Please Review Married In Maryland.com

weslinda · #1 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 05:30 PM

In accordance with another post thread that has taking place on the best on page factors for a web site, we redesigned our web site to see what affect it would have on traffic.

I'd like to have people review our site and let us know what they think.

marriedinmaryland.com is the domain and I'm attempting to make sure we don't link over so that there is no extra inbound links built for the domain.

Please let us know what you think and how we can improve the quality of the web site.

SemAdvance · #2 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 07:15 PM

Hi

Slapping keyword text in every alt image tag is a very easy way for search engines to detect your are striving for rankings.

alt="Maryland Wedding Ceremony Listings"

being as these are used for people with vision impairments... capitalizing words is not needed since the text to speech readers do not notify the user if the grammar is correct, and this is another clear indication to the search engine you are trying to obtain rankings first and thinking of users second.

Algorithms are very nice tools to determine when there are aberrations and spikes ;->

weslinda · #3 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 07:20 PM

Uhhmm...the alt is for the user, and it tells them what is on the page the link is going to, and that's what I Did, and therefore, that's why I wrote that tag so that visitors would know the image goes there.

Not sure what the issue is...perhaps I'm missing something. I captialize because I think visually it is more attractive if someone mouses over and sees the text, or has images turned off.

I do appreciate you brought up this tag, as I didn't want it to say Listings, I meant for it to say Resources.

weslinda · #4 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 07:22 PM

I have updated those to be a little more on context in my opinion. Those were the last few items to go in after almost a week of flipping, so apologies for slacking on those.

davebarnes · #5 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 07:23 PM

+ My initial reaction: looks good.

- iPod is not spelled Ipod.
- It is too wide at 1000+ pixels for my taste. I had to widen my browser window to prevent horizontal scrolling. I am still a believer in 780-800 px.
+- I prefer the darker blue-green color because it provides better visual contrast with the white text.
- The Times Roman font for Forums... is just wrong. It goes against the rest of the homepage.
- I am not in love the photos. They look stock. And, raw oysters, yuck. Not because I don't like oysters. I do. I just don't think that gray food is pretty.

weslinda · #6 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 07:28 PM

Less than 5% of users are using 800px screen widths today, not targeting that market. Targeting younger users, obviously getting married, tend to be technos, so won't get much of the 800x600 screen size. I saw some article recently that shared 800x600 was almost dead, but I can't remember where I saw it.

Regarding the Times for the Forums, I'm not sure why you are seeing Times. It's set for Verdana then Arial, so you shouldn't be seeing times.

Photos are stock, if you followed the original thread, this was flip of an old stagnant site that nothing much had been done with.

Gotta fix the iPod thing, wonder if Apple will come after me?

davebarnes · #7 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 08:46 PM

Quote:

Less than 5% of users are using 800px screen widths today, not targeting that market. Targeting younger users, obviously getting married, tend to be technos, so won't get much of the 800x600 screen size. I saw some article recently that shared 800x600 was almost dead, but I can't remember where I saw it.

TheCounter.com: The Full-Featured Web Counter with Graphic Reports and Detailed Information shows that it is slightly more than 5%.

I agree that MONITOR resolutions are larger than 800. But, not everyone surfs with their browser window at full screen. And, then you lose pixels for the borders. And, then you lose pixels devoted to the list of bookmarks on the side.

weslinda · #8 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 08:56 PM

What do I do for my 15-20% that are using 1280x1024? Or 5% that are using 1440 x 900? Come on, lets not try and overanalyze something.

I'm not designing at 800x600 dave, no matter how many times you tell me I need to.

weslinda · #9 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 08:57 PM

What should I do if one of those 800x600 has their font size increased as well Dave? Build it at 600 pixel width to accomodate them?

davebarnes · #10 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 09:14 PM

Quote:

I'm not designing at 800x600 Dave, no matter how many times you tell me I need to.

I know that. But, it won't stop me. I just hate horizontal scrolling.

weslinda · #11 (**permalink**) 07-02-2007, 09:46 PM

Can you stop with me? We have this discussion every time I post a site, and it's annoying. I mean seriously. Anyone using 800x600 understands they have to scroll. It is a matter of fact on 98% of web sites out there. If not more.

Seriously. I'm not going to turn off the masses to appease the minority. 800px or less is just too little space to market effectively when a site has a great deal of information. I'd rather force horizontal scrolling for 5% of the market, and reduce vertical scrolling for the other 95%, and that's what I'm going to do.

We all know the importance of above the fold, and I'm going to aim at the masses with this.

The issue is that you are only seeing the 5% and how the horizontal scrolling will affect them and not how increased vertical scrolling might affect the other 95%, and this is only one of the lines of thought we could run with.