Critiques Wanted - New Site, Novice Designer

[Janice]

Helpful comments regarding our new site are welcome! www.hilaryshoney.com. We're total design novices and have used FrontPage for this one. Thanks!

[YvetteKuhns]

The website has a pleasant color scheme, is easy to read and navigate and clearly advertises a product in a friendly manner. The images are nice and the products look great on the blue fabric.

The image of flowers at the top is large, blurry and aligned to the left. The business name is expected to appear at the top of every page, including the home page. The Canadian flag appears alone on one line and the button links appear below it. The flag could appear at the bottom of the page or even next to the buttons. The hover effect for the buttons changes the purple to blue which is fine, but why is that ugly grey color surrounding the ribbon?

Scrolling text is distracting when trying to read other text on the page. It is especially annoying when it changes direction. The site counter to count visitors should not appear on the pages. Use webstats or hide the counters.

You do not accept online orders in real time (shopping cart and online payments). You may want to use a simple form as a request/order form and accept PayPal or non-online payments. It takes several clicks to get to the order information. An online catalog showing pictures, descriptions and prices would make ordering easier.

Customize the title and add meta description and keywords to help search engines list your website. Though Google ignores meta tags, many other search engines use them. Google does read title tags, so include your best keyword phrases there.

Good luck with your business!

[Janice]

Dear Yvette,

Thanks so much for your great input. I expect I'll be tweaking this thing for a long time yet!

Janice