Hi all.

I am new-ish to this group and this industry.
I've designed a couple of sites for my boss' limo company and my music
business.
I enjoy doing it and am pursuing it as a career.
I'm in a CIW course that I find out now isn't what it's cracked up to
be, but I'm making the best of it and supplementing with other
educational materials.

Could someone please peruse this site and tell me what they think?
Disclaimer:
It's not the best site you'll ever see, yet.
I know that the pics suck and I'm working on making them better.
I got some negative input from some clown on another ng. I shant
mention his name because he'll probably hammer me some more and it's
just not productive.
The bottom line is it's a work in progress. I'm learning as I go and
improving regularly.

www.yourweddinglimo.com

Thanks, in advance, to all.
JB

"JohnB" <butchusenet@wic.net> wrote:

In that case I am not going to comment [1], otherwise your next post will
be talking about a bunch of clowns :-D.


[1] look for a different career, unless you turn 11 next week

--
John

Google Suggest Perl script http://johnbokma.com/perl/google-suggest.html

So, because I'm not up to speed with 10 months-ish of learning-as-I-go,
once in awhile, with no other edu-ma-cation, I have no future in this
business?

[ Because you use Google Group, please read:
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<URL:http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html>
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before you participate further in this usenet newsgroup. >

On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 21:58:55 +0100, JohnB <butchusenet@wic.net> wrote:

I don't expect it to be.

O. Okay. Please read
<URL:http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/usenet/xpost.html> then too, before
anything further and do not multipost in the future.

Hmm, we'll see.

That's not a URL. A URL would be http://www.yourweddinglimo.com/.

1. Why the landing page? What is it there fore? I think it is annoying and
if a site has one, I'm gone.[1]
2. There is no background colour, so the bright pink of my browsers window
background is _the_ prime colour on your page.
3. 'Please click on the car'? I see no car (nor an [alt] tekst that
describes it).

4. ,-------[ Pages title ]
| <title>Wedding Specialists Limousine Service. Proudly providing
| luxury Limo transportation for most occasions in the Denver
| area. Sedans, stretch limo, Navigator Limo, SUV Limo. Denver
| Limo service for most events including Weddings, Bachelor and
| Bachelorette Parties, Dinner Parties, Company Parties, Sporting
| Events, Concerts, Birthday Parties, DIA Airport Service, Proms
| and Homecomings, Anniversaries, Theme parties, Quinceaneras, Bat
| Mitzvahs, Bar Mitzvahs, Charter Limo Service.</title>
`-------
That's not a title. That's spam, and any good search engine will recognize
it as such and penalize your site for trying this. You think they're
stupid?

5. ,-------[ Code snippet ]
| <font FACE="Arial" COLOR="#660099"><br></font></p></CENTER>
| <p style="margin-left: 40px; margin-right: 100px" align="center">
| <font FACE="Arial" COLOR="#660099"><IMG SRC="flowerbar.gif"
| WIDTH=385 HEIGHT=69 X-CLARIS-USEIMAGEWIDTH X-CLARIS-USEIMAGEHEIGHT
| ALIGN=bottom></font></p></FONT><FONT COLOR="#660099"><p
| style="margin-left: 40px; margin-right: 100px" align="center">
| <font face="Arial">
`-------
This is horrible. Really truly horrible. Makes absolutely no sense.


Before you go anyfurther, ditch FrontPage and dig in to some tutorials on
markup and css. Start with HTML4.01 Strict. Build a few simple pages that
are structured well, and are logically marked up, use/think a bit
semantics.
Then read on CSS2.1. Try a thing or two with colours and font-sizes.
Position an image with it. Train as you fight. What ever the result, it
will be much better than what you have now.


[1] I find my information using a search engine. From the first (and
sometimes second) results page with my favourite search engine, I open a
couple of sites that from their description, look promissing. Because
there are several options, I leave any site that I think is annoying.
Yours would be in that category, and I bet I'm not the only one who finds
my way on the web like this.

--
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"JohnB" <butchusenet@wic.net> wrote:

Unless you have a family member with a magic wand I am afraid no.

--
John Freelance Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

Installing and configuring Apache on Windows XP (virtual hosting):
http://johnbokma.com/windows/apache-...-hosts-xp.html

"Barbara de Zoete" <trashbin@pretletters.net> wrote:

Good choice, it probably matches what I see and certainly goes well with
the rest :-D.

--
John Freelance Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

Installing and configuring Apache on Windows XP (virtual hosting):
http://johnbokma.com/windows/apache-...-hosts-xp.html

"JohnB" <butchusenet@wic.net> wrote in news:1142974735.373932.316330
@g10g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

RE:> www.yourweddinglimo.com


John,
My honest opinion- it works better than a typical 'first' site, but it
still only looks like it could be the second site you've built. I
understand you are not done, so it's hard to critique what should change.
There isn't much 'design' to the website and realistically you shouldn't
be charging too much for this level of work- if anything at all. (maybe a
six pack or something along the lines).
I would look at more 'eye catching' sites that are appealing and try to
mimick some of the style and layout and design until you get a good feel.
I'm not saying you have to make it sing and dance- just clean and
uniform. Usability is also something to be concerned of.
Your title tag is quite long, and you are missing other metatags such as
keywords and robots. In short, the guy in the other ng may have hit the
nail on the head- but in a brash and unhelpful way it sounds. Your
example is clearly not web "design". This isn't meant as an insult in any
way. You asked for an opinion and that is mine.

Regards,

Troop

Thanks Barbara.
Now this is productive.

I only posted to alt.www.webmaster.

I didn't think it mattered.

Good input. I think I put it there to try to get more spider action.
Gad. I have so much to learn!

I'll put the alt text in.

I copied other sites that use similar title text and are ranked very
high on google bot searches.

I guess that's what happens when you allow FP to do the html work. I
designed this all using the FP GUI. I'm sure you're not surprised. :>)
Of course, at the time, I didn't even know what html stood for, much
less how to use it.
I took advice from the guy who did my band's site and he said he didn't
use html at all so...

Working on it nightly right now.
I was certainly enamoured with the thought of using a GUI to build my
sites but now it appears that that isn't the way to go.

Thank you for your constructive criticism.
I'll forge on.

JB

On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 22:46:41 +0100, John Bokma <john@castleamber.com>
wrote:

lol You make me curious. I'll just have to go and see _the _whole_thing_
now :-)

<hang on a minute />

O boy. I wish I hadn't done that. Kiddin'

One can see he's trying, but he's just got not enough practice yet. It
takes time. It does take time and a lot of work and taking in critisism
for what it is. There are those that just _know_ how things should look.
That's rare. I guess that is why those guys make a lot of money and the
rest of us don't :-)


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On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 22:53:15 +0100, JohnB <butchusenet@wic.net> wrote:

Thank you, for quoting and all.

Okay, I just picked up on what you said 'input from some clown on another
ng', thinking you must have asked the same question there too. But I might
be mistaken.

In many news clients the short www.yourweddinglimo.com will work. In mine
it doesn't :-) A URL has the identification of the protocol it uses first,
then the rest (and if it is a directory, a trailing slash)[1]. So for the
hyper text transfer protocol, you get the http:// first.

Get a few pages with some good content. Get people to link to you for that
content. That will get the bots in action.

Hmm. That only goes so far. If a compettitor complains, it might turn out
to be too much.
Try building/writing with your visitor in mind first. Think accessible,
usable. You'll find that much that is good for your human visitor, will be
'liked' by the search engine bots and indeces too.

<g> Not really. It is as I started out. About three years ago. But when I
found out, I didn't use FP ever again to do the coding for me.

I know. For small home projects there is actually no harm in it. But if
you really persui a career in this line, you will first have to now what
makes the engine move, before you get to desing the car, so to speek.

It can be, once you know what it does and doesn't do for you. Used
properly, even FP can do a well enough job. But you just can't use it
properly, without a prety thorough knowledge of markup and css.

Good luck. Just keep coming back. There's always a nut about, to give you
some advise or to help you out with something. To 'help us help you', you
might want to take a look at
<URL:http://www.spartanicus.utvinternet.ie/help_us_help_you.htm> for
future reference.


[1] This is probably not entirely correct, technically speaking. I'm not
that technical, but I think you get the message.


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