New to forum and to website design

[CBarrett]

I have my first website up and I would appreciate it if someone would go take a look and let me know what needs fixed. I am terrible at html coding so I have used serveral different editors to get my pages done. Any kind of feedback would be greatly appreciated.
*S*
Carolyn
http://www.carolynsbarrett.com

[CBarrett]

I have my first website up and I would appreciate it if someone would go take a look and let me know what needs fixed. I am terrible at html coding so I have used serveral different editors to get my pages done. Any kind of feedback would be greatly appreciated.
*S*
Carolyn
http://www.carolynsbarrett.com

[CBarrett]

there are little blue lines next to some of the pictures. They are not there when I use the AOL browser (which I hate to use becuase of terrible things it does to graphics). Anyone have any help for me?
Thanks,
Carolyn

[mom_de_bomb]

Dear cbarrett,
Your site is just beautiful. I don't see any weird line in IE.

Can you please tell me, what is a tube? I keep seeing that but never an explanation of what it is.

Sharon P.
www.fischerpassmoredesign.com

[CBarrett]

I should have made it back in here to say that I finally got rid of those little blue lines.

It is a little hard to explain about tubes...other programs call them different things, such as nozzles (I think Painter does that)...anyway, in PSP a tube is a picture with a transparent background that is used by clicking on the tubes tool, and the picture will show up wherever on your canvas that you cursor is at. They can be resized also if one happens to be too big or small.

I hope this helps a little!
*S*
Carolyn

[Mickie]

Carolyn,

I only have two suggestions.

First, I think it is a good idea to have some text on your home page if only for visiting spiders from search engines.

Secondly, I like your design but would reduce everything a bit so that the home page (or at least the main links) can be seen without scrolling. This is your chance to show off your talents, so if you can show it as one design unit
it will be much more impressive.

IMHO

Mickie

[mom_de_bomb]

Hi Carolyn,
Yes, what Mickie said. Did you know that spiders can't read text that is part of a graphic. A friend also told me that the title is very important as far as the spiders classifying your site. What this means is that visiting spiders will read :
"StudioBeanHomepage, SiteRing by bravenet.com," and "This site owned and maintained by Carolyn Barrett"
and that is all the info they will have to classify your site. If you read some other websites front page you will see that they repeat the keywords for their category as often as possible. This is because the site with the words the most often will be the first displayed by the search engines when someone makes a query, like for "artists" for example. As the words are repeated less often, the percentage of the match to the surfer's query goes down and the site is further down on the list.

Sometimes it's a challenge getting the word art and artist in as often as possible without sounding really dumb.


Sharon

Sharon P.
www.fischerpassmoredesign.com

[This message was edited by mom_de_bomb on July 10, 2001 at 15:35.]

[CBarrett]

I didn't realize how search engines worked. I will work on the page tonight after I am done babysitting with my month old godson! I will be ready for some relaxation by then.
I am really glad that I found this group that is willing to give honest opinions instead of saying what they think the person wants to hear. I am still new to all of this and I am certainly willing to learn anything I can.
Thanks!
*S*
Carolyn

[CBarrett]

I have redone my homepage and incorporated your suggesions, and actually I think is more visually appealing. Would you mind doing another site check for me and letting me know of any errors, or any other changes you would suggest?
Thanks so much!
*S*
Carolyn

[JoeBananas]

If your interested in finding out more about SEO then check out the following:
www.rankwrite.com
www.sedirectory.com
www.searchenginewatch.com
www.searchengines.com

The most important things are to include your keywords/phrases in your TITLE tag and repeating these same words and phrases on your page, ideally in your heading tags also. You should also add the META tags for Description - one or two sentences that describe the content of your site. Also add the META tag for Keywords - words or phrases that you think people might search on to find your site but these need to actually be mentioned in the text on the page and in your TITLE tag, headings also.
See the sites mentioned above for further information. Beware, you will get downgraded or even ignored if the search engine spiders think you are bending their rules (repeating keywords an excessive amount of times for example).
Use every allowable trick in the book - ALT tags, comment tags etc they all count.

Joe
http://www.therealperth.com
An independent online guide to Perth, Scotland