My new car site.

[Hokietalk]

Yes.. I am a new and used car salesman. So I have decided to make a web site in hopes it will bring me more customers. Please remember us car salesmen are not computer savvy so don't expect a lot of professionalism in our web design. That being said, I could use some helpful hints and make it simple so I can understand. k

www.dodge-jim.com

BTW.. it's not finished yet, I figured I get some feed back before I continue so not to put a lot of work into it just to change it later. Does that make sense??

And today is my Birthday. woohooo :)

[Builder]

To be fair, Dodge was using the black background / red logo theme in its TV ads, so Jim is just sticking with a corporate theme. Although I will agree that lighter backgrounds on web pages tend to inspire more confidence in potential customers.

A couple of other things I noticed:
You don't have an address on your home page. I think one is needed to let visitors know if they are local to you or, like me, not.
All of your pages on the different models have the same <title> -- "Car Page". I realize this is still a work in progress, but make sure you change that when you finalize the pages. Each page should have a unique title.

Good luck,
Kevin -- a Dodge Ram owner :D

[Doc C]

I like the color scheme but then again most of my sites start out with a black background.

I agree with Builder about needing a location. I'm currently in the market for an Avenger and would love to throw business your way. Your profile says you are in CO, though.

[YvetteKuhns]

Happy birthday! :)

I hate to beat you up on your birthday, but... I agree with keyplyr. You can use the same color scheme, but use less black. Make the background white and use black text just where the main text appears. The Challenger image could appear next to the website name and the entire header (Ram log, business name and car image) could still have the black background as well as the left and/or right column(s).

The website name should appear as an attractively designed logo. It currently links to a nicer looking website with a much more sporty logo. If you look at other web pages on that website, you will see that the text or forms do have a white background as I described. I hadn't even seen that website until I noticed the link and clicked it after typing the previous paragraph.

Your buttons look a bit generic and they are Flash! Search engines can't follow the links and if your visitors don't have Flash enabled or installed, what do they see? How do they navigate the website? You can create two images, one main image and one hover image, for your buttons and use CSS to change your button links on hover. You don't need to use Flash.

The ram head could link to the home page. So could the image above the Flash menu. There isn't any copyright information at the bottom. But then there isn't any contents in here yet anyway. :)

BTW.. it's not finished yet, I figured I get some feed back before I continue so not to put a lot of work into it just to change it later. Does that make sense??

Good idea! If you need any help replacing the Flash with CSS, just ask. My brother-in-law Mike was driving a Dodge RAM pickup when we were rear-ended by a fuel oil truck last year. His truck was totalled, so he had to buy another one. I am short, so I need a running start to step into it. We have sold the farm, so the new truck doesn't smell like pig and cow manure. Kinda miss Mike driving up to the farm and hearing the animals go crazy. :D

[Kitchensink108]

It's 5am and I need sleep so this'll be quick:
-Flash menus are bad
-If you make the menu a bit shorter, it'll fit on my screen without scrolling, which is a plus in my book. Interestingly, it *is* shorter in IE7, and looks fine there. It's just big in Firefox. Didn't test Opera.
-The Homepage link is lonely. Either add more links and make it a second nav or add it to the other nav
-I suggest getting some sort of banner. I think the W3C is the only place I've seen that can make plain text a good replacement for a banner image.

Other than that it's just bland right now. Which means there's less to critique, which can be good or bad.

[smitty]

Yup, The flash menu could be easily replaced with css/html, and you may want to stick that form on a "Contact" page. The form could be causing some of the errors you are getting (i've had that problem before).

Other than that it looks good for someone just starting out.

Good luck and happy birthday!

Smitty

[Hokietalk]

Well.. I took some of your advise, but I been sooo busy I couldn't do it all. For one thing, I tried to fix the errors and my whole web page went to crap. So, I will just have to live with them. Also you may notice I added an address and my links are starting to be completed. I wanted to do something different and put them in a iframe, can you notice? After looking at my new web site I can see what everyone of you are saying about the black background and too much red. Hurts the eyes after awhile. I will probably start all over and if you have a suggestion on what colors and theme I should go with, it will be much appreciated.

Sorry for not getting back to you all sooner, you all are such a big help.

Many Thanks

Hokietalk :wacky:

[Hokietalk]

1.) Jim, if this is a business site and you "hope it will bring me more customers" get rid of the black background. It looks a bit devilish... especially with all that red and that ram's head - lol. Use white, or a very light color. Statistics show users trust sites with white backgrounds for eCommerce over dark colored backgrounds.

The web is a bit different than a physical store where often the friendly salesperson can help with the client. Web users judge things on first glance. You have to establish trust and reliability by how your web site presents itself from the very first impression, without that great salesperson.



Hint, hint.

I need more clues, please.

[YvetteKuhns]

You link to a related website that uses the same color scheme, but notice how much nicer it looks? Reading a lot of text is much easier when the background is lighter and the text is darker.

I wanted to do something different and put them in a iframe, can you notice?

Why are you using the iframe? I wouldn't. Anyway, change the td background before the iframe to white or another light color and see how it looks. You will have to change the text color to black. You may want the top (header) in black and the left (menu) column in black while the rest of the page appears in white, light gray or another light color.

Did you view your website in Firefox? The service and information buttons do not appear. A white rectangle appears instead! I had to view in IE6 for comparison.

Why does the logo say Christopher's Dodgeworld and the text says Jim? That can be confusing to visitors. You may need to introduce Christopher as well. The logo is nice, but there isn't enough contrast. The red on red blends together.

[g4mby]

Did you view your website in Firefox? The service and information buttons do not appear. A white rectangle appears instead!
The same problem is apparent using Opera 9.21. Also the buttons don't 'ripple' when you move the mouse pointer up and down quickly. That may be an Opera (http://www.opera.com/) bug but as Yvette suggests you should view your site in browsers other than IE. I always view my sites in IE, Firefox and Opera and am only happy when I get a consistent result in all three.

Nice looking site by the way, Jim.