Please critique my website.

by artbyia87

Posted: 14 years ago 21 replies

WEB DESIGN

Hi, I have art prints and vinyl decals on my site. It's been up for a couple of months. All opinions will be appreciated. Thanks.
www artbyleonard com

#critique #website

dmaqtor 14 years ago

Hi,

nice website, but I think you need better header.
it's better to hire a designer for this kind of work.
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- 1 reply
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- EugeneA 14 years ago
  
  The home page is a bit plain.
  
  It's an art site, make it look amazing. The home page is where you make your first impression. You need to impress your customers, so far, I'm not impressed.
  
  Thanks
  
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JR9982 14 years ago

Your biggest problem is the gray text on gray background, you should have more contrast between them.

Your orange links could also be hard to read for some.

You left side navigation is overlapping the icon, and it's also hard to read.

remember the point of anything you put online is to get read,
make it easy for people to do just that.
- Thanks
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LeonForLinks 14 years ago

I'm using Safari and the left hand menu has text overlapping the icons. Try using a browser testing site to see how it looks on different browsers.

I think rather than saying "On this site you will find...", etc, just actually show what I'll find. Put some example products on the front page, then you won't need to say what I'll find, because it'll be obvious you're selling art products.

To convince people you are a good art store, I think it is really important to have great visuals on your site and I think you're site could be better here. Perhaps you should hire a different designer to do the design.
- Thanks
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artbyia87 14 years ago

Thank you all for your comments. Will get to work on making it better.
- Thanks
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murrad 14 years ago

The banner can be made like a panoramic view of your art. The one seems like a patch work.

Have a sitemap for your website

The landing page can be made more appealing

For SEO friendly; you must place all the text links(menu) at the bottom of all your pages.
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lovenot 14 years ago

1. Alignment of sidebar doesn't work properly on firefox.

2. There is a major spacing which is redundant between navigation bar and content...

3. Both the background and content background are grey. It is quite difficult to tell relate to art.

4. Your items for sale do not match your theme.

Well, I would suggest you get yourself a theme specific to the products you're trying to market. It does not look like a trustworthy site. Just my opinion as a basic consumer =/
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logowarriors 14 years ago

I don't like your design too much. You have to work on your header as well as color theme.
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Peter Gehr 14 years ago

Hey Leonard.

I always think it's prudent to look at those at the top of your keyword, at learn from them.

In other words, if you consider the following:
1. What makes them #1 in Google?
2. How the site is set up, i.e. layout, articles, ads etc.
3. What colors are they using
4. Spend time analyzing what they have done and reverse engineer it for your own site

I'm not saying plagiarize or copy, but use those at the top as a springboard to generate and duplicate what is winning and working.

Overall, your site it looking very amateurish, and if you want to put your best foot forward, learn from those who have made their site a success by studying their tactics and website design.

Check this out:
http://www.art.com/

I wish you well.
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Elle Davies 14 years ago

For an art site it looks pretty simplistic, but then, that might have been the look you were going for! I like the simplicity myself, it makes it easy to navigate and the layout isn't too overwhelming on the eye so well done.

Things to improve I would say are:
The bullet points in the side bar - they overlap the writing so it reads "A.Q, ontact, eturn Policy" etc.
Be more clear about the variety of art work you are offering - there seems to be a heavy religious theme, so if that is what you specialise in, use it as a selling point! Otherwise, just establish for your audience that you are versatile and offer a range of products.

Good luck, I hope this helps a little
Elle
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andrejvasso 14 years ago

The first thing you should change is to remove the stupid JS alert when a user right-clicks on your site. Its not helping you to "protect" your images - we can copy your images anyways by looking at the source code.

Also, as others suggested, there is a gasp between your navigation menu and the main content. Remove it! (Simple delete or comment out "#middle" in your css) Additionally the background images used in #content1 is matching the body backround.
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autumnsmith 14 years ago

There are things I would like to point out:
- you may want to consider using your own logo. Visitors would be looking this area as well.
- The home page is plain. It does not contain attractive or creative image. Think about adding a video and useful information.
- Improve the navigation menu at the left side
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mikedex 14 years ago

Simple website. Image is relatively big. Need to work more to make it attractive.
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- 1 reply
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- FreeZeo 14 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by mikedex
  
  Simple website. Image is relatively big. Need to work more to make it attractive.
  
  i totally agree with him ^
  
  Thanks
  
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webcontent 14 years ago

hmmm uhh you have to work a bit on the color combination.
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Osava 14 years ago

missing some javascript animation can be a slider in jquery. Regarts
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- Azarna 14 years ago
  
  May I second the disabled right-click. I had no intention of stealing your pictures, I just wanted to open more than one page at a time, using right-click to do so. Any site that prevents me doing this annoys me.
  
  And as was pointed out, if someone wanted that picture, it would be easily lifted with PRNT-SCN and pasting in Photoshop etc.
  
  Far better to watermark your pictures. That way even if someone does lift them they are still useless to them :-)
  
  It is very harsh, but because you are an artist people are going to expect a much higher quality of design than they would on, say, a plumbing site.
  
  Thanks
  
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Jaspworld 14 years ago

Yes, the disabled right click is pretty annoying. Other than it, it's OK but doesn't give to me an appeal of a completed website. Try to work on the color combination and "alignment" or spacing a bit more.
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- Alexander K 14 years ago
  
  A SEO comment, appears you don't have any H1 or H2 tags on the main page. Those can help your ranking, so could be good to add them. At the least, the H1 you should add.
  
  For me on Firefox, your side bar images overlap with the font, making them hard to read.
  
  Looks like everything has been covered. Good start, just does need a little work.
  
  Thanks
  
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Jac0b 14 years ago

you should change header.
Also I think you need more content.
Good Luck!
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yazswebdesign 14 years ago

Originally Posted by artbyia87

Hi, I have art prints and vinyl decals on my site. It's been up for a couple of months. All opinions will be appreciated. Thanks.
www artbyleonard com

Very nice, but I am using Firefox and the left col link text is over the image which makes the first letter of the links hard to read, also some of you content overflows on certain pages namely Digital_Downloads.php the banner is over the side of the container. Very nice color scheme though, defintely worth correcting and making it compatible in all browsers. All the best Yazs Website Design
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