SITE REVIEW: http://www.drinkdeal.com

http://www.drinkdeal.com is my first attempt at a real website.... i know the colors and layout aren't your typical choice for a professional website.... but i feel it may work considering the fact I am pushing drink specials for bars... All critique welcome... thanks...
I also know the page is too large (download time). any suggestion on how to fix that without removing too many of the images?

Thanks again....

the colors throw me off




...hope that comment helps.

Anyways...

I would get a new font. The one you're using now is very difficult to read and is taking up bandwidth since you have them as images. Why not use a standard font such as arial or one similar. Search engines like text keywords over image ALT tags.

I think you could come up w/ a better top banner image. Something more lively and attracting to the eyes.

I know you already mentioned the color issue but i would try to make it a little more colorful. Right now your page is kinda dull.


Overall cool idea for the site. Keep us posted on the changes you make.

-bbott

EDIT: Also fix your cellspacing on the bottom of your page where you have your mission statement. The text is crammed right up on the border.

Also, maybe you should take your mission statement and reword that as an introduction to yoru website. I would put that up top before the search boxes.

Dead on the money. The font choice is horrible both from a design and an SEO point of view. You should use images as rarely as possible for navigation. Your composition is very cumbersome. IMO, you should make your nav much smaller. As for the images, if you are set on using them then use just the corners of the boxes and then small a small image of the top and side borders repeating as a background in a div. Personally, I think that the images do nothing to improve the site and you can get the layout you want with a better design by using CSS.

The colors really don't match. Really.

Um, you could make it everyone friendly? I'm on a 800*600, and you're site is like not for me...yeah. You could maybe make a not of that or something.

And, I don't your site was messing up my computer, making it freeze for a few seconds, the mouse was freezing too. Maybe you could figure out why it was doing that.

The HTML starts with a DOCTYPE declaration, but doesn't quite manage to get it right.

How to Get DOCTYPE Right.

There are a very large number of errors to fix to make this document conform to the specification the DOCTYPE declaration claims it will conform to.

the colours need fixing and the font also.. kinda hard to read.. but for a newbie its a good start..

Thanks for the critique .... Most of the comments have been about the colors... which colors don't you like. Is it because they are too dark? or just the matching.... and Fonts too. Always use Arial or something. Is that how most websites are...??

Thanks again...

Thankyou guyote

For me there are only a few issues visibility wise. I viewed your site using IE 6 in 800x600. Your banner at the top could use some work. It is very plain, but not in a good way. If you want to use that font on it I would not use the white around it. It takes away from the words. Since your webpage is selling drinks why not use pictures of different drinks with your title as a banner. There are tons of things you could do with the top. I don't mind your text so much except for the top banner. I like the effect you have for the links on hover over. It adds a lot to the font.

The scale size of your website bothers me since I view in 800x600. It looked like it was HUGE and my eyes kept roaming instead of staying on the spot I was viewing. I like the little drinks footer you have going. Getting back to the size thing.. If you made it so that 800x600 and up could view it, I think it would make for a cleaner layout/design and would be easier on the eyes.

Another thing I noticed when I do a search and get on the results page all the links expand when you hover over. If I hover over some of the links the whole table moves to expand to accommodate the action. I would either make my font size smaller or make the table so that it accommodates the expansion.

Just my two cents. I hope you can see my view point.

hi there. you are using some font on yr site that I cant read. maybe changing that may help for a start

i cant say i like any of it.. sorry.. i dont mean to be rude.. but it looks like a trip back to 1997.. i think you should explore the world outside of cheap gif`s and java scripts..

i know im supose to be constructive.. so i guess i have to say look around at other sites.. what do they have that your site doesnt?..

quality wise i see alot of pixelation.. i have a Ultrasharp 19" TFT screen.. and it looks hideous..

i also think the boarder on the table`s should goo.. its really easy to make your own really nice looking boarder..

im not trying to be rude and i hope it doesnt come out that way..

its ok for ur first page

gd luck with it

Hi,

Sorry to say that I'm not a fan of the colours, fonts or general layout.

However, it's all a matter of taste - so who am I to judge

Here's a few open suggestions that you might want to take on board ...

- Brigthen up the page - loose the black and choose a clearer font.
- Add a personal touch - maybe a nice pic of a bar scene (something a little sophisticated perhaps??) with the logo.
- Drop the phrase 'And Or' from the search, sounds a bit techy.
- How about replacing the 'search by deal' drop down with some nice logos with check boxes underneath? I was thinking you could have some nice graphics of the different types of drinks / food - maybe people would be more inclined to click - search if that's what they are after.
- Techy one (something I've been learning to my cost recently) - if you can try to avoid the dynamic pages with lots of parameters (aparantly those with an ID in can be penalised), plus a meaningful name in the URL will help (again that's what I'm trying to improve on my site). I've had to write my own stuff for this but aparantly there's something called mod_rewrite (or something similar) you can install on Apache to do this for you.

Don't let this get you down - we're all in this forum because we're learning (hey, I'm a newbie too). At the end of the day, if what you've got works for you and the users like it - that's cool

Cheers,

Mike

Looks good keeo uo the good work