limit... right kazey?

Peace... but still I would love to read kazey's reply 

I also think that this discussion can be very helpful to any webmaster who reads it. There are some good info here

Lolz, we are cool o.

Well yeah i guess you are right. As i said i am not a guru in SEO, just a learner, and honestly, i am just hearing it for the first time, that search engines do not use keywords anymore, that its old school.

And yes proper web designing techniques, can ensure high rankings, because it would contain most of the important informations in tags readabale by web crawlers, besides the upper content.

I guess thats all.

If you're interested kazey, I have a word document of 21 pages that contains info I collected from several places on the internet. Give me your email address and you've got it. It's about Search Engine Submission Tips. Of course, it's not everything about search engine optimization, but the info in that document might help. Interesting to read....
To get more info, you will have to go to website where you pay per visit, but the that document expalins some basics: Thinks you already know, and others you didn't know.

Let me know

Nah, I don't have to use Adobe Photoshop for anything. Besides, it's very expensive, meaning I don't have enough money to purchase it. And no, I'm not going to use a pirated version. That's illegal. You do NOT need Photoshop to be a "web designer".

Animation and rollover effects don't necessarily make a site any better. There're a lot of examples out there which make use of this, and they're no where near impressive.

IAH, most business sites do not have ads. Your assertion is ridiculous.

If your business does not have the resources to pay it's website hosting bill, how can I trust that you have the resources to satisfy my needs as a customer? It's shameful.

IAH, most business sites do not have ads. Your assertion is ridiculous.
If your business does not have the resources to pay it's website hosting bill, how can I trust that you have the resources to satisfy my needs as a customer? It's shameful.

That is your own...I would encourage any small-business website to add unobtrusive ads like Google adsense anyday. It sure helps, even the giant Yahoo, google, AOL,etc. have ads. I take your use of the word "ridiculous" as insultive and uncalled for.

- Rollover effects DO make websites look nicer, IF you use the correct colors, fonts... It's an art by itself.

- I know that rollover effects cause the page to load a little slower, but if this what you care about, then why did you use images for you menu buttons while you could use just text?

- You have a website about web design, so you need to show people what you can do. i.e., show some features that are hard to be done by amateurs and that might attract customers.

- I totally agree with Seun's last reply. Yahoo, google, AOL.. offer free services like mail, free webhosting, search... and that's why they need to place ads on their website. But websites that sell a product or a service do not place ads, right?

- Adobe Photoshop just makes life easier. It helps a lot in web design. And it is not what Adobe Photoshop can do, it is what you can do with it! If you are not willing to pay for it, and can go for much cheaper softwares, or even free softwares that come with digital cameras.

- This thread is to criticise your website, so when you get a negative feedback, try to think and ask about the reason, and not defend your work. There is no smoke without fire. This means that we wouldn't be saying negative things about your work if there was nothing wrong with it.

---

I got your PM kazey, I will do it tonight since I'm at work right now.

I used images for the links so that the text would appear spaced up equally. The other alternative to this will be to use tables with text, but basically, using tables for layout is deprecated, following the standards. Also, note the size of the images, they're not huge. Just below 2kb. Meaning: No bloat.

- You have a website about web design, so you need to show people what you can do. i.e., show some features that are hard to be done by amateurs and that might attract customers.
Most "unique features" can be achieved through the use of third-party tools which are accessible to just about anyone.

This thread is to criticise your website, so when you get a negative feedback, try to think and ask about the reason, and not defend your work. There is no smoke without fire. This means that we wouldn't be saying negative things about your work if there was nothing wrong with it.
I shouldn't defend my work? There is a reason for the things I do, and that's what I'm trying to make clear to you.

Everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion. Your opinion is that the site is not professional and does not demonstrate that DefinedWorks is a professional Internet and Web consulting company specialising in Web Application Development and providing solutions for companies who want to establish a web presence.

Well, first of all, you should know that the primary focus is not web design. The sentence clearly states "professional Internet and Web consulting company specialising in Web Application Development and providing solutions for comapnies who want to establish a web presence."

So what's wrong with the work I've done on the pages? The layout? The design? The colour combination? The fonts? The lack of use of images? The code (which is compliant with the XHTML1/CSS standard by the way)?

Men shock. no mind am. ur site is okay.. 4 me i do use CSS to make mine Linking and i find it cool, instead of using images. So back to shock site haven't seen anything wrong on the site that site is good a enough you can imagine a well known church in nigeria that paid big in designing website..the company who designed the site.. but check and see very poor site www.christroyalfamilychurchintl.org so you guys tell me what will you say 2 that.. huh so Shock tried .

wen i upload ma pic,it gets to big,how can i make it smaller

define the width and height.

can u elaborate on that pls?

<img src=""[b] width="" height="" [/b]alt="" />