Overall Design:
I'm worried the design might be either loved or hated in a design sense. What do you think? Should I stick with it for a while or go for a more mainstream design?

SEO:
Also, beleive it or not, I've never had to worry about seo before - I get most of my customers by word of mouth and through agencies who do my advertising for me... So please tell me - Am I looking okay that way? Any suggestions?

So far, I've only optimized the front page of the site - I want to make sure I've got that right before moving on to my other pages.

Traffic:
What little traffic I do get, I seem to loose on the following pages: contact.html about.html portfolio.html and quote.html (especially the portfolio and about).
Any suggestions on that?

I know that my front page is a bit on the heavy side, but I'm at a crossroads on that - I gear my business towards companies that use highspeed and don't think I should worry too much about dialup's viewing my site. Do you think I'm being too egotistical in that regard?

~Also~
I recently signed up for Miva just to test user reaction, but I got slammed with hits very suddenly (All in the middle of the night too.) and not one person ventured further than the front page. Nearly all downloaded the entire front page however - but that is as far as they went. That tells me it was not because the page took too long to load, but perhaps click-fraud? Anyone had any similar experiences with Miva?

Thank you all for helping me out!

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Ecommerce web site design

I think you need to step back and look at your home page. Is it user-friendly? Is it clean and inviting? Is your own identity clear?

My first impression of your site is one of being overwhelmed. Your information feels crammed into small spaces and it's very hard to determine what you do (not good for a logo designer), not to mention what I should do next.

Your LogoGem logo needs to be at the top; right now it looks like a banner ad.

As I got further into your site, I can see how someone could easily leave - there's no navigation on your interior pages, only the browser BACK button. I was on a logo portfolio page and didn't know how view your packages and case studies (links on the previous page).

Your Clients page (portfolio) needs a more interesting presentation, it seems very disorganized at first glance and the two-column layout doesn't make sense here.

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Marcie Wolf
AlphaGeek Web Design | MarcieWolf.com

Marcie - Thank you. It's sometimes hard to see fundamentals when you exhast yourself on other clients. Taking the time to work on your own site somehow seems to take a backseat to paying customers. :-(

I recently dumped a JavaScript menu off my site to help with seo, which created the navigation problem you mentioned. I haven't gone back yet to rectify that situation yet. Do you know any way to include a slide-down menu without the seo drawbacks?

Thanks a bunch!
Diana

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Ecommerce web site design

There are CSS menus that will do the trick. Check out http://www.dynamicdrive.com .

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Marcie Wolf
AlphaGeek Web Design | MarcieWolf.com

My first suggestion would be to create two websites. A logo design website and an ecommerce site. You'll save yourself a lot of headaches down the road when submitting to directories or ranking well in the serps.

As it sits now, the homepage is really cluttered. A person surfing the internet looking for logo designers is going to be viewing many logo design websites. Each site he views is going to get about 1-2 seconds of his time before he either continues reading or hits the back button. You need to really grab his/her attention with the homepage. Instead of an animated gif, have a column showing some of your best work. Get right to the point, here is what I do and here is some of my work. Once you have their attention they will browse the rest of your website and thats where you can add all the other information.

Marcie,

Thank you so much for the help. I just did a quick tally of where I'm at this month vs. last month and I'm quite happy with the results!

I had a 286% increase in visit durations and a 250% increase in the amount of visitors that venture beyond the front page of my site.

I'm positive that the dramatic change is due to making the changes you suggested, as my traffic sources and numbers are the same as last month... so thanks again - you've been a great help!

Oh, the css menu works perfectly - thank you for the link.

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Ecommerce web site design