I am an amateur and have done a few sites. This is my latest, and it is about 95% done. I am waiting for the shop owner to give me some findal information. I think we can used some pages of general information for our visitors. Thanks for any advice.
www.marybrennans.ca

I really don't mean to be unkind, but whe you said "amateur" site, that is exactly what this site is. You really need some professional help.
The white and blue basic coloring is fine for a bridal site, and the pages are consistent throughout as to the header, side menu, etc. This is good. However, you need a lot of help to fix the things that are wrong.
The menu is terribly distracting, the way the links jump around when you mouse over them. All of the pictures need to be taken professionally and sized for consistency, not just on each page, but from page to page. For one example, the small pictures of the shoes are compressed in some weird way so that they do not look at all like the shoes in the larger pictures, and a lot of the clothing and product photos are very dark and inconsistent as to background, model/no model, etc.
Many site reviews from other sites have pointed out that you cannot expect to make any sales on line if you do not have a secure on line shopping cart, and with that in mind it would be a good idea to refocus the site to encourage local people to come into the store: With a map of where it is located, etc.
I wish you the best of luck with this business but do get some professional help with redesigning the site.
Sincerely, The Weedy Lady

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Please do not scan pics from a printed catalogue as it looks terrible as in the case of the shoes etc. You have got to get the original pics and scan em in. This will greatly improve the site. The way you put the visitor hits and guestbook, kinda adds a non professional feel too.

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Hi,

You have the basics here of what could be a great site. The structure fo the site is fine, but you need to address a couple of key areas. The first and most important is your navigation. As mentioned by weedy lady, the menus jump around all over the place, this needs to be sorted out as it is very uncomfortable to use, and very distracting. You also need to look at your use of graphics. The title graphic for example needs a complete overhall. It has a blue outline on the front page which turns to black on all the subsequent pages. Have a go at redoing it from scratch with a nice typeface. and some decent use of colour.

Finally, when you progress further into the site you have numerous pictures of products (some of which need re-optimizing as they look like they have been hit with a hammer). When these are clicked on you open up a large image of the item in the main window. This now means that your customers have no navigation and no method of continuing to look over your site. Obviously they could use the back button on the browser, but they should not have to. Think about maybe opening the image a bit smaller in a pop up window, with a close button.

As I said before you have the basis for a great site, it just requires a little more work to bring it up to scratch.

Good luck with it

David.

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