http://www.battensplantscapes.com/

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

The page takes awhile to load wish all of those images. You may want to optimize the images. A free resource is gifworks.com.

Once the site finally loaded the site is fairly nice. I'm not a fan of black backgrounds or yellow text, but it blends with the images you have. Nice job overall.

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Total size of your HTML 28125 Bytes.
Total size of your images 57018 Bytes.
Total size of others (js,css) 250235 Bytes.
Total size of your Web Page 335378 Bytes.

Loading time of your Web Page 77.1 seconds.

Results from 1-hit.com

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The site loaded quickly on my DSL, but 56K might be another story.

The site is beautiful, and so are your gardens! From a design standpoint, my suggestions are minor. I'd eliminate the scrolling list on the home page. I don't think visitors will wait to see all the copy, so you're losing the impact. I would not have some of the pages open in a new window. If the pages are part of your site, I'd just to there directly. I'm wondering if you are updating an old design? Some pages have a different background and different navigation.

From a marketing standpoint, I would suggest that you need to put a Contact on your navigation. One of the pages did have links to design and installation, etc. but no way to get there from the home page. I'd also suggest that you put more sales-oriented copy. Info about your company, your staff, with an invitation to work with you to beautify their garden, and so forth.

The copy doesn't need to be really "salesy" or interrupt the feel of the site. But, if you want to generate enough interest so that someone will contact you, I'd suggest making it easy to contact you, and that you ask for the order, as they say.

Hope this helps!

Kathleen

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Thanks for the respones. I am thrilled that you took the time to review it. Really great critique's.

Right off the bat.. Black Backgrounds in my experience do not sell. I almost closed it. But, I waited for the images.

Again.. should really consider a template for the site.

Your META Keywords are not setup correctly.

<meta name="keywords" content="snowplow snow plow snowplowing snow plowing snow removal fine gardening gardeners gardens horticulture horticulturist landscape landscaper landscapers design flowers garden environment Acton Concord acton concord harvard groton sudbury massachusetts mass ma">

Should have comma's and phases. It would really help with the search engines.

You might want to look up simular sites and see view the source of the site.

People also want to know the cost right away. I would make some before and after shots and give examples of the cost. I think it would really help.

If you were here I would hire you. Cause your photos show your skills.

Think of it this way.. Your site is your LANDSCAPE.. USE IT and show us the talents.

Drop the black and use Greens, Trees and netural colors.

Good Luck and if you have any ?'s I'm more than happy to answer them.

Take care!

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For a landscaping site, I'm not sure about the black background. I think you should go with something a little less dismal and more welcoming (soft hues). Like Snerdy, I don't like sites with black backgrounds.

In regard to your font style, it's not a good idea to use a font face like Papyrus throughout. There's a good chance that not everyone will have it installed on their computer (stick to the web norms like Arial, Verdana, Helvetica for a sure thing).

The site needs some structure as well, mainly with some defined columns.

Learn how to use stylesheets so you can clean up your code and speed up the load of your site.

Good luck!

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AlphaGeek Web Design | MarcieWolf.com

This is such a valuable resource for an aspiring web designer! Again, thanks to all who took the time...

Black background can work but not for your site, your images are great why shadow them with the Blk Bg?

The text is to big and to yellow, consider adding more text, everything also seemed scattered, try to get away from centering everything.

But your images are great, good luck!

Jason Tor

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Your page is so wide that I had to side scroll almost one third of the screen to see it all. I leave sites very quickly if the home page does not display in its entire width in full screen mode.

I am using 800x600 resolution because I simply cannot read anything on my computer in a higher resolution. There are a lot of people like me out here. You need to redesign your site to be no more than 750 pixels wide for us older people -- and the younger ones who may not have excellent vision. The black background creates a major problem this way also. It's just too hard to read the words.

Your pictures are beautiful, though, and since I'm on DSL loading time was very fast.

Give yourself the best chance of getting customers for your high level of skill, and make your site very easy for everyone to use. Good luck, and best wishes.

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Your page is so wide that I had to side scroll almost one third of the screen to see it all. I leave sites very quickly if the home page does not display in its entire width in full screen mode.

I am using 800x600 resolution because I simply cannot read anything on my computer in a higher resolution. There are a lot of people like me out here. You need to redesign your site to be no more than 750 pixels wide for us older people -- and the younger ones who may not have excellent vision. The black background creates a major problem this way also. It's just too hard to read the words.

Your pictures are beautiful, though, and since I'm on DSL loading time was very fast.

Give yourself the best chance of getting customers for your high level of skill, and make your site very easy for everyone to use. Good luck, and best wishes.

__________________
The Weedy Lady at
http://www.happydaycards.com
Free E Cards for holidays and all occasions, fun pages and great recipes.