website opinions

[Tazuk]

You may have had many of these posts in the past, I have just built my own website and I am looking for some feedback from the experts. is there anything i could or should do to improve it?
Thanks for any feedback.

http://www.helivation-uk.com

TAZ

[Jayne]

Have you done that all yourself, it's brilliant, looks like a pro has done it :D

I'm the none techy expert :lol:

It looks great.

Jayne

[Tazuk]

it was designed by myself with 12 hours of html training and i have MS frontpage. Glad you liked it.
Because of my lack of experience i am now looking for opinions on how to improve it, if the site needs improvement.

[Jayne]

I'm rubbish at techy stuff to, I think it looks perfect, but many techies will be here soon to say i'm wrong :lol:

I like it though.

I like the Gallery too, great photo's.

Jayne

[Tazuk]

thanks jayne hope ya had a good christmas. i do hope the proffesionals can show me the way, i am having some problems with online forms, i am looking for the best way to have the info sent to me.

[Jayne]

Hope you are having a great Christmas too...think all the techies are down the pub :lol:

I wish I could help, but i'd make things much worse :lol:

Jayne

[Coding Monkey]

Do you have PHP available on your server? You would be able to find many PHP forms that e-mail the information to you

[Tazuk]

i am not sure i will have to ask my web server.

[JustOneUK]

what is that background picture? it looks like scribble :(

[Tazuk]

its the outline of a helicopter, :lol:

[bwglaw]

I think it would make good investment to have it professional built thus increasing your page ranking etc. It also gives your business the edge over your competitors.

Your website fails the W3C web accessibility guidelines:

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.helivation-uk.com%2F

I know this post may appear negative as opposed to others but you did ask for opinions. I am no web developer but have a general knowledge of web accessibility and I always find it beneficial to get it expertly built

It is possible to get a good designed and accessible site for as little as £500, plus. I honestly think the large Xmas card makes the site look unprofessional

[Tazuk]

I do not find your comment negative, thanks for the comments and i will look in to it.

[bwglaw]

You could consider getting a weblog, such as moveabletype, wordpress etc and have it designed to your corporate identity. Movabletype (http://www.movabletype.org) is accessible and does not cost much. You would only have to pay for the design. You can update pages etc yourself through the system.

I keep well away from MSFrontpage as I don't think it is capable of producing W3C-compliant code. Professionals use Macromedia Dreamweaver

PS. If you would like us to design a site for you with free hosting, we would be more than happy. Just PM me. Why not look at our site http://www.handsonaccess.com

[Tazuk]

just sorted my homepage and will be working on the rest thanks for all the feedback folks.

[DotNetWebs]

Hi Taz

Your site appears to be running on IIS 6 (i.e. it is a Windows server) You could therefore implement an ASP.NET solution for your development needs. I am just up the road from you near Horsham, I know Shoreham and have been involved in aviation projects before. Check out the VSI animation on this page for example:

http://www.dotnetwebs.co.uk/graphics.aspx

I would be happy to meet up in Shoreham or Brighton for a no obligation chat (I am quite often in Brighton anyway and can usually be found in the Coffee shop in Borders!). If it is just a contact form you want that could be done for a very low cost. Hopefully once you move towards a dynamic site you will realise the potential for further expansion such as on line booking systems etc.

Regards

ps Before anybody says it I know the HTML on the training pages is old table based, non valid code etc.. These pages were written in the late 1990's. They are there purely to show the animations in the context that they where originally set in. I will also be updating our own site to ASP.NET 2.0 when I get the time. This will remove the few Microsoft Proprietary tags and attributes that cause it to fail validation. All our sites currently being developed are being written in ASP.NET 2.0 and will be fully W3C compliant.

[bwglaw]

Your own website does not appear to be working

[crus]

I like it,

OK its not 100% polished, that may take a little time, or the hand of a pro to get it tight.

I would look at getting the text formatted to a nicer font / colour / layout using css and little else.

The SEO element is a biggy, take a look at seochat, some great tools on there to give you pointers. If you can keep the static HTML pages, these, along with some SEO and a links page would fare you well in the SEO wars. If needs be just add a dynamic page for the email news things.

D

[DotNetWebs]

handson do you mean my site is not working?

It is working fine for me and there are no errors in the server logs??

Regards

[bwglaw]

handson do you mean my site is not working?

It is working fine for me and there are no errors in the server logs??

Regards

Yes, A WIN standard error appeared saying 'under construction' etc. Tried again, same. Other sites elsewhere appear to be working.

[bwglaw]

just sorted my homepage and will be working on the rest thanks for all the feedback folks.

Taz, well done, home page passed validation. However other pages need tweaking. I would also like to suggest that the map and all flags are removed - flags in my view make the site appear unprofessional. You will then have plenty of space for more text or to align the text further across the site.

You are getting there! Did you get someone to fix the validation issues?

[crus]

Dot net webs,

its the link in your sig going to www.www.dotnetwebs.co.uk.

I think thats what handon is meaning!

D

[DotNetWebs]

Thanks.

Somehow the link gained an extra set of w's at the front and a dot at the end! Bizarre! I have sorted it now

[Tazuk]

just sorted my homepage and will be working on the rest thanks for all the feedback folks.

Taz, well done, home page passed validation. However other pages need tweaking. I would also like to suggest that the map and all flags are removed - flags in my view make the site appear unprofessional. You will then have plenty of space for more text or to align the text further across the site.

You are getting there! Did you get someone to fix the validation issues?

Yes i did it myself this afternoon and just done the about page. I have a very limited budget but I am now looking in to getting the site done proffesionally because it is to become an interactive elearning site, I am trying to find funds for this or offer the right company a joint venture.

[DotNetWebs]

I think there is nothing wrong with having the Civil Aviation Ensign on an aviation related site. It is relevant to the content. If it were my site I would perhaps consider moving it into the header though.

Look at the Royal Navy Page or Royal Force pages for example:

http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk

http://www.raf.mod.uk

Regards

[bwglaw]

Taz, contact me direct at jonathan@handsongroup.co.uk - I invest in businesses and do actually have an interest in aviation - wanted to get the PPL

Jonathan

[crus]

PPL,

thats on my list as well hands on, good on ya.

Taz any chance on some feedback on my www.nuguru.com website, thanks.