Help with a website please.
 

Hi,

I'm not sure how many of you know me but I've been around for a while. When I got Sheila yorkitalk was a blessing! I grew up with my mother showing dogs (SLH dachsies) but knew very little about yorkies. The people here were just so wonderful. Now my mother, both my sisters and me have and love yorkies :D The other place that helped was her daycare.

To help them (and get some free daycare ;) ) I'm redoing their website.

If you can please let me know what you think! I know It's VERY rough right now.Things like images, font, bullet style, etc are far from final. Any suggestions or criticism would be well appreciated.

The new site is parked in a temporary location here.

http://web.mac.com/taxicreator/iWeb/Site/Welcome.html

The current site is here.

http://umbrellapetservices.com/ .

Thank you to anyone who replies! I even added a page on the new site called Sheila for YT for those that remember her puppy pictures. She's all grown now :)

wow! I think your site is on the right track, but does people really pay that much to take there pet to a daycare? I'm speechless! I guess in my small town we don't have something like that, but hmmm you sure have a great idea!

I did note some missing punctuation and unnecessary commas. Have a person good at this sit down and go through it with you word for word. I noticed the word favorite and neutered spelled incorrectly. I also noticed that on the "prices" you need to move up the small short haired breeds to make it more uniform. I would replace the photoart with an actual picture. All in all I thought it was a good website and everything looked very clean. As a potential customer I would ask why do you make them use the package within 90 days. I personally would want a year, but I have never boarded my dog or had it professionally groomed so who am I to say.

Thanks for the advice so far! Yes I'll have to look at the punctuation and spelling before the site goes live. Quick note though that in Canada it is spelled favourite, we follow the English spelling of words like colour etc.

As far as those costs for daycare they are actually very competitive, Toronto is an expensive city.

I'm not sure why the 90 day rule is there. They are good people though and I'm pretty sure they are pretty lenient on that.

favourite huh? and I thought I could only learn about Yorkies here! :)

Here are my suggestions:

The color of the top navigation links is pretty hard to read (color-wise). Older people (seniors) may especially have a hard time seeing it.

Perhaps a graphic at the bottom of the main page (that highlights or reiterates what services are offered would be a better option than providing a link to a Brochure PDF, which is probably not the most user-friendly option).

The Umbrella graphic on the front page is a bit big, and and pushes down the main text quite a bit. I'd suggest a bit bigger font for the text on the front page. If the store has a nice looking storefront, a picture of the store would fit well on the main page.

You could also create a map and directions to the store page and leave it on their site, then linking to a Mapquest link (perhaps in a new window) from that page. A picture of the front of the store may fit in well here as well.

Also, a few more "fun" pictures may help entice a person to use the services, such as dogs playing at daycare or cats being groomed.

I'd also suggest having the name, address, phone number, and contact email on the bottom of every page of the site.

Just a few suggestions, if anything I wrote doesn't make sense, or you want to discuss it further, just PM me. :)

Well gosh Dan, I need to get you to re-do my site! I've been searching for someone for so long. I think the site that this post is about looks nice, could use some improvisions, the black text on blue background does cause a strain just a bit, but other than that, it's nice.

Thanks FE exactly the kind of advice I was looking for. Heh, it's funny I'm a network admin and deal with all these high level services, including running web servers but to build a website I'm learning from scratch! If you want a DNS entry in BIND though I'm your man ;)

The navigation link I've noticed as well. I'm doing this in iWeb though and haven't found a way to change it yet.

I'll scale down the graphic on the welcome page and I have discussed increasing he font size with the owners. The map idea I will certainly look into as well as the contact info.

Fun pictures are already planned :) What is there now are really just place holders as well as many of the other images. I did manage to sneak Sheila in a few times ;) . The grooming area, daycare area, cat daycare/boarding area and retail shots are all awaiting the store owners selection.

What you see now is the results of me playing around with iWeb for about an hour. With the help of the great people here at yorkitalk I'm sure it'll turn out great.

Thanks again :)

No problem, anytime! I sort of know what I like and what may work, unfortunately, I'm not much of a graphic designer or site designer, I'm more of uhh, site suggestions person. Let me know if I can help you yorkiemom1970. :)

Welcome back, Harbinger and Sheila!!! My, she has grown up into a gorgeous young lady!! Your site is looking good .... the light grey font at the top is a little hard for me .... but I'm old!! :p It's good to have you back!! ;)

There are a lot of grammar probs in the content as someone already mentioned. The blue in the background is beautiful, but unncecessarily dark IMO. The grey font is too light. Maybe a cute banner at the top incorporating the links? Also, the font on the main page with the addresses and such could be bigger and more decorative?
I'll have to look at it more. Hope I helped :)

p.s. Sheila is adorable!

First of thanks for the warm welcome back :)

The grammar problems I'm aware of and will look into. I work at a good sized ad agency and maybe I'll see if I can get one of the proofreaders to look over it. I can always threaten to take away their internet access ;) (jk)

The colours and everything else I'll change and post again when the site has been updated. Most likely not until the weekend though. After working in IT with 2 computers and 3 monitors in front of me all day the last thing I want to do is work on a website! That and I just had 2 huge projects roll meaning my days are more hectic than usual.

Lol yeah it's been a while but I'm a busy man! The owners are also very busy so the grammar hasn't been fixed yet either. Still work to be done but I'd say we're well on the way. The cat stuff needs work and pictures and a lot of tidying up to do still. I wanted to create a "cute" site without being cheesy and that I feel I have accomplished. I also wanted it to be informative and easy to use. Having the release form available for download is a big plus.

Still looking for advice! I am happy with the colour scheme and look and feel. For a hack that has never done a site before I'm pretty happy so far. I know about the problems with the cat pages and I'll get those fixed. but hey we're talking about cats ;) (just kidding)

My favourite is the retail page, but hey I may be partial to the little girl in the picture :) I'll be hyper-linking the products there where I can.

Hits on the site have gone from about 30 to 200-400 a day. The fact that I registered it with most of the major search engines and added key words I'm sure helped.

just an FYI. The King Charles Spaniels on the grooming page are Courtney Cox and David Arquette's babies. She was in town shooting a movie and David brought them in for a groom. Attached picture to prove it :)

:D Wow.. From what I can see the site is on the right path you can maybe think about adding some animation and doggie sounds to it. You know to spice it up a bit. Maybe have some rain pouring down when you view the page with a puppy underneath an umbrella. Well good luck in whatever you decide to do and these were just some suggestions that came across my mind. Take care and I will be looking forward to the final website creation. :D