Love the Xara software!

[nevar]

Xara Web Design 6 is what I started with. For the finishing touches, I downloaded 7 premium and am waiting to hear back from support to obtain it for the upgrade price. I love the way things snap to grid.
This is my first website. I sent it to friends and family to obtain feedback from them and then made some changes. They wanted the music to open on the home page. I know this is a no-no, according to the forums, but I tried it anyway. Please, any feedback is appreciated. Be gentle.

www.ravensinger.com

[zaphodeist]

Because music is obviously a large part of who you are I think music on opening in this case is acceptable What I dislike is music for no reason, having nothing to do with the people or purpose of the site ... which might be about tarmac laying machinery

[gwpriester]

I think this is something that takes getting used to. I generally navigate immediately away from any site that starts blasting away at me with overly enthusiastic persons or music. But I tend to agree with John that if music is what the site is all about then maybe I would be willing to wait for a few moments before I navigated away. And who knows, if I like the music...

OK I like the site. It works. It is clean. Bright. Welcoming.

But what do I see in the tab in the browser? And what will I see if I bookmark the page. index.htm!

This says to me that you have not added a title to the site (which you can do in Website Properties: Website and Page sections). I will assume that you have also not added a Description or Keywords (same section of Website Properties).

You have to do this in order to make the site visible to the search engines. Make the page or website tile about 10 words and identify the site first, ravensinger.com, then add a few important words to help the search engines identify the content of the site.

[nevar]

@Neodeist: I'm glad you thought that having the music opening on the home page was okay. Thanks for the feedback.
@gwpriester: Thanks so much for telling me how to add a title to my site. I will do this!

[Cloud]

One of the few sites I have been compelled to look at all the pages, sometimes I just give up, but there seems to be so much on there, and having the music is appropriate in this case. If I could make a suggestion, the green of the background and the mainly blue page are slightly off, perhaps a different background or change the blue to white; similar to this site www.charlotte-at-redbeauty.co.uk and perhaps widen the page to 955 pixels.

Overall a very good site and it makes you want to read all of it, and I can't believe that it is your first site. very well done indeed, and I like the made with xara link on the contact page - class

Kash

[nevar]

Hi Kash:
Thanks for your feedback! I looked at the charlotte-at-redbeauty site and I do like the transparent white page background. Did you mean the page background or all of the blue? I've noticed that a lot of sites lately are going for a clean, lots of white, look. I'll try some different combinations to see if they clean it up and widen it to 955 px. I picked the blue because of the sky in the raven photo in the header. Also, it was a color combination in the template (different hues though). Thanks again for your comments.

[nevar]

Okay. I went back to the post neodeist pointed me to for a better background (see http://board.xara-users.info/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=1727). Is this what you were thinking Kash?

That certainly does look better. Now I need Xara support to give me the upgrade price so I can buy 7 premium and get into the template files. They are locked for trials.
Thanks so much for all your help. I appreciate it so much.

[zaphodeist]

Upgrade to WD7 - yes - but why do you want the templates particularly? You're doing a great job without imo

[nevar]

Good question neo. I don't think I'd know how to do the photos for the "about me" page from scratch. But, yeah, I'll give it a shot. Thanks.

@gwpriester: You didn't mean to change the page filename of the homepage to something other than index did you? You meant just the Page title, right? Cause when I tried to change the page filename it gave me a prompt that said not to.

[Cloud]

Yes that's it, I would change pretty much all the blue to the white instead, it gives it a far more modern look, makes it easier on the eyes and far more compelling to read. And you do not need the template files, look how far you have got, and believe me if you make the change to a whiter cleaner site then yours will be better than any of the templates (no offence to whoever created the templates). The tempates are good for showing how something is done, but the beauty of webdesigner is that it is the most wysiwyg software out there so lends itself perfectly to design.

Kash