site review please

Asterix22 · #1 (**permalink**) 12-31-2006, 12:38 PM

Hi,

Please review my web site http://www.pcgledhill.freeserve.co.uk

This is a site where people can commission me to paint portraits of their pets. The keywords I am particularly interested in are "pet portraits" but I have slipped in google from 12th a couple of years ago to 800th.

DaveSawers · #2 (**permalink**) 12-31-2006, 04:48 PM

I don't like the menu buttons on the bottom on the home page. They're at the the top on all the other pages so why not on the home page too? Then I go to the prices page and the button style changes! Why?

When you're on a particular page, the menu button for that page is removed. This is a bit disconcerting. It is better to keep all the buttons in the same place on every page (and in the same style) and grey out (disable) the one for the page that you're viewing.

Some of the menu buttons have white bits in and some do not. You should remove all the white bits.

Headers on each page are all in different styles and sizes. It looks like it's half a dozen different websites. I think you need some design consistency to tie all the pages together.

I don't like the font (or the large text).

I think the whole thing looks rather amateurish and doesn't do justice to a professional artist.

If you are interested in targeting the keywords "Pet Portraits" I suggest you first buy the domain name petportraits.co.uk and get off Freeserve.

davebarnes · #3 (**permalink**) 12-31-2006, 06:24 PM

Pauline,

1. Follow DaveS' advice and get your own domain name. You can follow all his other advice also.

2. Junk the horizontal scrolling.

3. Junk the background as it distracting.

4. Guest Book!? These went out of fashion in 1998.

5. Use external JavaScript, not inline.

,dave

Gordonse · #4 (**permalink**) 01-02-2007, 04:41 PM

quote:

1. Follow DaveS' advice and get your own domain name. You can follow all his other advice also.

2. Junk the horizontal scrolling.

3. Junk the background as it distracting.

4. Guest Book!? These went out of fashion in 1998.

5. Use external JavaScript, not inline.

I agree with both Dave's above, if your going to use a background, make it the same throughout the site, you want everything to be consistent so viewers don't think they have gone to another website. Nice work though, I wish I could afford to have our 3 dogs done.

Asterix22 · #5 (**permalink**) 01-02-2007, 06:22 PM

Hi,

Thanks for the constructive criticism.

I have taken some advice and made the buttons the same on every page. Also got rid of some of the java - why is it important (or better) to have external java?

I need to give some more thought to the background on the index page.

Thanks

davidredwine · #6 (**permalink**) 01-02-2007, 06:58 PM

I disagree about the comment about the size of the font but would agree that Arial or some other font would look better than the times new roman you have. I disagree about the font size only because of the demographics of wealthier pet owners (who can afford your product) , the majority of which are older and generally prefer the larger and easier to read type.

I also disagree with the need to get rid of the horizontal scrolling. I think you do a good job of using the extra screen real estate to engage your potential client(s).

Your alt text references could be better utilized. Try changing the mouse over, and alt image text tags to something that will get you more SEO mileage. For example on the "Dog Gallery" mouse over, you should have "Pet Portraits - Dogs" for example. Work in the words pet portraits everywhere you can using the image alt tags.

Delete these tags in your keywords, they are diluting your ranking. (pet gifts, dog pencil drawings, portrait, portraits, watercolour, UK, England, Pauline Gledhill, pet artist, canine art, dog art, pet). Leave all your keywords the same as they are now except for that.

You are shooting yourself in the foot when you include "non keyword text" within your h1 tags. Here is what you have ( <H1><font face="Papyrus" size="+3">Pet portraits beautifully portrayed in watercolour or pencil taken from your favourite photograph.</font></H1> )

You should H1 tag only the keywords you are using that are present in your text. In this case (the example above), you should only tag <h1>Pet portraits</h1> for example. (this example is oversimplified give the bold and strong tags that you used, but I hope you get the idea.)

You need to get a dmoz.org listing and some other directory links wouldn't hurt.

go re-submit your url to google, msn, yahoo, dmoz, and some other directories.

davidredwine · #7 (**permalink**) 01-02-2007, 07:13 PM

P.S. for maximum results, always hyperlink h1 tagged keywords. the hyperlink should point to more information about that keyword phrase.

i.e. <h1>Pet portraits</h1> should by hyperlinked to the page explaining all about YOUR pet portraits. the more of these types of h1 tagged keyword links into deeper text that you have throughout your site, the better you will do in the search engines.

Asterix22 · #8 (**permalink**) 01-02-2007, 07:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidredwine

Your alt text references could be better utilized. Try changing the mouse over, and alt image text tags to something that will get you more SEO mileage. For example on the "Dog Gallery" mouse over, you should have "Pet Portraits - Dogs" for example.

You need to get a dmoz.org listing and some other directory links wouldn't hurt.

go re-submit your url to google, msn, yahoo, dmoz, and some other directories.

Dave - thank you so much for your suggestions.

I did used to have "pet portraits" in the Alt Text tags but thought I might get penalised for being too spammy?

Also getting alisting in dmoz. Been waiting over 2 years for that. Am told if I re-submit they may disregard me altogether.

Thanks again

davidredwine · #9 (**permalink**) 01-02-2007, 08:42 PM

re-submit to dmoz. you have a legit site and the dmoz team has no reason to harbor any ill will towards you.

Gordonse · #10 (**permalink**) 01-02-2007, 09:22 PM

I don't thinbk dmoz is taking any new submissions now, they are still in their service unavailable funk.

laughhearty · #11 (**permalink**) 01-03-2007, 04:06 AM

Resubmit your site to the DMOZ.
I am an editor for the directory. The server that crashed has wiped out much of the submissions waiting to be reviewed. In my case 99% of them.
DMOZ is up and running now as of December 18.

And by the way, it's a volunteer organization. It can take years to get submitted into some categories.

Alicia