Just updated my website. Your thoughts, please!

The original version can be found here. It's quite dated, having not updated it since July.

I had been using a Yahoo! template for it, which I was never too thrilled about. The last website I built was over 10 years ago, when HTML4 was still new. When I went to design a new site by coding it, I found that I had forgotten too much to be useful, and what I remembered was outdated, so that was the easy way to go.

The new, snazzy, updated version of the website can be found here.

I used CoffeeCup Visual Site Designer for it. It's my first attempt at using WYSIWYG software. I used a template that I modified to better fit my desires and needs. It was pretty easy to use, and got my site up and running to this version with only a few hours of work this weekend.

I think the new one is looking a lot better, but what about you? Thanks for the constructive criticism!

You should try Joomla! its free and there's 1000's of extensions for it:

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Extension directory: extensions.joomla.org...

Cool templates: www.joomlart.com...

Extensions (my site) networkconnected.co.uk...

reply to post by cmdrkeenkid


You breed Chinchillas?! Those are adorable!
Besides that though, I like your site! It's neat, clean and easy to operate and get around!!
Also, you are the first site I have EVER seen with Chinchilla webcams.
I like your site a lot and wish you success in your breeding and sales!

I think you should look at changing some of the fonts, font sizes and colours to make it easier to read. The small text on the home page banner for example.

Other than that it's good.

Cool site but.....now "they" know who you are!

I think you have done a wonderful job, i am not saying that just to be nice but it looks good! much better then the old website!

The last one looked like an amateurish blog really, the new one looks great. I don't know how serious one needs to get about a chinchilla site, but your certainly is pleasing to the eye and easy to navigate.

The only criticism I have is with some of the fonts used. I think you could make it look a little better, or perhaps more professional with a better font. Particularly on the home screen and the chin herd pages.

Best of luck in the, uh... Chinchilla business.



That was news to me. Don't know that much about them.

reply to post by roughycannon


It's just a small static site. A CMS is unnecessary.

Nice update from your old site, Good Job!
now....

Do Chinchillas really taste like chicken??

Wow! I didn't expect so many responses, especially so quickly! Thank you everyone! I really appreciate it. I'll be putting some of the suggested changes into the site over the next couple days!

reply to post by roughycannon


I'll check it out! I already bought CoffeeCup, and am pretty happy with the results so far though. Also, since I had to Google search for the definition of "CMS" it might be out of my league!

reply to post by Katharos62191


Thanks! We've been doing pretty good this year. This is the first year where it's become more of a business than a hobby. We have about 130 in breeding right now, about 20 on reserve, and another 30 or so we're going to put into breeding next year! We've had just shy of 100 kits born this year, and we're expecting to close the year out with about 120 total.

The webcams are something I need/really want to put back into the new site. We haven't been able to work out a good way to do them yet. The chins keep eating the cables and cameras! I'm thinking of getting an IP camera, versus using streaming sites (we've used uStream and a couple others in the past) which have left us disappointed and frustrated. First, I have to read up a lot more on how to get that set up so it actually works and I'm not just wasting money on a fancy camera that doesn't get used.

reply to post by SpearMint


Thanks! I actually made it a bit larger than what the template originally had. I'm thinking of removing it from the banner and incorporating it into the main body of the text below now that you mention that!

reply to post by superman2012


I have nothing to hide! Maybe "they" will want a chinchilla!

reply to post by FeelingPure


Thank you! I was really never happy with that Yahoo! template.

reply to post by boncho


Thanks you for pointing out the font issue too! I'll see what I can do to clean that up!

I was going for a professional, yet relaxed feel. Most of the other websites from other breeders out there are in need of a lot of work, in my opinion. Not all of them are that bad, but those are from some of the more established breeders around the country.

We have a show we're attending next weekend and a national conference for breeders the first weekend of November, so I plan on really getting our name out there. Plus, we're hoping to expand out of our home and into an actual storefront next year, so the better looking online presence ads some legitimacy to our business. I wanted to make something that sets us apart from all the other sites out there.

reply to post by redbarron626


Maybe?

I would imagine they would taste like licorice and grass. They eat a lot of loose grass and hay. The pellets we feed have a mild licorice flavor, while the supplement we use has a strong licorice flavor and odor. Yes, I tried some after having a couple sodas.

Originally posted by superman2012
Cool site but.....now "they" know who you are!

But the chinchilla people now have your IP address

Sneaky chinchillas they are.. hehe

reply to post by winofiend


Yes, and now a small army of chinchillas is currently en route to everyone's location!

I updated the banner and home page a bit. I'll work on some of the other suggestions during the rest of the week. I removed the Testimonials for now and replaced it with the text that was in the banner. Here is a screen capture of the site as it looked before this update for comparison.



Also, sometimes this is what it feels like in our home:

Originally posted by winofiend

Originally posted by superman2012
Cool site but.....now "they" know who you are!

But the chinchilla people now have your IP address

Sneaky chinchillas they are.. hehe

Damn it. Time to move again...

reply to post by cmdrkeenkid


Very nice, and very entrepreneurial of you. Best of luck in your endeavour. It's enjoyable to read stories like this on here once and awhile. Most people are just constantly complaining about life...

im bored. if you like i can reconstruct your website for you for free i'll make it awesome! let me know.

Need more animated gifs of fire.


jk

Those things a freaking cute!

Why have you hyperlinked everything? Pointless hyperlinks on pointless images.

Images that are of 1 color, not needed, use a background color instead.

Pointless markup like this:

"files/header_bg.jpg" alt="" width="960px" height="60px">

When you can have the image width/height set in the CSS

Imaged navigation buttons which have 1 color and a font... Pointless usage, use link instead as it will take less time to load than 7 individual images.

Logo is too small, that's your brand... Make it stand out.

No titles on any of your hyperlinks = bad SEO.

No meta keywords/description = bad SEO.

Your previous site had meta keywords and description though...

I do like it though, but I'd definitely advise you to go back, take all of those hyperlinks out and create a navigation bar with styled links rather than images. The meta keywords and description are hugely important too.

reply to post by Komonazmuk


More animated .gifs and explosions and fire and probably some loud, irritating music that cannot be turned off on the way! Just for you!

reply to post by scottlpool2003


Thanks for the info! Not sure how to do any of that, actually. I just use a WYSIWYG editor, as HTML and other languages are lost to me now.

I'm working on the website now, actually. I'll see if I can get any of those suggestions to work in the software.

Thanks ! if you want to update your site i suggest you to change your website content and if you used cloaking in your website then change it because now Google can't prefer cloaking website and Content is very important matter to rank your website on Google Top.so used original Content.