Critique wanted

[PaulF]

I have a site to assist selling a regional canoeing and kayaking guidebook:

http://PocosinPress.com/

The purpose of the site is to provide potential buyers with information about what the book covers and where to buy it. The site also includes an updates section to keep the book information current.

I know little about site design, so I would appreciate any comments on how it looks and suggested improvements.


PaulF

[!CC]

The color scheme and basic layout is pleasing and easy to use but I see a few problems and things I personally would do a bit differently.

1) The site is done in frames which search engines do not like and have a hard time finding.

2) The image on the front page is rather large at just over 86 kb. You might try cutting the image size by removing the text portion at the bottom and actually putting that text in as text.

3) on the 'sample' pages I would do them as text rather than images for 2 reasons......1 to be readable the images are large and second search engines don't find images they find text and I think these pages would be a great way to get text content on the site.

I do really like the idea of the updates being there for anyone to get !!

[==[)/\\/()==]

One thing I noticed was the menu frame text would look better centered or left justified. As is it overlaps behind the main context frame for me.

IE6 win98 8X6


(btw, I am a guilty frames fan myself :^)

[PaulF]

Thanks for the replies. I will work on the comments given.

I will look at redoing my web page in the future to construct it without frames.

In the meantime I found soome useful info on helping make a frames design better for search engines at:
http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/article.php/2167901

I added no-frames content to my site and also put a home pointer at the bottom of each page so that someone will have a way to the top when finding one of my pages in a search engine.

I also changed the rightside frame so that it does not change size as the browser window becomes smaller.

Any other comments appreciated.

http://pocosinpress.com/

PaulF

[YvetteKuhns]

I agree with the other comments. I would also like to add the following: I clicked favorite trips link to see that you have different font styles and even italics. It is easier to read text that are not in italics. It is also easier to read text if they are all the same font face. Arial font is easiest to read on the computer and is available on all computers.

You have a contact page, but you do not have the hours posted for phone calls. You may want to post 9 AM to 5 PM EST Monday through Friday or whatever is appropriate. It won't stop people from calling off hours, but at least you have an excuse when you don't answer! ;)

The list of places to buy the book is very helpful. I must admit that though your url says Pocosin Press, I saw Paddling Eastern North Carolina at the top and thought of a travel site. There are sample pages and reviews. You may want to add a links page to hotels, restaurants and places in North Carolina.