Perfect Tree Care Website: Even a Caveman...

[M.D. Vaden]

sites that use flash as a primary means of navigating sucks!

flash when properly used can be effective. it's a common problem with web designers not knowing how important usability of a web site is.

most folks attention span is under 5 seconds for web sites. if you are not able to navigate because your flash is not working. they're gone...

not everyone uses IE. lots to be said about lowest common denominator.

That's for sure, and the reason why my main two pages with links, home and advice, have the primitive menus immediately next to the flash menus.

I find that not even the HEADING html tags display text the same in IE versus Netscape either.

The past few months, I've made a point to view my pages in IE, Firefox and Opera, just to be sure.

 

[Ekka]

Here's a site that I ran across recently.

http://www.drouintreeservices.com.au

What do you think?

 

[a_lopa]

thats one hell of a site!lol

 

[JohN Dee]

Lol lopa.

Ekka, who is your host and how much by the month? You told me once but i've forgotten it and where it was..

In the new year I plan to start designing a website for my business.

Diltree, out of all tree sites i've viewed I really enjoy your's the most; It's easy to navigate, looks good and is very informative and pictures (LOL Bright shiny pictures ).

 

[Ekka]

I use Ipower in the States but you should register a .com.au and then host it there. About $100 USD a year and has tons of space and bandwidth.

 

[alanarbor]

While you're looking at websites

look at www.thecareoftrees.com

 

[Ekka]

look at www.thecareoftrees.com

That is a good looking website, some coding errors could be fixed and the designer has overlooked some typical address problems.

For example

http://thecareoftrees.com/ comes up as a different page to Google and it's not being redirected to the proper home page.

Alt test missing on many pics.

There is no clear HOME navigation and when you click on the top LH corner it takes you to http://www.thecareoftrees.com/index.php which is considered a different page to the original by Google and actually carries a different PR. They need to fix that in their coding.

Same Meta Tagging for every page.

No geographical tagging or targeting.

Insufficient text on landing index page.

 

[M.D. Vaden]

That "The Care of Trees" site ranks a 6 on Google rank meter, which is good in one way. Although I haven't seen how the site displays.

That might be tough to find out, because I looked at several pages and a critical piece of information is missing - "where do they work?"

Several pages don't have a return link to the home page - not that I saw anyhow.

The design looks good. That part would be a good example to follow.

Nothing is over-kill in it. It has a nice variety of color and images,

 

[a_lopa]

Ekka please stop telling them where there going wrong!!!

 

[alanarbor]

That is a good looking website, some coding errors could be fixed and the designer has overlooked some typical address problems.

For example

http://thecareoftrees.com/ comes up as a different page to Google and it's not being redirected to the proper home page.

Alt test missing on many pics.

There is no clear HOME navigation and when you click on the top LH corner it takes you to http://www.thecareoftrees.com/index.php which is considered a different page to the original by Google and actually carries a different PR. They need to fix that in their coding.

Same Meta Tagging for every page.

No geographical tagging or targeting.

Insufficient text on landing index page.

Excellent input!

 

[M.D. Vaden]

Try messing around with this site's contents for a few minutes.

It's out of the ordinary.

http://www.illuminatidesign.com/

Click on the black background, too.

 

[Ekka]

It's where flash can take you ... the sky's the limit.

 

[M.D. Vaden]

It's where flash can take you ... the sky's the limit.

If you click on one of Illuminati's icons around the item that looks like a bracelet, it shows various projects.

Some have interesting menus, like the Mahaila McKeller one. He also did a website for one actress Danica McKeller, which is probably related to Mahaila.

For pure visual interest, I'd really enjoy doing that kind of flash on my home page.

For practical use, I see little way that it would work in most of my websites pages. Maybe the same for you too.

Another option, would be a nice simpler home page, and then use a fancy flash introduction page for the advice portion. That way, the intro page would neither affect the home page search engine results, nor those of the information pages.

A way of adding eye-candy.

 

[trevmcrev]

So tell me whats right/wrong with mine. Made a few minor changes recently but the basis of has been the same for years. I should really learn about this stuff and apply it.

http://www.totaltreecare.com.au

 

[JohN Dee]

Trev, I was looking at your website(Nice website btw you should put caps for the starting letters on your left hand side navigation) and noticed a typo in a vital spot... Down the bottom - http://www.totaltreecare.com.au/3.html the number has a 0 instead if a 9

 

[M.D. Vaden]

Trev, I was looking at your website(Nice website btw you should put caps for the starting letters on your left hand side navigation) and noticed a typo in a vital spot... Down the bottom - http://www.totaltreecare.com.au/3.html the number has a 0 instead if a 9

The site looks good.

My son was just mentioning Skype yesterday, and I reloaded it for web cam and mikes. But he did talk about the phone options too.

I took a screen shot of your home page. The images at the top, misaligned on my browser, but the other pages were aligned. I tried expanding and contracting the browser window, but couldn't move the header together to match up.

Your code might be different on your home page, maybe due to percentages, pixel width or align left / right.

It's not too hard to read, although I like indented text so the letters are not against the edge of a frame.

Did you have the frame to lift the big tree custom-built? Or are those available for sale somewhere?

 

[M.D. Vaden]

I think I figured out part of the misalignment.

It's the wide image of the trucks on the home page. The photo is probably forcing the table width wider, and pushing your header alignment apart.

On each page, the left table with the menu stays the same width.

So your home page field with the text and that wider image is the one that's expanding. Maybe you can crop the image narrower.

 

[JohN Dee]

So your home page field with the text and that wider image is the one that's expanding. Maybe you can crop the image narrower.

He doesn't have much to crop. :\ He may have to resize it instead.. Or if he doesnt like those two he can re-take a new photo where they both fit nicely with out over stretching the page.

 

[M.D. Vaden]

Here's a site that I liked...

http://www.northcoastphotos.com/

CSS?

Ekka... What do you think.

 

[Ekka]

No CSS!

Loaded with tables/frames and Javascript. Numerous HTML coding errors.

I dont like it, messy, not logical, no info on front page. It would be a dial up killer.

I can see the creative side, it wouldn't be easy to have a photography site that's got pizzaz. Tough task.

Why do you like it?