review my site... I will be glad to reciprocate... I am new here and would like to get involved.

This web design business you're in is really tough, Mary Ann. You've doubtlessly investigated your immediate (local) competition as well as the industry in general, so you have a lot with which to compare. I'd like to make a few well-meaning suggestions -- things that you might find your most superior rival not doing.

Never take your visitor to another's site. Doing so is the kiss of death; they're likely never to return. If you're offering to register domains for clients, use an internal whois lookup feature.

Web developers worth their salt will encourage their clients to avoid like the plague the use of mailto links to domain associated email accounts. Nasty harvester bot are out there all the time looking for ripe pickin's to pad their master's spam lists.

In that vein, you've employed a "contact" form using the mailto method rather than a server-side script. Any time you can, take control of things from the server side. It's not just a practical matter, it speaks to your professionalism. It enhances your credibility.

When you see clipart on a site, what does it tell you about the creator? When you see stock, ubiquitous animated gifs, what is your impression of the site using them? The do-it-yourselfer might not have any other realistic or affordable option. The person putting up a personal website may not know where else to turn. But a "professional designer" is expected to rise to a higher standard. You don't have to invest in PhotoShop to create original graphic elements; Gimp is a great alternative, if you put up a Linux of FreeBSD box for developmental purposes.

Good luck and have fun.

Thank you for your advice and I will most certainly take all of it into consideration.
I have just a question or comment or two about what I have done.
1.The reason I use a mailto link to the domain email is that I don't want the client's "real" mailbox clogged with spam or superfluous mail... I check the domain mailboxes daily and delete what I think is junk.
2. The reason I put links to other sites is that I am trying to establish this business and I thought if I could show the sites I have done, it might help encourage other companies/organizations to hire me.

Everything you suggested will surely be changed on my site.
Thanks again,
Mary Ann

Hi info,
I like your site. The layout is nice and clean
I have a few offerings here:

-make sure your table sizes are consistent from page to page-it jumps around a bit
-the top graphic depicts an cursor that looks like it is about to click the 'back' button. I know this is subtle..but details are important -especially when your site is setting an example.
-Likewise, the globe animation on the prices page looks like a UFO attaching various countries. I doubt you want your potential clients thinking of this for a second.
-Your top banner is attractive. To build serious credibility a high impact logo is indispensible. A site without a logo can be compared to a salesperson with a paper bag over his face. Would you trust this person?

Take care, you are on the right track!

Grease

__________________
http://www.flamedesign.ca


Logo,Web,Print,Advertising

I would work on your logo. It is the first thing people see when they get to your site. The site is clean and looks good but I would remove the little man with the starts from the home page.

__________________
Custom Website Design | Search Engine Optimization | Web Design Templates

The revolving globe is gone! just have not yet published with the changes...

Hello,

I checked your site and i have the following comments to make:

1) The look is great and the colors are great too.

2) Maybe you could improve the logo a bit. It's not bad, but you could put something a bit more fancy.

3) The website text is arranged to the left. I think it would look better if it was justified.

4) The menu at the bottom is kinda messy. Try leaving the same empty space between all links (empty space in first line is bigger than in the second and third line).

5) I also found some minor problems related mostly to the way of writing the content [for example missing spaces between words, or in some cases double spaces, links extending one space (eg. "linktext_" not "linktext") etc.] but some of them probably appear because of my web browser (i am using Opera). If you closely examine your website you will find them.

Hope i helped
Leandro

__________________
Web Hosting by HostoSapiens - 5,95€/month
1000MB storage, 40GB bandwidth, 500 emails, PHP, MySQL, FrontPage and more