SITE REVIEW: CGA Investment Solutions

Hey guys,
I wanted to get some feedback on this site. Both code and design. Granted the site is live so I cant really make any major changes, but there are some things I am not 100% sure (logo position?).

CGA Investment Solutions

Thanks ahead of time.

I would like to start this review by saying, 'nice simple design'. I've always known you to keep it simple and professional... one thing I respect about you

You could either center the logo in that box at the left, or you could simply keep it where it's at. I guess I can't advice you as to which one is better though... I suggest experimenting with the positioning and possibly wait for someone else's reply about it.

W3C Validator found only 3 errors and 12 warnings, I would suggest (as I always do), to fix them

Maybe have the copyright outside of the white, centered at the very end of the document, with maybe light gray or white in color, with a small font? (I usually use 12px for font size for my footer copyright stuff )

Why do you have a link to the Wordpress plugins page in your CMS/blog there? Not a really big deal, but I think that is more to the administrator and I don't see anything on that plugins page that relates to CGA Investment Solutions.

Maybe have the text bigger in the main content area? Kind of hard to read and feels like it would take ages to finish reading a page... I actually couldn't read a full page because I felt discouraged.

A little suggestions for the 'Clients/Partners' thing... maybe have the list items saying the names of their clients/partners be a link to that client's/partner's homepage (if exists)? Or would that hurt your site's purpose and possibly users/costumers/clients? Or is that simply a sort of a bragging list telling us that the CGA Investment Solutions group is successful at what they are doing?

Also, about that search option... the only time I see it is if I visit a page that is simply not there (The 404 error handling page) [See it in action]. Not a big deal, but maybe have that option visible on the site? Or maybe it's not needed at all, I'm not sure. If it's going to be a blog or something like that there, than maybe you should have it. But if it's just going to be a site (Like a CMS deal) than you may not need it.

Just saying that there is no real way of getting to the search bar other then typing in an nonexistent page.

Other than those few suggestions/points, I really liked your color scheme and the simplicity of the design. Keep up the good work

[EDIT:] I forgot to review the coding part of the site... here goes

What I usually like to do when I code is keep it organized. I'm not inferring in any way that your code is not organized, or un-professional. You actually did some stuff that I wouldn't have thought of doing (Such as the use for <em>).

What I'm referring to is spacing on each line... I tend to show precedence with spacing in the code section. Like if you vew source of my site right now (Well, my current design I'm redoing) you would notice something similar to...

On your site though, you've got:

You do have spacing there it's just that some of the spacing there messes up the spacing of others... I guess I'm talking more about keeping the code clean rather then organized. Not clean from extra coding but clean as in it being nice there and you could easily tell what's what.

I understand that you are probably using some PHP program that generates the HTML... what I usually do is go through the generators and make them space it out.

But it's not a big deal and it's not the "right" or "wrong" way to code... just my personal preference.

Also, another thing... you've got two of the following:

One on line 7 and the other on line 21.

I don't really see anything else I could bitch about (Joking of course)... nice job

This is a very nice site. Clean lines, nice color scheme, very easy to understand and I like the fact that the main (Home) page fits within the confines of the browser window. In other words, not a lot of scrolling is required to find things on the page. My personal preference in website design is that the main/first page be like looking at the cover of a magazine. Everything is right there; without having to turn the page, or fold out a flap to see the whole picture. Once inside, then you can scroll around all you like. Very cool graphic, matches the focus of the site. Code seems fine.

The fact that you say “More to Come!” would seem to indicate that you do plan to make changes to the site. If the site is “live” you might want to take that off. If the black background is not part of the logo, then I would consider centering it, otherwise it looks fine off centered. For the text, I think I might use a bit larger point size on the font for people like myself that need reading glasses. Lastly, on business sites, I think “blocked text” looks more professional.

I subscribe to the “KISS” method of website design. It is obvious you have done that here. I’m sure your client will be happy with the site. I look forward to seeing more of your work in the future.

I have been in the computer business for a long time. I have designed, programmed, launched and worked on many websites in that time. This is my first review for OZZU, and I hope my comments are helpful.

Will do.



I left site content up to the client for this site, and apparently he hasn't updated them yet. I will email him and let him know. Thanks



I think its sort of a bragging lis, not really sure. I'll email him the link suggestion that would be good I think.



I'm not sure how much he is going to put on the site. I agree though if he gets enough content that he will probably need the search function.



Yeah I write the code all pretty but once I upload it to my test server wordpress gets a hold of it and anytime i use their editor to edit the files they get a little wonky. but its so dang convenient that I use it pretty much exclusively with fire bug instead of having to ftp every file change. I guess I should probably pull it down and clean it up once i get all the changes made.



The more to come is a feed from the resources page, which is the blog portion so that will be pushed off as he puts more post up.


Thanks for the feedback, gents. Now I get to play some more with the site.

I don't have the possibility of editing my files in my Control Panel at my hosting company, and I don't really need one. I wouldn't use it even if I did have it.

There is an advantage to uploading it every time... you always... ALWAYS would have an updated back-up of your site on your computer. All you would have to worry about then is getting the back-ups of your database (if you have one) regularly. Those back-ups are in case there is a problem with the server or anything... I experienced that sort of thing... but thankfully my hosting support was helpful and were able to retrieve the database from their servers... (or something like that... took them 7 hours to do that ).

@Bogey: Well I pull them down once I am done editing so I have a backup of the template, its just faster to edit them live as a template because the code doesn't work outside of Wordpress (and I hate running standalone servers).

Also the Control Panel isn't provided by my hosting company its part of Wordpress.

K updated the site. Larger text, moved logo, fixed some of the errors but I have a problem. The problem is the errors and the warnings that remain are coming from one of my plug ins. Should I rewrite the plug in to get rid of the errors? The problem I have with rewriting the plug in is a)I don't want to lol and b)they update wp plug ins a lot.

Also other thoughts are welcome as well. Thanks.