Suggestions for my Website?

[mrsnj20]

I just finished designing a new website. I would love if you could look at it and offer and suggestions for making it better or more user friendly...

Belly Dance by Maali

[beafarhana]

The first thing I thought, before I'd even looked at it, is take the music off!

It's pretty, clear and very easily navigable.

You've got some stray white boxes in your About text, presumably characters that my laptop can't read. And you might want to make it clear in the About section that you are available for performance and classes/workshops. If you are intending the site to build up your bellydance business, you may need to be a bit more "in your face" about it! If you are intending it to be a reference site, somewhere to point poeople if they want to find out more about you and about what you offer, you might want to consider a How To Book Maali page, offering suggestions (bellygram option, party options, wedding option, price range to expect). It all depends on what you want the site to do for you.

[beafarhana]

I somehow managed to post the same thing twice, so deleting the second one

[laura 2]

Some suggestions:

I agree with Bea about the music. Nothing chases me away from a site faster than music or video playing when I haven't requested it. Some people surf the web on the sly at work and it can be very embarrassing to have music start blaring out of their speakers unexpectedly.

I also have the weird boxes in the About text - I'm using Firefox.

I think the grey font on the contact form needs to be darker. It may be my old eyes talking, but I could barely make it out.

Finally, I think the font you've used for your Home Page is really cool for you name, but is hard to read in the smaller Egyptian Dance in Miami Florida. I'd either change it to a plainer font or bump up the size.

Hope that helps!

[mrsnj20]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will work on it more.

[lenaregina]

I love the music but maybe make an option instead of automatically coming on?

[HubicRuzz]

From an search engine optimization point of view, if you insist on a flash website, have some html content within the iframe tag so there is content for the search engines to read and analyze.

[indigostars]

-The font on the first page looks kind of like blood dripping. It looks a little goth to me, which I don't think is your audience
-Captions on the photos and make it more obvious that the photos scroll. I thought you only had three, and this was the second time I've been to your site.
-Middle East needs to be capitalized as I typed in this sentence
-I would switch up the order of items on the menu. Contact should be one of the last items, not sandwiched in. Also, you may want to sell people more on why they should take classes from you. What do you have to offer? What does belly dance have to offer? I know you list Bozenka is your teacher and you're certified by Tamalyn Dallal, but that doesn't mean much to a lot of people. You may want to elaborate more on that.

I really like the color scheme. I think it's pretty, and I like how the photo you use on your about page matches it.

[mrsnj20]

I made some changes. If you don't mind to look at it again, let me know if it's any better..
As far as the iframe tag, I will have to keep working on that. I have to figure out what it is first. lol
Thank you all for the suggestions