Ready for the critics, again.

[Lawrence Beyer]

Rob Giordano previously helped me
with constructive criticism and I have
made massive changes (except the
order forms) to my two websites. He
did confuse me though (I am a newbie
just learning how to use FrontPage)
when he said all my graphics are
WordArt. I figure he must have been
going by appearance alone. All my
graphics were created in Paint and
imported into FP as .GIF.
I am ready for more criticism. I am
trying to improve my websites, but my
knowledge is limited.

www.SOUVENIRSIGNS.com
www.AnyWordsOnASign.com
-
(e-mail address removed)

 

[E. T. Culling]

Your home page won't pull in any search engine spiders...no text to speak
of. The next page is all bold text and therefore not too inviting. There is
no immediate visual interest, especially at the top where we expect some
type of graphic. No navigation is apparent. The Intercourse sign, though in
Penn. is not very appropriate. Why not an on-line order form? I'm afraid
you're not going to sell much with this quite yet.
Eleanor

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

How is the Intercourse sign not appropriate for this site?

It is the legal name of a community in the state of PA, people use it every day as part of their
mailing address, etc. that live there, why shouldn't they be able to purchase a sign with the name
of their community on it?

--
==============================================
Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
==============================================
If you feel your current issue is a results of installing
a Service Pack or security update, please contact
Microsoft Product Support Services:
http://support.microsoft.com
If the problem can be shown to have been caused by a
security update, then there is usually no charge for the call.
==============================================

 

[Lawrence Beyer]

E. T. Culling -
You say my home page won't pull in any search
engine spiders, but you don't suggest any solutions.
How do I keep everyone out of my SOUVENIRSIGNS
site except wholesale buyers and still pull in search
engine spiders? Brick and mortar businesses which
don't sell retail have a sign on the door saying
"WHOLESALE ONLY'. I must let customers know I am
wholesale only, before they enter. My AnyWordsOnASign
site is retail, and I want as many callers as I can get.
Those INTERCOURSE signs is how I got started.
Intercourse is just a village, with nothing to see, but
tens of thousands of people go there every summer
to buy souvenirs with INTERCOURSE on it. There were
no large signs, so I started my business selling them.
I currently sell about 500 signs a year to shops in the
Lancaster County area. The picture I took of the road
sign is so people who aren't from around here, will
know why there are INTERCOURSE signs, and what
they refer to.
Thanks for the criticism. I know my sites still needs
a lot of improvement.

 

[Theresa Bennett]

Hi Lawrence,
You can incorporate meta tags for the search engines in your pages as you
design them, before you even are ready to submit them the search engines.
See http://www.webworksite.com/articles/article3.php . As far as your
design, what you really need is consistent branding at the top of your pages
and to create more pages of text content, not just graphics.

You can create a banner or logo that visually tells your visitors what your
site is all about and put it at the top of each page. A catchy tag line
would also help. Find a way to snag a copy of Image Composer, PaintShop Pro,
Photoshop Elements or other good low-cost graphic program. Irfanview is
free.

Also, the search engines will be looking for content-rich pages. That means
they want to crawl through some keyword-rich text and if they don't find it,
they won't list you high enough to get the traffic you want from them.
Although you can and should be using alt text on your images, it's the
text-rich content in each page that gets you ranked.

HTH