Hi all!

 

I've updated/rebuilt my wife's business website, and I am wondering if you can spot any mistakes, or anything wrong with it. I have done a optimization check and I get a couple of warning. I also cheked the site with two browsers IE8, and Firefox everything seems to be in order. Here is the result from the optimization test:

 

My site: http://www.craftoncanvas.co.uk/

 

Analysis and Recommendations

TOTAL_HTML - Congratulations, the total number of HTML files on this page (including the main HTML file) is 1 which most browsers can multithread. Minimizing HTTP requests is key for web site optimization.

 

TOTAL_OBJECTS - Caution. You have 11 total objects on this page. From 12 to 20 objects per page, the latency due to object overhead makes up from 75% to 80% of the delay of the average web page. See Figure II-3: Relative distribution of latency components showing that object overhead dominates web page latency in Website Optimization Secrets for more details. Consider reducing, eliminating, and combining external objects (graphics, CSS, JavaScript, iFrames and XHTML) to reduce the total number of objects, and thus separate HTTP requests. Consider using CSS sprites to help consolidate decorative images.

 

TOTAL_IMAGES - Congratulations, the total number of images on this page is 7 . Most browsers can send multiple requests, which can speed display of multiple images.

 

TOTAL_CSS - Congratulations, the total number of external CSS files on this page is 1 . Because external CSS files must be in the HEAD of your HTML document, they must load first before any BODY content displays. Although they are cached, CSS files slow down the initial display of your page. Remember to place CSS files in the HEAD and JavaScript files at the end of the BODY to enable progressive display.

 

TOTAL_MULTIM - Congratulations, the total number of external multimedia files on this page is 1 .

 

TOTAL_SIZE - Warning! The total size of this page is 959690 bytes, which will load in 193.46 seconds on a 56Kbps modem. Consider reducing total page size to less than 100K to achieve sub 20 second response times on 56K connections. Pages over 100K exceed most attention thresholds at 56Kbps, even with feedback. Consider optimizing your site with Website Optimization Secrets, Speed Up Your Site or contacting us about our optimization services.

 

TOTAL_SCRIPT - Congratulations, the total number of external script files on this page is 1 . External scripts are less reliably cached than CSS files so consider combining scripts into one to minimize HTTP requests, or even embedding them into high-traffic pages. Placing external JavaScript files at the bottom of your BODY, and CSS files in the HEAD enables progressive display in XHTML web pages.

 

HTML_SIZE - Congratulations, the total size of this HTML file is 17619 bytes, which less than 50K. Assuming that you specify the HEIGHT and WIDTH of your images, this size allows your HTML to display content in under 10 seconds, the average time users are willing to wait for a page to display without feedback.

 

IMAGES_SIZE - Warning! The total size of your images is 108398 bytes, which is over 100K. Consider switch graphic formats to achive smaller file sizes (from JPEG to PNG for example). Finally, substitute CSS techniques for graphics techniques to create colored borders, backgrounds, and spacing.

 

SCRIPT_SIZE - Caution. The total size of your external scripts is 19574 bytes, which is above 8K and less than 20K. Consider optimizing your scripts and eliminating features to reduce this to a more reasonable size. You can substitute CSS menus for JavaScript-based menus to minimize or even eliminate the use of JavaScript.

 

CSS_SIZE - Congratulations, the total size of your external CSS is 1544 bytes, which is less than 8K.

 

MULTIM_SIZE - Warning! The total size of your external multimedia is 812555 bytes, which is over 30K. Consider optimizing your multimedia files for size, or replacing them with lower-bandwidth alternatives, or eliminating them altogether.

 

Thank you all in advance!

 

Francis

Hi There,

 

Just having a look now, so will type as I go!

 

Well dones:-

 

1. I like the little flash feature on the home page, fits the style.

2. The colour scheme is complementary to the business, I like colour choices.

3. Good to have testimonials in there - really important. Builds confidence in the service.

 

Observations:-

 

1. The site could really use with being centred - not using a table, but use DIVs. I'm on a wide-screen laptop and centering the site will look better on most screens.

2. Making the top links go bold on :hover causes the other buttons to move slightly, which can be distracting. Either ensure all the header links are equal width or just change the background-color (which you are already doing) rather than the bold.

3. Use a more appropriate favicon than the Union Jack - create one with a flower on it, for example, to match the site's theme.

4. The site's title tag and links that just have 'home' should have something more descriptive. I can do an SEO review for you separately. If you're interested just let me know.

 

And all the best with your wife's business

Thank you Martin for your comments, they are really appreciated. I have made some changes that you have sugested like for example the Favicon, and the Home tittle too for something abit more descriptive. In the site I am using Layers and tables. The reasson for this is that layers do not display in the same place when looking at the site with different browsers, and it really anoys me. So I came to the conclussion that I should insert tables inside the layers. I the future I am planning to add layers that are only visible when hoovering over certain objects, I hate popup windows.

The site isn't centered cos' that's exactly what I did with the first site, but when looking on small notebooks, or mobile telephones, at least a quarter of the site was not visible even when zooming out.

As soon as I can I will also change what you sugested about the navigational bar, it's true that it is distracting when it moves. I belive is the button "Terms and conditions" it's quite long, so I have some how change it or rename it.

In relation to the SEO review, you can also do it but as long as it is FREE hahahahaha.

 

Thank you once again my friend!... and I love your comments

 

Francis

imo:

You could easily replicate that flash slideshow with jQuery.

Add a little more padding to the content area.

Don't italicize the sub-headings and give them a bit of colour.

 

Otherwise, nice looking site

 

~evu.

Francis - you're welcome. If my comments are appreciated, do feel free to push the (+) button, I've only just discovered this on the forum and have started using it for others.

 

Terms and Conditions - you could shorten this to T&C (ensure you use a proper ampersand in your code) or even just 'Terms/Conditions' - that's shorter. And you're using the full word 'and'... 'Terms & Conditions' shortens it by 2 characters, which may be sufficient reduction.

 

Alignment - this is your choice. But if you're left aligning it at least put the site right against the top edge.

 

Background colour - is this grey? If it is then a muted cream sort of colour would be more complimentary. Or even a light textured background.

 

Otherwise I agree with Evu on the padding as well.

 

And for SEO - let me know when you've made all the major changes and then we can look at SEO a bit for free, I can do a brief review for you and lay out a few pointers. I'll need to know where your wife is looking at getting her customers from, i.e. national or local.

 

Keep up the good work :-)

Thank you Evu and Martin, I will get on working with your suggestions as soon as I possibly can, I have a fulltime job and 2 little daughters who like to keep me bussy whenever they are arround. In the mean time if you or anyone else see anything that could be improved, please let me know.

 

Thank you both

I agree with Martin regarding using a subtle background texture. Canvas would be ideal I would also look to increase the size of the flash area at the top to really show off some of your wife's work. Maybe even take some high res pics and get a sick jQuery gallery slider in there instead of the flash. Good work though man.

Jay

Ok! Thank you Jay

hi Frances frankly speaking about you site please don't mine its my opinion that i don't like the choice of color because this site is related to crafts so the color should be fresh and also some flash work can do a lot

hi Frances frankly speaking about you site please don't mine its my opinion that i don't like the choice of color because this site is related to crafts so the color should be fresh and also some flash work can do a lot

 

Thank you Frances for your comment, I am not sure I can change the colour I just updated it, but you have given me an idea about flash... Thank you

Francis - you're welcome. If my comments are appreciated, do feel free to push the (+) button, I've only just discovered this on the forum and have started using it for others.

 

Terms and Conditions - you could shorten this to T&C (ensure you use a proper ampersand in your code) or even just 'Terms/Conditions' - that's shorter. And you're using the full word 'and'... 'Terms & Conditions' shortens it by 2 characters, which may be sufficient reduction.

 

Alignment - this is your choice. But if you're left aligning it at least put the site right against the top edge.

 

Background colour - is this grey? If it is then a muted cream sort of colour would be more complimentary. Or even a light textured background.

 

Otherwise I agree with Evu on the padding as well.

 

And for SEO - let me know when you've made all the major changes and then we can look at SEO a bit for free, I can do a brief review for you and lay out a few pointers. I'll need to know where your wife is looking at getting her customers from, i.e. national or local.

 

Keep up the good work :-)

 

Martin I have shown my wife your posts, and she would love a brief SEO review, she is trying to get her customers nationaly. In return I will place a link on her site "Craft on Canvas" (in the links page) with your business web address, let me know if you would like me to do so.

At the moment we are going crazy with this Google Analytics cos' we are getting visitors from all over the world, but mainly from the UK, and no one have bought anything yet. I am sure we are not reaching out to the real people,

she has joined lots of forums related to what she does, and made some good friends who have their own business doing more or less the same thing... Anyway let me know if thgat's ok!

 

Take care m80

 

Francis

I think this is a very nice clean design that is not over complicated, good job! certainly very suitable to the purpose.

Thank you Nick!

Hi Francis- sorry for the delayed reply, I have been away for a long weekend, but am back now. I will do my best to do the SEO review this week, next week at the latest. Hope this suits

 

And given the broad range of websites linking to mine due to being a web designer, a link from your wife's site would be appreciated - so many thanks for that offer.

I've checked your site,In my opinion:

 

The color fits perfectly,the design is eye catchy. I love how you make the Title! Generally,you've done a great job! I bet your wife is very happy!!!!

I've checked your site,In my opinion:

 

The color fits perfectly,the design is eye catchy. I love how you make the Title! Generally,you've done a great job! I bet your wife is very happy!!!!

 

Thank you Che!

My wife is very happy, but only for one reason... It didn't cost her a penny! hahaha

Hi Francis- sorry for the delayed reply, I have been away for a long weekend, but am back now. I will do my best to do the SEO review this week, next week at the latest. Hope this suits

 

And given the broad range of websites linking to mine due to being a web designer, a link from your wife's site would be appreciated - so many thanks for that offer.

 

Ok Martin, I will add that link for you... Thank you very much!

Many thanks for the link. I have e-mailed your wife a basic SEO-issues report. I have also saved some data on my computer in case I can serve you both in the future. If I can help in future, seeing Analytics Data can really help.

 

All the best to your wife and her business! My wife has a new cross-stitch and confectionery business so I'm really "digging" the crafts at the moment!

I think everything is simple and clear, great job!

Many thanks for the link. I have e-mailed your wife a basic SEO-issues report. I have also saved some data on my computer in case I can serve you both in the future. If I can help in future, seeing Analytics Data can really help.

 

All the best to your wife and her business! My wife has a new cross-stitch and confectionery business so I'm really "digging" the crafts at the moment!

Thank you Martin, if you need me for anything, now you know where to find me. Thanks for your comments and your help.

Take care my friend

I think everything is simple and clear, great job!

Thank you Porcelain, with your comment and everyone else now I know that if the web site don't succeed,

is not because the web page, but some other reason... Thanks!

Thank you Che!

My wife is very happy, but only for one reason... It didn't cost her a penny! hahaha

 

 

you're welcome! hahaha.. At least she is Happy! :)

I also like the little flash feature on the home page, fits the style.

I also like the little flash feature on the home page, fits the style.

Thank you very much!,but there is no point having a great website, if it is not preforming as it should, and I am saying that because we haven't sold anything through the website yet, even after making changes on the design a few times. Either we are not reaching the right audience, or no one have money to spend these days. By looking at Google Analitics I would say the site is getting an average of 10 visitors per day, but still nothing is happening

butI am sure that better times willcome some day.

 

Thank you!

hi all i am new here

hi all i am new here

Welcome

hi all i am new here

 

Welcome to WD forum

Many thanks for the link. I have e-mailed your wife a basic SEO-issues report. I have also saved some data on my computer in case I can serve you both in the future. If I can help in future, seeing Analytics Data can really help.

 

All the best to your wife and her business! My wife has a new cross-stitch and confectionery business so I'm really "digging" the crafts at the moment!

 

Hi Martin, sorry to hear about your car crash, I hope everyone is ok. I don't have your email, so I could only think of using this forum to contact you, I hope you get my message, and Happy New Year, I hope is a prosperous one for you and the business, take care my friend!

 

Francis (Craft on Canvas)http://www.craftoncanvas.co.uk/

Header animation is not so good as can be. Blank rectangle in a top-left corner

Overall, looks fine to me. Fast loading time, pleasing layout and design with nice use of colors.

Header animation is not so good as can be. Blank rectangle in a top-left corner

Hi Leming!

 

Thank you for your comment, if you have any better ideas about the title you could enlighten me by posting them here, I just wanted a simple title that looked like the one on the other pages, nothing fancy that loads fast, but please you are more than welcome, to give me any ideas you nay have.

 

Thank you once again Leming

Overall, looks fine to me. Fast loading time, pleasing layout and design with nice use of colors.

 

Hi Christine!

 

Thank you for your comment, and I am glad you'd like the site. At the moment I am working on the SEO aspect of it, I am not very knowledgeable on the subject, but I am trying my best to direct the right audience to the site, and I must admit that it is very difficult. Anyway thank you once more.

 

 

PS: I also like your blog, keep it up!

I would always avoid using tables unless of course you're displaying tabular content. I can see that you have used a mixture of divs and tables. The issue with tables is that your code to content ratio is far higher when using table tags than it is using divs. You obviously want Google (and other search engines) to see as much of your rich content as possible and too much unnecessary code in the way can hinder this.

 

If you can find the time, I would definitely recommend trying to replace as many of the table divs as you can. Also, try and source all CSS from an external stylesheet as again, this will reduce the amount of code Google will trawl through to get to your content.

 

Hope this helps.

Hi Francis, Just seen your post and thought I'd add my two pennies in.

 

Ok, so in my experience of SEO, a poor looking site which ranks well is often no better off than a great looking site that ranks badly. There is only so much a well ranked site can do for your business. The rest is down to kerb appeal, useful and enticing content and internal marketing.

 

I have to say (constructively!), your site doesn't do it for me from a design and marketing point of view. Your SEO approach doesn't look too bad but with some good advice could be more proactive and produce better results (i'll come back to that).

 

Site Structure

The design of the site falls down for me on the use of the tables and all the styling in the page itself. For SEO you need to move all of this code into separate files that you then call from the header area. Have you designed this using front page or a template or something? I can understand why you're reluctant to change this now, if you're not overly experienced. However, I did this same piece of work for a client of mine who'd pretty much done the same as you and their site jumped a ranking page just due to having much tidier and Google friendly coding.

 

Flash Header

Flash has long been regarded as a no no for sites for anything other than movies, as it wastes content opportunities and is not easy for Google to understand. Jquery would allow you to keep the content on the page for Google and then just animate it from scripting. However, animating your business name isn't, in my view a smart way to use animation. Your name is your name, what value does it add to your customers to see it moving and changing (none really). I would make this a nice picture overlay onto pure text. Then I would use some jquery to create an animation of some of the products you want to show off. Using Jquery you can incorporate links so that if someone sees something they like they can click into the animation and be taken to the page to buy.

 

Colour Scheme

Too much brown. Our eyes want focus and contrast naturally and we want to be pulled to things that stand out. Nothing stands out on your pages because the colours are so muted and washed out. If it were me, I would create either some striking contrast with really colourful larger scale images of the products or create some strong "calls to action" such as "free postage" or "buy two and get a third half price" or "see our newest designs". Something that draws people's focus and creates a sense of intrigue. Another example I've used is placing a cropped version of a product image on the landing page which then people click on because they want to see the whole thing, simple trick to create intrigue.

 

Images

The images are too small. Your site is about pictures, so these should be large, bold images showing off the quality and vibrance of the colours etc. I would personally upscale these. Also, make sure your pictures are the same size and as they will appear in the actual page otherwise it slows down the loading time resizing the pictures. When you take photos of the images, shoot them against a pure white background so that when you apply a little contrast you don't get that odd shading in the background. This makes your images more consistent and flexible for using in different media. Lastley, the image on the side bar looks really pixelated, poor quality and stretched. This gives the site a really amateur look, which isn't particularly bad, it's just an unnecessary risk to your business. I would swap this image out for one which is a higher resolution and make the picture canvas the right dimensions for the space. Does it also need to take up so much of the page (less is more), some white space on the screen would probably enhance things.

 

SEO

From an SEO point of view, your kind of along the right lines with the "on-page" optimisation, but I'd remove the style coding and tables (even though it may be a pain to do). You're using your alt tags, title and meta tags etc, which is good. I would personally beef up the content with more descriptive commenting on the products and maybe narratives on the pages, that allow you to add more anchor text and bold text (all useful for Google).

 

The biggest challenge is probably your "off-page" SEO. You need to be more aggressive in how you optimise against sites performing well for your key search terms. You need to consider some of the long tail search terms too to fall back on. Most importantly you need to set up social bookmarking and article accounts and start posting articles, blog posts and status comments to everywhere from facebook and digg, to ezine sites and twitter. I would also hunt for blogs that have high traffic and allow "follow" links and that are relevant to art, design, photography and post regularly on them. This will do more for your rankings than the pure on-page otimisation.

 

Overall

You say you want to sell pictures, this is your primary goal. You have to get into the mindset of your potential customers, look at your competing sites and understand the techniques they use to create that kerb appeal and desire to buy. One way to do that is go looking to buy yourself and see what really draws you in on a site and look to replicate this same feeling and effect. Web design has moved on a lot in the last couple of years and there is more and more "drop-in" scripting which means you don't need to know how to program, just how to style and position things the way you want them. Even beginners, with some good organisation and some good support such as a forum like this can produce high quality results.

 

The most important thing for you though is building the network of links from other sites to yours (ideally one-way). Each one will give you a little bit of link juice and make Google feel your more important and rank you accordingly. But, having a customer land on your site and getting them to buy are separate thinks and no amount of traffic will bring success to a less than effectively designed and marketed site.

 

I sincerely hope you find the above constructive and useful (even if a little painful to take), as I mean it in the best way. I would very much love for you to succeed. If you have questions or want to ask me about any of the above, please either message me or post it and I'll reply as soon as poss.

 

Regards

 

Andy

Edited January 11, 201115 yr by ahughes3

.........forgot to mention your page names. Google reads the name of the physical urls of your site pages. If you have a page called P1000644.htm, Google won't know what this means or is relevant to so it will rank it accordingly. However, if this page was called "boys-bedroom-picture-balloon.html" then Google will have a much better idea of what the page is about and improve the ranking. If your site is an ecommerce or CMS site, you'll need to find the section that allows you to configure page names. Usually it's something like "simple urls" or "title based urls". I promise you this will help you rankings.

 

Andy

I would always avoid using tables unless of course you're displaying tabular content. I can see that you have used a mixture of divs and tables. The issue with tables is that your code to content ratio is far higher when using table tags than it is using divs. You obviously want Google (and other search engines) to see as much of your rich content as possible and too much unnecessary code in the way can hinder this.

 

If you can find the time, I would definitely recommend trying to replace as many of the table divs as you can. Also, try and source all CSS from an external stylesheet as again, this will reduce the amount of code Google will trawl through to get to your content.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Thank you for your comment Jay, I will look into that!

Hi Francis, Just seen your post and thought I'd add my two pennies in.

 

Ok, so in my experience of SEO, a poor looking site which ranks well is often no better off than a great looking site that ranks badly. There is only so much a well ranked site can do for your business. The rest is down to kerb appeal, useful and enticing content and internal marketing.

 

I have to say (constructively!), your site doesn't do it for me from a design and marketing point of view. Your SEO approach doesn't look too bad but with some good advice could be more proactive and produce better results (i'll come back to that).

 

Site Structure

The design of the site falls down for me on the use of the tables and all the styling in the page itself. For SEO you need to move all of this code into separate files that you then call from the header area. Have you designed this using front page or a template or something? I can understand why you're reluctant to change this now, if you're not overly experienced. However, I did this same piece of work for a client of mine who'd pretty much done the same as you and their site jumped a ranking page just due to having much tidier and Google friendly coding.

 

Flash Header

Flash has long been regarded as a no no for sites for anything other than movies, as it wastes content opportunities and is not easy for Google to understand. Jquery would allow you to keep the content on the page for Google and then just animate it from scripting. However, animating your business name isn't, in my view a smart way to use animation. Your name is your name, what value does it add to your customers to see it moving and changing (none really). I would make this a nice picture overlay onto pure text. Then I would use some jquery to create an animation of some of the products you want to show off. Using Jquery you can incorporate links so that if someone sees something they like they can click into the animation and be taken to the page to buy.

 

Colour Scheme

Too much brown. Our eyes want focus and contrast naturally and we want to be pulled to things that stand out. Nothing stands out on your pages because the colours are so muted and washed out. If it were me, I would create either some striking contrast with really colourful larger scale images of the products or create some strong "calls to action" such as "free postage" or "buy two and get a third half price" or "see our newest designs". Something that draws people's focus and creates a sense of intrigue. Another example I've used is placing a cropped version of a product image on the landing page which then people click on because they want to see the whole thing, simple trick to create intrigue.

 

Images

The images are too small. Your site is about pictures, so these should be large, bold images showing off the quality and vibrance of the colours etc. I would personally upscale these. Also, make sure your pictures are the same size and as they will appear in the actual page otherwise it slows down the loading time resizing the pictures. When you take photos of the images, shoot them against a pure white background so that when you apply a little contrast you don't get that odd shading in the background. This makes your images more consistent and flexible for using in different media. Lastley, the image on the side bar looks really pixelated, poor quality and stretched. This gives the site a really amateur look, which isn't particularly bad, it's just an unnecessary risk to your business. I would swap this image out for one which is a higher resolution and make the picture canvas the right dimensions for the space. Does it also need to take up so much of the page (less is more), some white space on the screen would probably enhance things.

 

SEO

From an SEO point of view, your kind of along the right lines with the "on-page" optimisation, but I'd remove the style coding and tables (even though it may be a pain to do). You're using your alt tags, title and meta tags etc, which is good. I would personally beef up the content with more descriptive commenting on the products and maybe narratives on the pages, that allow you to add more anchor text and bold text (all useful for Google).

 

The biggest challenge is probably your "off-page" SEO. You need to be more aggressive in how you optimise against sites performing well for your key search terms. You need to consider some of the long tail search terms too to fall back on. Most importantly you need to set up social bookmarking and article accounts and start posting articles, blog posts and status comments to everywhere from facebook and digg, to ezine sites and twitter. I would also hunt for blogs that have high traffic and allow "follow" links and that are relevant to art, design, photography and post regularly on them. This will do more for your rankings than the pure on-page otimisation.

 

Overall

You say you want to sell pictures, this is your primary goal. You have to get into the mindset of your potential customers, look at your competing sites and understand the techniques they use to create that kerb appeal and desire to buy. One way to do that is go looking to buy yourself and see what really draws you in on a site and look to replicate this same feeling and effect. Web design has moved on a lot in the last couple of years and there is more and more "drop-in" scripting which means you don't need to know how to program, just how to style and position things the way you want them. Even beginners, with some good organisation and some good support such as a forum like this can produce high quality results.

 

The most important thing for you though is building the network of links from other sites to yours (ideally one-way). Each one will give you a little bit of link juice and make Google feel your more important and rank you accordingly. But, having a customer land on your site and getting them to buy are separate thinks and no amount of traffic will bring success to a less than effectively designed and marketed site.

 

I sincerely hope you find the above constructive and useful (even if a little painful to take), as I mean it in the best way. I would very much love for you to succeed. If you have questions or want to ask me about any of the above, please either message me or post it and I'll reply as soon as poss.

 

Regards

 

Andy

 

Hi Andy! Thank you for your comments I really find them very constructive and positive. Looking at some of the points you have raised here, I must admit I have to agree with you. I have to convine my work on the website with a fulltime job and so I do not get as much time as I would like to improve it all, so weekends is the ideal time for me to work on it. Soon I will apply some of the changes you are sugesting, but some other points you mentioned I will have to look into them, cos' they will either take time, or I am not familiar with them in which case I will have to contact you by messaging.

 

Once again thank you for the comments

 

Francis

Hi. This is just my opinions. I like your website because it's look simple and clean. And fast to load. I think the colour combinations is nice. I think you should put more images, and maybe a slideshow. Overall the design is good. Congratulation!

Hi. This is just my opinions. I like your website because it's look simple and clean. And fast to load. I think the colour combinations is nice. I think you should put more images, and maybe a slideshow. Overall the design is good. Congratulation!

Thank you for your comment, I am glad that you like it, as many people do. I am working on a Flah slideshow which hopefully I will finish this weekend. For me when I am working on a website there are 4 very important steps that I must try to achive when creating a website:

1- The website must reflect what the subject of the site it's all about (content, colour scheme, images, etc)

2- Targeting the right audience to the website it's also extremely important (SEO)

3- Fast loading (I personaly lose patience when a web page takes too long to load)

4- Last and just as important, the website must look and work the same in all different browsers.

 

Once again thank you for your comment

 

Francis

falsh feature home page is awesome, i like that!!!