Re-designed Website

[Blade]

Well I am in the process of redisigning my website to hopefully make it easier and to start getting pictures and prices added in for the parts and products I have access too.

Also, I am working on carring some stock on the most used items I sell right now.

I would like your opinion of the new site design or any suggestions you may have.

website: Bills Bikes N Service

Thanks and Happy New Year

Bill

[Motorcycle Forum]

[Blade]

Found the Java hover buttons were causing some delay in loading, so I changed it to regular linked text and it appears to be working much better.

[Clint]

Bill, I see you're using an old-school HTML/frames layout. Not good. People can't bookmark individual pages, and you're stuck building everything manually. Dale still does this at Holeshot, and it's a pain. It has cost him plenty of free forum marketing over the years because people aren't always willing to jump through hoops to direct friends to a particular page.

Long pages of really big text is hard to read and requires a ton of scrolling. A content management system would allow you to break everything up into "articles", where they're automatically added to your site and its navigation.

I highly suggest looking into Joomla. It's free, well-supported, and you can find a theme to instantly make your site look professional. There are plugins to do about anything you could ask for. I'd even help you set it up if you like. Here are two sites I've built recently using Joomla. In both cases, the owners can now manage all their content with little training.

Margo Mundi's Upscale Consignment Boutique
Cloquet Area Fire District

Time to step into the 21st century, buddy. It doesn't need to be as difficult as it is. You have lots of friends willing to pitch in.

Edit: I see you're using FrontPage. I'd almost pay you to get rid of it. By setting up a Joomla site, you'd never have to deal with web design software again. You simply add articles similarly to making a post here at M-J.

[PhotoJoe]

I didn't design our company's website, but I'm now responsible for managing it. It is built on Joomla and while I went into it kicking and screaming, I'm growing to like it more and more everyday.

[Clint]

What was your concern that led to kicking and screaming?

[Blade]

Bill, I see you're using an old-school HTML/frames layout. Not good. People can't bookmark individual pages, and you're stuck building everything manually. Dale still does this at Holeshot, and it's a pain. It has cost him plenty of free forum marketing over the years because people aren't always willing to jump through hoops to direct friends to a particular page.

Long pages of really big text is hard to read and requires a ton of scrolling. A content management system would allow you to break everything up into "articles", where they're automatically added to your site and its navigation.

I highly suggest looking into Joomla. It's free, well-supported, and you can find a theme to instantly make your site look professional. There are plugins to do about anything you could ask for. I'd even help you set it up if you like. Here are two sites I've built recently using Joomla. In both cases, the owners can now manage all their content with little training.

Margo Mundi's Upscale Consignment Boutique
Cloquet Area Fire District

Time to step into the 21st century, buddy. It doesn't need to be as difficult as it is. You have lots of friends willing to pitch in.

Edit: I see you're using FrontPage. I'd almost pay you to get rid of it. By setting up a Joomla site, you'd never have to deal with web design software again. You simply add articles similarly to making a post here at M-J.

I went with the frame layout to hopefully make it easier than scrolling down my old home page and then clicking on a link. Since I do not want an in depth site, with maybe the exception of parts page where I can get you pictures and prices now. Since I am just one person, I wanted to keep it as simple as possible for me.

I will look in to the joomla.

Thank you for the input.

[Blade]

In looking at the Jomla, it acts like a frame layout with out being a frame setup up.

[Clint]

Exactly. Almost every site on the web nowdays has a static-looking navigation area, but they don't actually use frames. Not only are frames a pain for the user, but you don't get proper search engine rankings, either.

Like I said, I'm happy to help if I can.

[PhotoJoe]

What was your concern that led to kicking and screaming?

Fear of the unknown! Plain and simple!

[drgibson]

I too am building a site and also dragging my feet like crazy, started it over 2 months ago. But hey I got a gallery up!

Clint is there a good page generator that you are aware of? Right now I am just using Photoshop and umm whatever the adobe software is that comes with the Creative Suite.

[PhotoJoe]

One of the cool things about Joomla is that there are modules available for just about anything you want to do. Just install it and it's part of the page.

Photo Gallery - Joomla! Extensions Directory

[Clint]

Clint is there a good page generator that you are aware of? Right now I am just using Photoshop and umm whatever the adobe software is that comes with the Creative Suite.

Page generator? Do you mean site template designer? You can find plenty of good how-tos for photoshop, but doing the graphics is the easy part. Programming it all to work with a CMS or whatever is a royal PIA, which is why I modify existing templates. Google "free Joomla templates" for thousands of free ones. All my sites are built with existing templates that I modify the imagery for. It's way easier, and you still end up with something fairly custom.

See the resemblance between the free template and the final site? Or here and here? With some basic knowledge of HTML and CSS you can throw a template in and make it what you want.

[drgibson]

HTML I know, still working on CSS, I started using a template with my site but trying to figure out where all the image slices where and how to fit my designit them was a bigger pain then starting from scratch.

[Clint]

I jumped on the all-CSS bandwagon a few years back, but most of us have come to realize a combination site is generally best. Use tables for the primary theme layout, then use DIVs to place content and SPANs to format inline items. Keep it simple. Look for tutorials on all-CSS rollovers and menu structures. That's worth doing.

[donny662]

At a minimum, I think the navigation page on the left has to have some color changes. The bright red background with bright blue letters is almost painful to look at. Not painful as in "ugly" but painful as in "causes eye strain."