plainsmen

Tell me what you think?


His Page BEFORE

now after I redid it

AutoBodyConnection

There's maybe just a little bit more tweaking... I can see a couple things, but for the most part it's done.

Make sure to check out the before and after link on the auto's page, there's about 3 mustangs on there!! The pictures are a little low quality... but that's all the owner had and the cars he's submitted are long gone so I can't take new pics...

Smothers

real nice plainsmen

highhilleer

You're posting on a mustang site and the main photo is a chevy - not PC!
The Yahoo bar takes up too much of the screen. You should host on a site that doesn't advertise for other repair shops when people are viewing your site. May cost some, but hey...

hammeron

Very nice job on the web site, looks great

plainsmen

Yeah.. that's the main thing I told the guy.. I can get it hosted with his own domain name for <$10 bucks a month which wouldn't have ads... I just have to get him to do it... and if you look there are some mustangs in his before/after pics.

Oh.. and you can minimize the yahoo bar... just click the little arrow

Here's what his site looked like BEFORE I tackled it..

His site before

MustangPammie

Proofread it for spelling mistakes, I noticed many of them (I run a text writing service so typos jump out at me).

Optimize it for search engines. You have no meta tags, no meta descriptions, etc. You can get your own host for less than $7 a month these days and you'll have much more control.

Otherwise, it looks good. The balance is good. I do see a lot of Javascript in the source code meaning parts of your site won't be accessible to everyone -- for example, I don't do any Java, Javascript or Flash so do miss a lot on some websites.

Good luck with it.

Soaring

I don't know JS about this stuff, but I do like the 57 Chevy as the main pic, as everyone can relate to that in the classic world of classic cars no matter what the company.

plainsmen

Right on... thanks! I'm pretty new to this as well... after being gone out of it for quite awhile. I'll check out the spelling mistakes when I get back from vacation. I'm going to be adding the metatags and descs when I get back as well. I'm pretty much done with the "fabrication" part I mean, the layout. What he see's now is esentially what he'll get, with mistakes and a few alignment errors fixed. Plus the tags added.

Yeah I need him to get a domain so I can give get him the email/domain name he wants.

67Sally

When I hit the links it's telling me that the site is unavailable.

NinjaMatic

First... NEVER USE FRAMES! Second, people don't like to scroll. Third, people don't like huge pictures splitting up potentially important information. If you are to create a website - remember this... Most adults read at a 6th grade level and have the attention span of a 4th grader. Anything that uses more than TWO styles, colors or fonts SHOULDN'T be on the web. After years of doing part-time flash, sound and web design - I cannot stress this enough. You should check out newstoday.com or 2advanced.com to see the more cleaner layouts.

Granted - 2advanced is a little bit more advanced and in a different area. But for classic cars/body shop - i'd go with a green/orange color layout. Dirty and muted colors. Also think about centering. Is it needed? When you have a page that is centered, scrollable pages will have a side bar that pops in when needed... pages that are not long enough to be scrolled will not. This slight change will move the center over - going from a page that is not long enough to scroll - to a page that is can be very distracting to some. Your main focus as a designer is to keep the user's target audience at that website for the longest possible time.

Also - words or phrases like "premier" - "my name is X and my wife's name is X" - "no 500 dollar jobs here" or using " ! " every other sentence, etc. will also further deter potential clients. You have to think in terms of the sleazy car salesman who claims "she's as good as new" Phrases like the aforementioned will systematically burrow their way into a potential client's subcon and make them shy away.

People want basic information only. They don't expect to find everything they need on a site, but just enough to make them pick up the phone or drive to a location. They don't care about the owner's name or wife's name, their kids, their own personal trials and tribulations. They want to see products or services.

Also - if the shop owner can't afford 15 clams per month for a basic web hosting package and 10 coin per year for a domain name, they shouldn't even have a body shop. People want "thisismybidniss.com" not "geocities" - It's absolutely pointless to expect someone to think of the shop as reputable with a freebie web hosting service.

You also want to optimize the index.html page for search engines. There's a program (you need a php server running mysql) which allows you to track your index.html on 10 of the most popular search engines. I can't tell you the name, but you should ask and look into finding it. It basically helps you properly word your index page for max hits upon searches. Now, this doesn't mean typing in every possible combination of 5 words, search engines actually look PAST that - see the redundancy and actually place the results LOWER instead of higher. A failsafe for internet scammers.

And one last thing... STYLESHEETS! On a 56k modem (yes people still use them) loading this:

"<style type="text/css">
.ws6 {font-size: 8px;}
.ws7 {font-size: 9.3px;}
.ws8 {font-size: 11px;}
.ws9 {font-size: 12px;}
.ws10 {font-size: 13px;}
.ws11 {font-size: 15px;}
.ws12 {font-size: 16px;}
.ws14 {font-size: 19px;}
.ws16 {font-size: 21px;}
.ws18 {font-size: 24px;}
.ws20 {font-size: 27px;}
.ws22 {font-size: 29px;}
.ws24 {font-size: 32px;}
.ws26 {font-size: 35px;}
.ws28 {font-size: 37px;}
.ws36 {font-size: 48px;}
.ws48 {font-size: 64px;}
.ws72 {font-size: 96px;}
.wpmd {font-size: 13px;font-family: 'Arial';font-style: normal;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: none;}
</style>"

on every page takes time. If a person can't recieve the information quick enough, they will leave the page.

I'm not the best at web design... but if I'm not wrong - you must be just starting out with html? If the shop has a consistent flow of vehicles and internet savvy customers, you should consider studying PHP - creating a site where customers can log in, view pictures of their car's progress, etc. If you plan on home schooling yourself - I know the best books. Ditch the microshaft frontpage 2000 and get Macromedia Dreamweaver MX for your web design. Photochop, indesign and illustrator will help with imaging.