Advice on how to improve website.......

[dvdbargains]

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Hi all,

I have spent a lot of time recently chopping and changing the look and layout of my website Designer Clothing Shops - Designer Clothing deals for men and women

I am now reasonably happy with the layout/features etc but would appreciate some unbiased views on how my site is looking and how well it works etc.

If anybody could spare a minute or two to cast a critical eye over it for me any feedback, good or bad, would be gratefully received.

Many thanks :tup

[scriptmonkey]

Just a couple of quick points, a misspelling at the bottom of your homepage, infromative, and, all your pages have the same title, why? If I'm looking at a page full of DVF clothing, I want the page title to say DVF - Diane von Furstenburg Designer Clothing, not, Designer Clothing Shops Designer Clothing Deals for men and women.

And while I'm at it, get rid of that horrible favicon, its a golden egg, its on countless numbers of sites, and its ugly.

Text on your pages is centred and all bold, thats not pretty.

On the twitter page, might be better to have an actual link rather than your twittername and some generic sharethis script?

UK Bargain Hunter (DVDBargains) on Twitter

Site seems to work ok, its a little slow, and a little bland, but, I presume its built on some framework that probably could do with a little updating and modernising.

[pete_coles]

Text on your pages is centred and all bold, thats not pretty.

Yea I'd agree with this one, it's also a massive legibility issue too as it's much more work for the eye to read. If central layout is important to you with this text maybe look at using justify instead of ragged right edge text. Doesn't always look right but can give you that magazine/column feel you seem to be after.

I'd also say give your body text a hex of #111111 instead of pure black. Solid black on pure white is often too much of a contrast, this will let it blend a little better without really being noticeably different to your users

[scriptmonkey]

If you selectively bolden these words on this page

Designer Clothing Shops - Designer Clothing deals for men and women

• Secretsales.com
• free
• exclusive sales
• 30% to 80% off
• fashion
• 100% genuine
• lowest prices
• weekly email invitations

Then you will lead the readers eyes over the salient points of what secretsales.com is all about, without making them read all the uninteresting stuff inbetween.

Yes, justified would definitely be a better option than centred.

[blackpooluk]

I just went over to your site and thought looked fine. It loaded quite fast for me and also the layout is fresh. I do like that search box you have at the top. The only thing I would change is your logo, it loks abit 90's other than that fine.

Good luck with site.

[dvdbargains]

Hi all,

Thanks for the feedback so far, just what I was hoping for when I added the post.

Some relevant points have been raised and I will take it all on board and make some modifications accordingly.

Has anybody else got any observations??

Thanks again :tup

[dvdbargains]

I have made quite a few ammendments based on your feedback given above so hopefully you will find the site more pleasant to view as a result.

PS. I can't lose the favicon it comes with the site software unfortunately!

[findlite]

I have made quite a few ammendments based on your feedback given above so hopefully you will find the site more pleasant to view as a result.

PS. I can't lose the favicon it comes with the site software unfortunately!

Cant you just delete favicon.ico...? It should be at the root of your public_html or httpdocs.....

Or if its software then perhaps its in the theme's img folder. Id also get rid of the linkreferal.com banner at the bottom. Makes the site look very 1995 and 000001 html counter ish. Matt Cutts would laugh anyway

Infact id tidy up alot of what's going on at the bottom with lots of unrelated links and stuff. Keep it simple and dont forget a privacy | about us | contact us and t's & c's page.

Ooooo another thing. There is some duplication of your title and meta tags in your code. Infact id sit down and hack out any generic program rubbish too. It will help with your seo and keyword density no end. You should be able to pair down the code and tidy it up nicely so it passes W3C.

[Tawnyfrog]

It looks like the coding is from the 1980s. I do would change that vile look. Do you know something like Wordpress or any other cms? If I were a potential customer I would have pressed the BACK button within 0.1 of a second.

[dvdbargains]

Cant you just delete favicon.ico...? It should be at the root of your public_html or httpdocs.....

Or if its software then perhaps its in the theme's img folder. Id also get rid of the linkreferal.com banner at the bottom. Makes the site look very 1995 and 000001 html counter ish. Matt Cutts would laugh anyway

Infact id tidy up alot of what's going on at the bottom with lots of unrelated links and stuff. Keep it simple and dont forget a privacy | about us | contact us and t's & c's page.

Ooooo another thing. There is some duplication of your title and meta tags in your code. Infact id sit down and hack out any generic program rubbish too. It will help with your seo and keyword density no end. You should be able to pair down the code and tidy it up nicely so it passes W3C.

Point taken about the bottom of the page, I'll tidy that up.

Not a clue about duplicate content and meta tags though, I'm a complete novice so that will have to stay as is :cry

[findlite]

It looks like the coding is from the 1980s. I do would change that vile look. Do you know something like Wordpress or any other cms? If I were a potential customer I would have pressed the BACK button within 0.1 of a second.

Now thats a bit mean! We all started somewhere :tup My first site was terrible! This one by contrast aint too bad just needs some of that gud ol fashioned luv

Im starting to sound like a Lurpak advert :scared

[dvdbargains]

It looks like the coding is from the 1980s. I do would change that vile look. Do you know something like Wordpress or any other cms? If I were a potential customer I would have pressed the BACK button within 0.1 of a second.

Hi Tawny,

I tried Wordpress but didn't like it TBH.

Believe it or not I have had much more success on the current format :scared

[findlite]

Point taken about the bottom of the page, I'll tidy that up.

Not a clue about duplicate content and meta tags though, I'm a complete novice so that will have to stay as is :cry

Its okay its gone now :scared. Or did my eyes deceive me?

You really should go with wordpress. You would have a lil smasher of a site (hey Keith Barrett) if you got a decent theme and plugged in Max blog n Seo Pack......

Look at this for inspiration:

http://www.aberdeenint.cardiffairportparking.net/

Iv only really just cleaned up the <head> and chopped the theme up a little. Still have some more cleaning and de-bugging stuff to do but it might give you an idea as to how customized you can go if you want to.

[Tawnyfrog]

Yes, go with a wordpress site, they are nicer on the eye. Add a few plugins, a nice theme and they'll work better! Plus much easier to update Maybe it was the theme you were using previously?

[Tawnyfrog]

findlite.. what plugins do you suggest? Always willing to learn more Wordpress is a newish thing to me (less than 4 months). I have AllinoneSEO etc. Yes my first site was beyond ugly too!