espelirS2K

Dan,

Blog is a great idea. I specifically didn't add too much content to the page because I personally HATE clutter. And on a lot of detailers' site these days, it's too much words. It's like when an employer views a resume, they want to see 50% white page because then they just get overwhelmed/bored with too much text to look at and read.

I was going to do an FAQs page, or something form of an informative page. But my idea behind not doing one, is that they'll just read basic words, and not engage with me. If they have questions, I purposely put up my email (and yes, phone number) so they can get in touch with me as EASILY as possible. Will I possible get boned with spam? Yeah, possibly. But for those who really want to get a hold of me, it makes their life easier and getting a new client based on how easy it is to get a hold of me is what I'm after, if that makes sense

Thanks for the criticisms!

Not everyone like monotone/darker colors. It's the colors of my company, so that's why I did it. While it's not bright and lively, it's smooth and professional.

Thanks again everyone

danvuquoc

The core issue behind web development in this day in age is humans vs. spiders You have to appeal to two different types of viewers which have very different ways of viewing your website.

Humans, want to see something pretty and organized, they like pictures, they don't like to see too much text at once, it confuses them because most of us are well -- stupid. Humans operate at a very abstract level, they like to see things in layers and drill down to them, it's just easier for us to process that information.

Spiders (search engine spiders) don't care about colors and how pretty things are. Spiders care about text, text, and more text, the number of pages, the keywords, titles, headings, alt tags on images, and organization of the text on those pages. They also care about who links to you and who you link to -- to put you in the right place.

So how do you satisfy both? You work extra hard to optimize your site in every way possible for spiders, and provide LOTS of content, but at the same time you have to organize that content so it's not overwhelming to the user and allow them to see as much as as little information as they want to see.

The issue here is how much effort you want to put, most people convince themselves they can do without the SEO and content -- and rely on word of mouth, but let me tell you from someone in this field, it doesn't work. You HAVE to consider both. You won't get any sort of traffic if you don't have presence in search engines -- you'll only have very limited direct hits. And that really is up to you and your business model. If you want your website to generate clientele -- you need to put up content. If your website is to reaffirm people you've already talked to and forwarded over to your site then what you have will do fine.

As for spam, a contact form like you have is even better than an e-mail. I would make the modification of sending a confirmation e-mail to their e-mail address to reassure them you got the contact form. I say this because it's easier to generate a lead filled with more useful directed information on it. It'll be faster for you to follow up, and you won't have to sludge through tons of spam. Also if you do have automatic spam filters setup -- having to process all that spam may actually put real client e-mails and mark them as spam by accident! A phone number, a facebook fan page, and even a twitter account are recommended as well to really get the social networking aspect of it pumping too.

espelirS2K

Makes sense... but when you talk about content, are you saying I could substitute that extra content with a blog.. or along WITH a blog?

00S2K01S4

Dan has good points.

I noticed that when you click on the Portfolio tab, the page shifts to the left. Would be nice to increase the size of your page to fit more info. It looks tiny on my 24" LCD. Maybe add a forum to answer questions, offer tips, etc to bring in repeat visitors.

espelirS2K

I agree, it is on the small side if you're rockin' the big screens. But it's a price I'm paying to have it fit normal to "most" screen sizes (12.1 widescreen-->19").

I think I will take dan's idea on the blog. How about a facebook page? I've seen some others do it

s2khac

Web designer and former front end developer here. Dan hit the spots. Also, it's not about screen size. It's screen resolution. 575px width is way too small imo. My only guess is you're making sure it fits in 800x600 resolution, but very little people have this solution these days.

Design wise, it's all about personal taste, so I'm not going there

Careful using png. IE6 doesn't support it. F*** IE anyways . Also I don't see why the light and logo need to be 2 separate images. To make it simple, I would crop the whole top box including the left and right background and make it one background image.

http://www.acdetailing.net/img/jpg/carbonBackdrop.jpg
unnecessary detail in the middle that make the file size bigger. I would blackout that area to keep the file size down.

SEO wise, content content content. Auto detailing bay area, san jose, oakland, san francisco etc... I like the facebook idea. Just embed it right on to your website.

Embed the contact form right onto the contact us page. Doesn't need to open up in new window. Remove your email.

s2khac

facebook sample on one of the site I'm working on:
http://proofs.pbhs.com/endo/allen/index3.html

s2kennmark

looks good.... hey i sent you a reply for the template question.

your portfolio needs a mercedes.... ok i will schedule soon

s2khac

file naming:
instead of about.html -> about-ac-detailing.html
services.html -> auto-detailing-bay-area.html or something like that
etc...

espelirS2K

Doesn't effect load time, and I have infinite space so at this point it's a kinda thing... ... .

I know ryan is reading this too--so I'll leave it up to him about all that web building jargon you all are speaking.

Thanks for the insight guys