I am looking for some critique on the design of one of my sites, http://www.billmalonelaw.com/ .

I know that some of the code isn't valid and all of the content isn't up yet, but I'll fix that after I get the design finalized.

I would like for the site to look crisp and professional, while not using any images.

Right now, I don't think it looks professional enough, so any help in making it look better would be appreciated.

Thank you!



Edit: I am hoping to make this site into a high traffic (20-30,000 pageviews/day) site by the end of the year. This is going to be a big content site, not just a small personal site and I would like to make sure that it looks like a big site as well. Thanks!

Nice website. I will suggest 1 thing. The menu at the left put them on top of each not a bunch at the top and a two at the bottom.

Anyway ... I invite you to submit a review at http://www.anotherwebdirectory.com

Cheers!

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My initial visual impression is that it is not a lawyer website. I believe the blue/white color scheme is the reason for that initial reaction. Of course, reading the content reveals otherwise, but the intial impression is misconceived, imo. It may be somewhat cliche, but I'd consider replacing the blue with a brown.

Also, despite your intent to make it image free, I'd consider a graphic or two to break up the textual monotony, and provide more significant law-based graphical icons or graphics to again anchor the visual impression that the website should provide.

The Google Ads are much to front and center - indeed, that almost makes it seem as though the point of the site is to generate a bit of AdSense revenue. I'd consider placing them vertically on the right side.

Finally, the site is somewhat dysfunctional in Firefox and Opera, in particular the Javascript news-scroller.

Bill M.

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Thanks for the tips!

I am trying to also make this a design that I can use for other websites, so this design would be for more websites, not just this law website.

Also, while I would like to limit images as much as possible, I am not entirely against using images. I basically want to make the site load as fast as possible and a couple images in the design shouldn't slow things down all that much.

Do you have any suggestions for places where I should use images in my design?

Thank you!

I like aspects of the design, in particular the non-fixed width, and the overall balance. Indeed, it rather makes your stated goal of "crisp and professional", even if currently somewhat bland. The current design can likely port over to many different sister sites of differing subjects. And the color changes would be easy and not impact the basic design of the site.

There may be a degree of cliche, but I'd consider placing a logo graphic in the top left, to the right of your site name, and perhaps a larger graphic in the middle area, directly above (or rather in place of) your Google ads. Perhaps a graphic of your office, or a generic picture of people around a board room - I'm full of cliches now :)

Bill M.

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hi the nav bar should be the same with as the other boxes if you are going to leave it there.
I think you should move those ads, because the first thing i saw with firefox was a white space as i have them bocked and i thought the white space was very unprofessional.
then i checked in ie and the first thing i saw was advertising for other law practices

i also recommend some sort of grafix for the header but if you are insistent you can still make the header stronger by placing it in a box with some color

the text seem squite fine to read but some people like variable print size (i am also guilty of using fixed size)

on the contact page i think it is also a good idea to have a text and mailto link because some people are more confident the email will be received if they send it from their own email client

but nice simple easy to follow layout..well done

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