hey guys,

i'm just starting in web design and e-commerce. this is the first site ive built with dreamweaver so let me know what you guys think. i appreciate it.

kevin scully


www.africangoods.net


<Mod edit to comply with Site Review Rule #1 - Syren>

I think you need to start over! I gave up on the site loading at 5 minutes, and 1.3mb! At that it appeared the site wasn't half loaded. It is my guess that the remainder of the black space left on the page when I exited is likey covered with graphics as well, and whether it is or not, you were way heavy on file size in what I saw.

The buttons are beautifully done, but 72k per button is too much! Recommended PAGE size is 65kb! Recommended load speed is 28 seconds, after which studies indicate you'll lose about 90% of your prospective viewers! You won't see much business in your e-commerce site, because no one is going to wait for the page to load at 5 minutes. Granted I'm on dial-up, but at the speed I saw on the site, those on cable and DSL are going to grow impatient as well.

Rocky

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Hello Kevin,
Sorry my friend, jsut too slow to load. Most people are not on broadband they're like me on an older modem at 33.6kps. So it's important to speed it up and get it showing. If you need to, use a lead in page with directory to goods...
I'll come back and see how you're going.
Good luck, and don't feel despondent- my first site was also far too big and slowly Ilearned.
Michael
www.humanecology.com.au

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Even with a T1 connection the download time is inordinately long. It's my suspicion that the bandwidth available to your host may also contribute to the problem. It's just another thing to look into, besides the need to reduce and optimize all of the images.

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Stew P.
Tika Web Development Group
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No guys, I got 2.76MB in 17sec.s and I usually get about 1MB per every 6 -7 sec. on downloads.

That site is way to big, not just the weight but I also had about 20% space on a horizontal scrollbar to cover the width.
I liked the links on the left hand side but otherwise rocky1 is on the money. It should be 1/30 the download size and half the width. It is visually appealing but you HAVE to use .jpg and not .png for photographic pictures.

Way too slow! Try to design for around 50 Kb for your index page, at the least. Most people won't wait more than 8-10 seconds for a page to download.
"Herritage" in my dictionary is spelt with one "r"
Tables are better done in %, one of your tables is 1002 px which does not look good on 800 x 600
.png are not read by all browsers, stick to .jpg and optimize them. The edges of your graphics on the LHS are very ragged.
Indicate the currency that your prices are in. US$ ?
No Meta Description or keywords.
You'll find it difficult to get your site in the search engines without 200-300 words of good text content on your index page.

Keep trying!

Yes. I am that good.

Take your banner4.png and your bestsellers.png graphic files, convert those puppies into .jpg, and add compression of say 40 or 50%. No real visible loss of clarity, and man does that save some load time.

That's really just a start. Forget the .png and .gif file formats - they are bad ideas for pictures with a lot of colors (like yours are). Get out your image editing program and compress those jpeg's!

How absolutely beautiful!

Too bad that noone will wait around long enough to see it.

The product pictures never did download for me.

If you can follow through with your concept while taking the wonderful advice you've received regarding file size, you've got a winner!

Don't you think that, taking no account of
downloading speed, that giraffe on the picture is cute?

http://www.africangoods.net/Bestsellers.png

Only link to the picture, because... whoa... it is 750KB to download.

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Hi kevin,

Your web site does not load at all, and I think because of too much graphics on the home page/index. Reduce the amount of graphic on home page and the page will load quickly ok.

Denis
http//www.shopwithmouse.com

Hi Scully,

Nice site - I'm from East Africa (Uganda) so it's nice to see such items available.

I visited your site, and found it pretty nice but feel you could make a few changes which would really improve things.

Background - black is out, change it to white. It will make your graphics stand out more. If you're trying to get that "African" feeling/mood consider another color.

Banners - WAAAAY to big! Make them smaller. I'm on highs-speed, so I don't care - but others are not.

Buttons - I like the buttons, very nice and original!

Search button does not work. Says "EditRegion1".

Info is nice - but the logo is not "clickable". You need your contact information. I never buy on-online from any site that does not list a phone number and physical address (even if that address is your home).

When I click on Order - I'm taken to a Yahoo page, which is fine - but the colors should be the same as your main site. I would think that that is configurable.

I would recommend that if you do decide to go with a white background, then frame your images. I feel that that keeps them "together".

Show Order button does no work either - says "EditRegion1".

Otherwise you've got some nice graphics. I would probably add some content to the site - like where the products are from, maybe some information on where the products are from (I mean, if they are from Kenya, maybe have a few pages dedicated to this country - talk about the people, language etc.,).

Regards,

Mohammed

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