Hello to all!

Thanks to everyone, especially Grease, for your kind and not so kind critiques. All of them were taken very seriously and much improvement has been done in your names.

It takes us all to make the web a better place to live!

Please review the latest version and let me know what you think.

Those of you who have been following this story will see a very different version this time!

Thank you,

Benjamin De Mers
CEO FreeLeadsWarehouse.com
http://www.freeleadswarehouse.com
webmaster@freeleadswarehouse.com

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Free Leads Warehouse

not exactly sure what the website is about but nice site?

Maybe when clicking on links leave the top constant and change the middle content?

some of the backgrounds are too heavy?

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MacKlamm
Original Fine art
www.globalart4u.com

I have very little idea what your website is about. This should be obvious within 3 seconds or people are less likely to use your service. Google is for searching, your website is for selling, remember that!

Regards
Thom of www.TJDesigns.org

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TJDesigns - Putting Web Design at Your Finger Tips - www.tjdesigns.org - 3rd on Google no money paid!

You've set your tables width as 100% but I'm still getting horizontal scroll. I think it's the link buttons adding up to more than 770 or rather the question mark gif pushing it over.

As tjdesigns was saying you need to explain what your site is about on the first page. Also it takes a while to find anything so use the big space with the images to explain who you are, what you are about, and maybe what you will find in each section.

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Carbonize

I did some work defining the parameters of the site look so that it doesn't break 760 pixels. I also took out the frames.

Site looks cleaner. I also created a flash presentation that you can access using the question mark gif. Explains what we are trying to do.

I hope this helps.

I was thinking about trying to draw attention to the question mark but then I thought, question mark, isn't that for questions?

I also put in alternate text for all the images so that when you hover over them they tell you a story.

I hope this helps as well.

As far as laying out what my site does? I am trying to get away from the three mile scroll. I am so tired of it myself. So I created the flash presentation. Now how do I draw attention to it without wrecking the feel of my site?

As far as a site being about selling... yes and no. I think that a site can be a bout community and developing a community can lead to sales and perhaps more long term sales as you build relationships with people.

That is what we are trying to do. We are not a search engine, we are a managed resource facility. So with that in mind, does anybody have any suggestions about how to get that across without the three mile scroll?

The truth about what I wanted the "feel" to be is like a portal into a different experience on the net that folks might choose to walk around in. Like a mall but for everyday community like things. The closest idea to what I am doing is One Website Way.

Using them as an example is not very good though as I think their site is a little drab and certainly overbearing at times.

So those are my thoughts after reading your suggestions as we all try and get along here.

See you around the forums!

Benjamin

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Free Leads Warehouse

My comment about using the space over the big picture to explain your site was for two reasons.

1 - To help with your sites search engine placement.

2 - To let people know what they can expect to find as most people will not hunt around a site if the don't know whats on it.

Text only browsers and Browsers for the blind that read out sites cannot read flash so how are they to know what your site is about?

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Carbonize

Carbonize, thanks for your comments.

I am trying to get to the bottom of this seo thing.

It seems that there are a hundred very practical ways of garnering traffic to your site that have NOTHING to do with SEO and work brilliantly. Perhaps the search engine thing is overblown. Not to say that you can't get traffic that way.

Well rounded is what I say.

Anyhow, I know that I need to have text, but how do you present text without ruining your site.

I hate sites that are just text and I hate sites that are just flash and I hate sites that are just photos (unless they are writers or photographers).

So that being said, I tried to come up with the middle road and ended up with something that is is pretty nondescript.

Oh well.

I really don't feel like starting over but maybe I have to.

It seems like in order to do something that is appealing you have to do it on your easel at home!

The last thought that I had was to try and put together a doorway page that will describe what it is that we are doing and what it is that can be done with the site and use the present form as a resource.

That really is what it is a resource for folks to save them time doing things finding out about things talking to each other. I am trying to build a community here not just of individuals but other communities as well.

I am going to upgrade my forum. Does anybody know where I can get some great forum software?

Also, I need some live chat software. I know live person has a great set up but wow look at the price. Not that we are broke but I would rather spend the money on advertising!

I will go over this with my design team and see what we can come up with.

Some people love the way this thing looks and others think it is a beautiful whale out of water. Still others find this service something that they cannot do without. I am perplexed as to what to do.

I will sort this out though!

Here's to all of you!

WE make a great team.

Words are like dust they can make universes possible or they can clog your pores!

Benjamin

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Free Leads Warehouse

Nice site, but a lot of the graphics are grainy. Don't really know what one could do about that, since I've never worked with Flash. But ah well.

As to the forum deal, I think I could help ya, there. I've tried a couple of forums on my site. I've used the ever-popular phpBB, which this forum also utilizes. It's very good, and very powerful. However, from my personal experience, it can also be a pain to modify.

Another excellent forum, and one we've used for the past year, is Invision Power Board. It's free, if you leave the little "Powered by" link in your template, and you don't mind doing without some tech support features and whatnot. I, personally, have found it much more customizable than phpBB.

Hope those help!

How do I install this thing? Can you help?

Thanks

Benjamin

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Free Leads Warehouse

Don't know which one you mean. But...

Invision's installation instructions are in the extracted directory, under: C:\whatever-folder-you-extracted-it-to-on-your-computer\Documentation\Installation Guide\install_guide.html

As for phpBB, you can simply download the user guide here.

Let me know if you need any more help.

I can upload the files but then what do I do?

How do I access the thing?

Benjamin

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Free Leads Warehouse

Which one are you talking about?

Invision. I really am not all that up on CGI Perl and SQL.

I wish I was.

I suppose these applications are easy for experts in these fields maybe I should get going with some tutorials online.

Know any good ones?

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Free Leads Warehouse

Well, there's always that tutorial that came with IPB that I mentioned earlier. But, as I recall, all you have to do is upload your files, go to the directory on your site where you uploaded the files, fill out all the relevant info, and it will self-install. (Assuming that you have a MySQL database.)

You wrote that all that i need to do is go to the directory on my site where uploaded the files and fill out the form?

Where is this located on my site. Is this the script that I am supposed to put on a page in my site?

Please advise as to where exactly you ended up filling out this info and if you could, if it isn't too much trouble, step by step me the procedure from an idiots point of view. Think of me as the stupidest man you have ever talked to and walk me through this.

Thanks,

Benjamin De Mers

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Free Leads Warehouse

Okay, I'll clarify.

The IPB tutorial is in the directory I specified, earlier. If you want to read it, that's where it is.

But, if you just want to skip reading the tutorial, and install the thing, just point your web browser to whatever directory you extracted your files to on your site, and run the file named "sm_install.php,". (http://www.freeleadswarehouse.com/yo...sm_install.php,)

It should walk you through the process automatically.

Thanks a million.

You want to link?

We have pretty good traffic and alot of unique views.

Check out our preferred partners page and tell me if you ant to and we can get your bannerup...

It can be as big as 660 x 66 if you the pace is big enough and the impact is quite a bit bigger.

Thanks again

Ben

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Free Leads Warehouse

I created a folder and uploaded it into the main directory of my site and it crashed.

I don't know what that means but I am not happy. I cannot get my ftp to access the server and my site is down.

What did I just do?

Benjamin

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Free Leads Warehouse

Looks okay to me...

Huh, I don't know what your initial problem was, but that's the first I've heard of that happening...

Site is back up.

Sorry about all the typos. I was extremely tired last night as it was late when I was trying to upload this thing.

Anyways I am using Cute FTP and I noticed that as I was loading the files into my main directory that I already had files on my site named like the ones in invision.

So, I couldn't upload into it or the program would rewrite my files.

Then I tried to and did create another directory to tryand uplaod the files into but that is where the whole thing got convoluted.

I really don't know what I am doing here and I don't want to screw up my site.

My host is a paid host so I should have a CGI bin and be equiped for php but I don't know about sql.

I will check into these things with my host and find out what I can and can't upload and what my permissions are in these areas and get back with you.

As far as the link, Just go to the contact link on any page and shoot me a banner url and some text you want as an alt and I will get it up.

Thanks, Benjamin

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Free Leads Warehouse