Codezwiz >> Forums >> Post your Website >> My Home Page,,,,Look at and tell me what u think of it

First of all let me say that I applaud anyone who dives in and has a go rather than just asking someone else to do it. Not everyone has an aptitude for this kind of thing, but doing it yourself really is the best way to learn.

There isn't one of us who do it for a living who doesn't spend a good deal of time scratching our heads and muttering curses when something doesn't work first time.

So.. well done for getting this far with your site. You posted it here because you want opinions on it, and presumably ideas to improve on what you have so far, so here's my 2 cents.

I think for a homepage, it's fine. Its colourful, it has a counter, it has an interesting tiling background, it has a guestbook for feedback.
If that was as far as it went, that's all I'd have to say, but you mentioned that you hope to do this for a living, so I'll carry on.

There are certain things that usually distinguish a professional website from a home made one. These things are... a counter, an interesting tiling background and a guestbook.

We've all done it. My first webpage had them too. I was checking the counter on my site every 5 minutes to see what 'traffic' I was getting. Of course, the only traffic was me checking the traffic.

While most commercial sites have counters, they're usually invisible. If you only get 3 visitors in a day, you don't want your competition to know it. Most have some kind of feedback method, usually a form. Again, if the feedback is negative, you wouldn't want it there for all to see. Busy backgrounds tend to confuse the eye away from the text and images, and that's the last thing you want to do.

Look around at some good commercial websites and take note of the layout. Most of them will have unclutterered pages that draw your eye to the significant things they want you to read. Quite often you'll see an generic image that seems to have no purpose other than to look pretty. Well that's just the point of it. It's there to give an overall 'feel' to the page without distracting you from the text.
Look also at the navigation. People have to be able to get to where they want to be quickly.

If you take note of some of the things that pro designers are doing, and apply them to your designs, you will get better results. I'm not saying copy other people's designs, but just get a feel for layouts, content and colours.

I'm saying all this not to put your site down, but to help you to take what you have worked hard for, and take it to the next level. I'm sure that if you continue to put the time and effort in, you'll soon be producing even better designs.

TY Red for the advice,,,,,and i will c what i can do

you really dont learn how to HIDE things from a Web Site Design Course,,,,

they just more or less teach u enough to get u going

the css that u c me using,,,is all i learned in the course

but the main page css was given to me,,,that is y i had to ask how to change the background on it,,,,i wish i could understand what all of the stuff on the main page meant,,,,but the only thing i can actually say that i understand on the main page,,,is how to change my pictures, links, and wording

the person that gave me that to try to help me out,,,in a way,,,didn't help,,,cuz i dont understand what all is there,,,so im sorta lost on my main page as to editing it,,,but i do know what im doing on the rest of the pages,,,cuz those i modified and updated while going through my lessons

and though the main page was originally made for me,,,i have been the one to keep it up with the changes and the counters and guest book that r on it

i just wish i knew more about css than what the course taught me,,,cuz there was only ONE lesson out of 18 on css,,,the rest were mainly ur basic html & putting music and things on the sites

but i want to keep trying,,and i feel that the more i work on my own page and update it with trying out new things with css and other web design tools,,,that maybe someday,,,i will b good enough to do it as a living

and like i said earlier {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{ HUGS }}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} to everyone that has been helping me LEARN how to do things,,,instead of just GIVING me the codes to be able to do it,,,cuz u doing it for me,,,,like RED said,,,i learn nothing,,,and i believe tuffy, telli, taut, staffie, goddsego & kelly also said that to me once or twice before,,,

TY ALL

KIM

Actually, CSS is not so hard to learn. And it's a whole lot easier to keep your pages updated if all of your styles are kept in one place. Best thing to happen to web design since sliced bread!

Here's a tutorial I wrote for putting CSS on league pages:
[ Register or login to view links on this board. ]

If you're just starting out with CSS, you might want to check out these tutorials as well:
[ Register or login to view links on this board. ]

They explain it alot better than I can.