Upgrades

nseidm1 · #1 (**permalink**) 01-24-2007, 12:16 AM

Comments please on alignment, the new main navigation links, colors, and SEO if you willing to dig a little.

As people that have commented before will notice, the website has come a long long way since I first started posting here. Traffic is starting to go through the roof, and the google ads are starting to cover some of my company billing.

CJacobson · #2 (**permalink**) 01-24-2007, 06:00 PM

This is a very pretty and stylish website. You're doing great work with it.

My first impression it that you aren't very clear about who you're marketing to, or what you're selling. Are you hoping to actually sell something? Or are you looking for grant money and basic reseach funding? Will your Adsense ads be a put-off to potential actual clients?

As an automotive engineer, my first impression was you might be marketing to me. The first page starts talking about automotive applications... but another page says you think coal-fired power plants are the big market for your technology. As a visitor, I want websites to tell me if I'm in the "right place" - preferably right away.

Then there's that odd quote: "I fear that this technology will linger on the back burner for some time to come." You may be too honest for your own good.

Alignment, navigation, colors, SEO... I only see nit-picky tiny issues that you'll catch over time. Some odd grammar and a couple typos. A few places where image alt tags don't seem to match the image content. <div> tags shouldn't be placed within <h2> tags. Overall though, your coding is VERY clean and it's clear you've already put a lot of effort into SEO. I think you'll soon be chasing "dimenishing returns" - which is fine (keep chasing them!), but you'll probably find it MORE productive to keep adding new pages of content.

Do you have a site map? If not, I'd add one and I'd link to it from every single page.

I don't know why you wanted the five "bookmark this page" links/images at page bottom. I'd remove them.

It's a tiny thing and perhaps a "personal problem" - but I think the Peterbilt truck on your home page should be replaced with either a Freightliner or a Volvo. IMHO, Peterbilt isn't a player in terms of new technology and ESPECIALLY they're not a player when it comes to engine-related technologies.

flsurfkarma · #3 (**permalink**) 01-24-2007, 06:08 PM

Site has some serious Firefox problems. Did you check for browser compatibility? I'd clean up some of the images as well. Looks like they have dust around them

chrisJumbo · #4 (**permalink**) 01-24-2007, 06:09 PM

The site looks great. Couple of things. I don't see an obvious way back to the home page. It appears that the logo is linked back on the sub-pages, but no visible link.

On the home page, towards the bottom there may be a typo. You have a paragraph talking about Brown Gas under the heading A Premier Clarification of Brown's Gas. It says "...most proponents and manufacturers simply state what is does..." seems like that should be "what it does" instead.

On your menus, the tab remains highlighted when the cursor moves away. You may want to have the current tab you are on differentiated and as you move across the menu, highlight the tab the cursor is on. If the curor goes away, then remove the highlighting. I am using IE6.

nseidm1 · #5 (**permalink**) 01-24-2007, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CJacobson

This is a very pretty and stylish website. You're doing great work with it.

My first impression it that you aren't very clear about who you're marketing to, or what you're selling. Are you hoping to actually sell something? Or are you looking for grant money and basic reseach funding? Will your Adsense ads be a put-off to potential actual clients?

As an automotive engineer, my first impression was you might be marketing to me. The first page starts talking about automotive applications... but another page says you think coal-fired power plants are the big market for your technology. As a visitor, I want websites to tell me if I'm in the "right place" - preferably right away.

Then there's that odd quote: "I fear that this technology will linger on the back burner for some time to come." You may be too honest for your own good.

Alignment, navigation, colors, SEO... I only see nit-picky tiny issues that you'll catch over time. Some odd grammar and a couple typos. A few places where image alt tags don't seem to match the image content. <div> tags shouldn't be placed within <h2> tags. Overall though, your coding is VERY clean and it's clear you've already put a lot of effort into SEO. I think you'll soon be chasing "dimenishing returns" - which is fine (keep chasing them!), but you'll probably find it MORE productive to keep adding new pages of content.

Do you have a site map? If not, I'd add one and I'd link to it from every single page.

I don't know why you wanted the five "bookmark this page" links/images at page bottom. I'd remove them.

It's a tiny thing and perhaps a "personal problem" - but I think the Peterbilt truck on your home page should be replaced with either a Freightliner or a Volvo. IMHO, Peterbilt isn't a player in terms of new technology and ESPECIALLY they're not a player when it comes to engine-related technologies.

Much appreciated comments. I do not sell products, I provide the public with much needed information. I think the Adsense is ok, specifically because there are no adds on the homepage the website is clearly not designed around advertising. By only having them on the subpages people have the option to click on them, but they most always return to view the actual content. All the content is orignion, so my returning visitors rate is almost 35%.

I agree about clarifying who I am targeting, and the viable industry applications; this is difficult because fuel enhancement has applications everywhere that carbon fuel is currently used. I will consider this as I ammend by headings and title bars.

Sometimes I am to honest for my own good. I will try and refrain from being overly honest, but on the other hand It may help my objectivity.

I have already fixed the nexted <divs> and <h1>'s. All is good now.

Ahha, interesting comment about the image. Something easy to fix, will do.

nseidm1 · #6 (**permalink**) 01-24-2007, 06:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flsurfkarma

Site has some serious Firefox problems. Did you check for browser compatibility? I'd clean up some of the images as well. Looks like they have dust around them

All FireFox problems have been fixed. Was a couple of table errors, and nested <h> and <div> tags. All should be perfect now as it verifies as html strict.

nseidm1 · #7 (**permalink**) 01-24-2007, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrisJumbo

The site looks great. Couple of things. I don't see an obvious way back to the home page. It appears that the logo is linked back on the sub-pages, but no visible link.

On the home page, towards the bottom there may be a typo. You have a paragraph talking about Brown Gas under the heading A Premier Clarification of Brown's Gas. It says "...most proponents and manufacturers simply state what is does..." seems like that should be "what it does" instead.

On your menus, the tab remains highlighted when the cursor moves away. You may want to have the current tab you are on differentiated and as you move across the menu, highlight the tab the cursor is on. If the curor goes away, then remove the highlighting. I am using IE6.

These issues I will have to fix, each one is much appreciated. I'm not quite sure how or where to make a direct reference to return to the homepage; mabe a piece of text on the header somewhere.

Will definetly fix the typo, good find. It happens sometimes.

Not quite sure how to fix the comments about the main navigation links. I will look into this as you make an excellent point that I should definetly address.

timgesner · #8 (**permalink**) 01-24-2007, 06:33 PM

It doesn't really matter how much time you spend on SEO if you are going to ignore the basics. Haven't you heard the saying "Content is King"? Well, your content isn't that great. Take just one small pet peeve of mine: spelling. Your site has a ton of misspellings and all you ever had to do was just cut and paste your text into Microsoft Word or (insert favorite text editor here) and spell and grammar check it.

After you've fixed all the obvious stuff, THEN is the time to start worrying about all the rest of the stuff.

flsurfkarma · #9 (**permalink**) 01-24-2007, 06:34 PM

site is still screwed up in Firefox. Even the menu.

Contact us is underneath the rest of the menu and then the body of the site is off to the right. In IE 7 I noticed the Contact Us drops down on US underneath.

Other than these minor mistakes the site looks great. I love the colors and the logo.

nseidm1 · #10 (**permalink**) 01-24-2007, 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by timgesner

It doesn't really matter how much time you spend on SEO if you are going to ignore the basics. Haven't you heard the saying "Content is King"? Well, your content isn't that great. Take just one small pet peeve of mine: spelling. Your site has a ton of misspellings and all you ever had to do was just cut and paste your text into Microsoft Word or (insert favorite text editor here) and spell and grammar check it.

After you've fixed all the obvious stuff, THEN is the time to start worrying about all the rest of the stuff.

Content is King. I will fix the mispellings via the microsoft word technique. I will not let this easily fixed error slide. Thank you for the comment.

nseidm1 · #11 (**permalink**) 01-24-2007, 06:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flsurfkarma

site is still screwed up in Firefox. Even the menu.

Contact us is underneath the rest of the menu and then the body of the site is off to the right. In IE 7 I noticed the Contact Us drops down on US underneath.

Other than these minor mistakes the site looks great. I love the colors and the logo.

Intersting, as it comes up fine in my FireFox browser. I will check on my other computer and fix things as required. Thanks for the observation, as its not my computer that counts its the visitors.

nseidm1 · #12 (**permalink**) 01-24-2007, 06:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nseidm1

Quote:

Originally Posted by flsurfkarma

site is still screwed up in Firefox. Even the menu.

Contact us is underneath the rest of the menu and then the body of the site is off to the right. In IE 7 I noticed the Contact Us drops down on US underneath.

Other than these minor mistakes the site looks great. I love the colors and the logo.

Intersting, as it comes up fine in my FireFox browser. I will check on my other computer and fix things as required. Thanks for the observation, as its not my computer that counts its the visitors.

I will fix this as soon as possible. My attention is urgently on spelling correction, can't have these now can I; a priority.

nseidm1 · #13 (**permalink**) 01-24-2007, 10:44 PM

Dam, I had many spelling errors. They are all corrected on the homepage, as Microsoft word make corrections as easy as copy paste.

corporateface · #14 (**permalink**) 01-24-2007, 11:16 PM

If I remember your old site (I think I saw it), I think this is way better than the old one.

My only complaint (if that is the right word) is that the design, in my opinion, doesn't support the logo. What I mean is that you have a good looking logo, and the sight doesn't support it. It is a good site, but it lacks something. Maybe just round the corners on the cells.

nseidm1 · #15 (**permalink**) 01-25-2007, 12:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by corporateface

If I remember your old site (I think I saw it), I think this is way better than the old one.

My only complaint (if that is the right word) is that the design, in my opinion, doesn't support the logo. What I mean is that you have a good looking logo, and the sight doesn't support it. It is a good site, but it lacks something. Maybe just round the corners on the cells.

Any tips on how to achieve rounded corners. They are table cells, but I want to change to css eventually, therefore is there a way to use css and images to round the edges of a table cell. Using css and images will make it easier in the future to transfer to purely css, whereas if I use a rounding script it may not transfer to <div>'s because most of them are for table cells only.

A couple of links to examples would be handy if you know any!

nseidm1 · #16 (**permalink**) 01-25-2007, 12:38 AM

I am not the best at javascript. It seems that somewhere in this simply script is a sort of memory that makes the navigation link stay highlighted when the mouse is no longer over the link. I hope someone that is savvy with javascript can take a look at it.

http://www.waterfuelconverters.com/scripts/dolphin.js

Thanks so much if someone does indeed take a look.

corporateface · #17 (**permalink**) 01-25-2007, 02:00 AM

We did this at www.phillipspainting.com

nseidm1 · #18 (**permalink**) 01-25-2007, 02:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by corporateface

We did this at www.phillipspainting.com

A perfect example, I can take it from here. Thanks very much!

pagetta · #19 (**permalink**) 01-25-2007, 05:58 AM

great site, well laid out but a few design issues i noticed:
-save your logo as a gif - it will be a smaller file and will get rid of the distortion on it at the minute.
-your images on the left have a different background in the corners to the background they sit on - either match the hex codes for these or save them with transparent backgrounds.
-your main menu rollovers look great but when you roll off them the highlight doesn't disappear which can be confusing and make you think that is the page title if you haven't noticed that this happens
-as corporateface wrote, the "contact" button on your menu site sits underneath "industry"
-finally (and this is just a personal opinion) for your main text sans-serif fonts tend to be easier to read on screen and would also match your logo and navigation.

nice looking site though and lovely design - i love the logo :-)

nseidm1 · #20 (**permalink**) 01-25-2007, 03:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pagetta

great site, well laid out but a few design issues i noticed:
-save your logo as a gif - it will be a smaller file and will get rid of the distortion on it at the minute.
-your images on the left have a different background in the corners to the background they sit on - either match the hex codes for these or save them with transparent backgrounds.
-your main menu rollovers look great but when you roll off them the highlight doesn't disappear which can be confusing and make you think that is the page title if you haven't noticed that this happens
-as corporateface wrote, the "contact" button on your menu site sits underneath "industry"
-finally (and this is just a personal opinion) for your main text sans-serif fonts tend to be easier to read on screen and would also match your logo and navigation.

nice looking site though and lovely design - i love the logo :-)

Great comments! I have already fixed the main navigation to be purely css and when the mouse moves off the links the mouseover disables! Everything appears fine on my FireFox! As for the grey background for the images, I kinda like them because it makes a clean line on the right side, I may decide to remove them in the future, but for now I'm gonna keep them. I tried San Serif, and Arial, but they are soooo square, I may change them in the future, but for now I'm just gonna cut text from the paragraphs to make them easier to read.

Thanks for the tips!

nseidm1 · #21 (**permalink**) 01-26-2007, 08:19 PM

I have just converted my entire website to CSS. It was excruciating and took over 5 hour for all the subpages (What a headache). This should make a beig difference in the consistency between pages. I would appreciate some new comments, as the appearance is slightly different that before. I think it looks crisper, and much more professional. I am now using Serif font, which is much better for reading purposes than Times New Roman. CSS, CSS, CSS, down with table....