Thread: New website online - thanks Bhuzzies for the helpfull tips! :)

I spent the last few days revamping my home page and updating content, inspired by the mailchimp thread for newsletters of last week.

I'm really happy with how it turned out, with a more centered design and cleaner lines than in the last version, which was a bit too cluttered.

The only downside is that I haven't figured out yet how to vertically align properly using .css without throwing off the design in different browsers, which means the newsletter box is now in the middle of the main page instead of under the picture on the right.

Anyways, here it is! Khalida Bellydance, 'Bellydancer of the world' 2007

ETA: Oops, already spotted some spelling errors in the Dutch pages, and a link that does not link. If you see any glitches please let me know, would be much appreciated!

Most of the pages are laid out well. I have one issue and one question.
The most valuable real estate on your most valuable page, your home page, is currently occupied by a mailing list form. That spot should be used for the most important thing your website has to say. Collecting email addresses may be the most important task to YOU, but your viewers may find it off-putting (I do). Instead of seeing some attention-getting information about YOU, we have a request for information about OURSELVES put right in our faces. If I weren't out there to critique, I'd have clicked away.

Date format: In the US, the format is month-day-year, I don't know about other English-speaking countries. If your target audience is an English speaking population that is used to day.month.year then ignore this paragraph.

Good luck with the new website!

Thanks Maura! I agree on the mailing form, I'm trying to figure out a way to shift it to the side or make it smaller, it looks a bit too in-your-face for me as well at the moment.

And as for the dates: hm, good point as well, I think UK formatting is dd.mm.yyyy, but not sure, and even then it would still be confusing, so I think I'll just change it to 05-May-2010 instead on the English pages.

Fixed both, thanks again!

I love that picture of you on the home page. Very dynamic image. :)

Thanks Samira! Tanja is an awesome photographer :)

PS: I just realized that I forgot to smoothen (is that a word? lol) the edges of the background pic after cutting, fixed it now..

Nice site!

Thanks Makeda!

I just have some style queries... (I viewed in Safari and Firefox from a mac btw)

- Your hover class makes the links virtually invisible. The links stand out well normally, but when you hover I feel they should really be saying "this is what I am, click me!" rather than hiding.

- The border around your main content div is maybe not necessary and you have it running into your armpit ;-)

- I had to scroll right down the page to fine out where your from and how to contact you and then I almost missed it. This website should be about YOU. So make it easy for visitors to know more about you.

- Top level heading on the home page should be something more significant and something about YOU. The first heading and first paragraph on your first page should give visitors an idea of what the whole site is about. Think of a press release and have all the important things about you and the site in the first paragraph or two... Who, Where, What etc. Good for search engines too. Can you snip some of the about Khalida and work into into an intro for the home page?

- Guestbook. Nice idea but obviously the odd design out. It is hard to navigate back to your site, I had to look for a link because the familiar navigation tools weren't there and almost just left with the intention of clicking the original link at bhuz to get back. But I think that for many people that would be a big exit point.

- Consider instead a contact page and put a link on the valuable real estate of the main navigation. If you have a fan page on facebook etc make the link obvious with a facebook icon and send people there to
leave comments instead.

Ooh, these are great tips, thank you :)
Some of these will take a bit of mulling though, off to fiddle a bit with the main page!

i would just ditch the guestbook all togheter!

I would replace the URL's on the bottom of the page by icons if possible, or turn the announcement text into a direct link.

if possible, put the social networking icons and maybe thumbnails of products like the t-shirts on the right column underneath your picture on every page. Now it's empty space, it would be a subtle way to show people realted products/sites. I also vote for losing the guestbook: the social networking sites have the same function and have more options.

New version up! (english pages only, still working on the rest)
Replaced the Guestbook with a contact page, moved the social contact pages there as well and added a 'welcome' text to the home page

Tried using columns but didn't work properly as they kept shifting in different browsers with the centered design.

ETA: Thanks for the tip on social site icons Kyria, found some nice ones and added them to the index and booking page

Added some final tweaks: Khalida Bellydance, 'Bellydancer of the world' 2007

Nice... It's made such a difference to the feel of that first page.

I think sometimes with websites we get caught up in thinking about what we want present rather than thinking about what the people going there are looking for.

ps "bellydancer of the world" is such a cool title to hold ;-)

Thanks! Your tips helped enormously I knew the main page wasn't quite right before but couldn't exactly put my finger on it. Bhuz rocks!

And yup, love that title lol ;) It sounds even better in German!
.. ovvv zeee VEURLD!! mwahaha..

Ok, just a tiny little suggestion: I would drop the blue borders around the language .gifs and the connect with me on facebook, etc. .gifs :-)

(you just add a border="0" to the img tag)

Oh lol excellent, I was wondering how I could get rid of those! Thanks for the tip :)