ZeeQue Studios - feedback appriciated

[zqstudios]

thanks...in advance

[Eddy Bones]

I was beginning to think that this was a composite until I found that the navigation was active. Why is everything an image? And what are you using to generate code? Seriously, four nested blockquotes when there shouldn't be any at all? When promoting yourself as a professional you need to be taking these things into consideration.

The site is good visually, but it doesn't show off your skill as a developer. I sincerely hope that you haven't built any client sites in the same fashion - you owe it to those who are paying you $400+ (assuming by the lowest range on your contact form) to give them a decent product.

[Eddy Bones]

For the sake of opening up the discussion to others, a little series of PMs:

thanks for the feedback
i made this all in photoshop!
thing is when im designing it in dreamweaver....it gets to weird....like tables and cell act diffenert....its a hassle....
i tired frontpage....any other out there?

I can understand how you'd want to create the code using a program - they give the illusion of rapid development. But I would strongly suggest not using a program to generate code and just writing it yourself by hand. This may seem a little counter-intuitive - how can a person type code faster than a program can produce it. Well, it's possible. In fact, in web companies they don't use Design Views for the most part because you can only understand what you're doing and how to fix potential problems by writing your own code.

I know that's not quite the suggestion that most people are looking for, but that's my view on the matter anyway.

here is my thing....y go thru the trouble to make tables and codes, when you can make the whole page in photoshop ans superimpose links on 'home' 'about' etc. any avergae joe blog client wud go for visuals rather than codes....you can be much more creative if you have the freedom to do anything. like in photoshop....just import that on pic, and viola...i did that once..with 2pics...heaader and body for a client.they loved it all the way...as long as the're happy...fine by me....so y go to the toruble by writing ur own code?

Because to be perfectly honest, what you're doing is not making a web site. And it may be fine for some people, but most people are going to be able to tell the difference between that and a good product. When they see that their site isn't showing up in search engines, they're going to start complaining. When they figure out that they can't modify any of the site content without changing the Photoshop file (and of course they won't have PS), they're going to start complaining. When they figure out that they want to go to another company to modify their site that you made, they'll be told that they need to start from scratch because the code blows.

Of course it's about looks for the client - I already acknowledged that. But you're a developer and that shouldn't cut it for you. Besides, we all have the "freedom to do anything," and we're all here hacking out code. I can assure you that hand coding is fast and productive, and you obviously get a better result. Not only that, but HTML is the easiest computer "language" that you'll ever learn. I can't imagine a real developer who doesn't know HTML - it's equivalent to a construction worker who doesn't know how to use a hammer. And as I said, once you know the code you'll be able to fix potential problems with a glance. You'll be able to have that freedom that you speak of. It's not trouble, it's what we as web developers do.

[zqstudios]

to gput it in search engines...i can have hidden text anywhere in the page!
and my goal is that if the cliet is happy ans saitfied...fine...y wud it want another develper then?

[Eddy Bones]

Why would you go out of the way to hide text that you can show perfectly well? The problem is that I've searched for those sites from your portfolio and I could only find one of them easily. I didn't bother to dig for the others.

I don't care if your clients are happy - that's not what I was getting at. If they are, good for you.

[zqstudios]

i have been having problems with tables and text appearing at diffenrt places in diffenret broswers...IE and firfox
like a text line in a table would be at point A in IE but it will be half inch above A in firefox...how do i fix that....if i can do that then i will surely make a CODED html version!

[Eddy Bones]

It's definitely possible to do, but we can't give much help unless we saw a work in progress so we could see some code.

It should also be noted that making layouts with tables is an out-dated process. Yes, it works, but there are more expedient ways of doing it that allow for more control. See this for information: http://www.webdesignforums.net/showthread.php?t=26234

[alexxlea]

Only one button worked.


And it was for the page I was already on.



Yeah... don't know what else to say about this... I'm guessing you're mid-update or something at 6 am pacific time... otherwise.. iunno.

[xtremedezigns]

I have to agree with everyone else on this one. Thats definitely one thing I learned about developing websites properly, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) You have to do everything in your power to get your businesses websites listed (on google atleast). If they aren't listed then there isn't any real point to their website except to show of to other local dealers. The difference between IE and FF and other browsers is a road block every single web designer has come across and has to face one way or another. You on one hand have chosen images, other designers choose to work around with codes and scripts to still maintain a higher end of seo and... keep in mind. If for any reason you need to update the page of a simple letter, word, or sentence phrase. You're going to have to open photoshop, edit all the images, reoptimize etc etc. It's way to much hassle that you don't have to be putting yourself through.

Hand code it
Use Notepad++
Don't use a WYSIWYG because they tend to generate unessary code

Two more things I just noticed. Framesets are generally bad for SEO aswell.
Second you dont even have your alt tags or title tags on your images that allows Search Engines.

PS. Look what I just found in your code *Cough* Please Remove *Cough*

<!-- text below generated by server. PLEASE REMOVE -->
<!-- Counter/Statistics data collection code -->
<script language="JavaScript" src="http://us.js2.yimg.com/us.js.yimg.com/lib/smb/js/hosting/cp/js_source/geov2_001.js"></script><script language="javascript">geovisit();</script><noscript><img src="http://visit.webhosting.yahoo.com/visit.gif?us1198036075" alt="setstats" border="0" width="1" height="1"></noscript>

Hmm, and yeah doesn't seem like you have any hidden text anywhere as you stated above. So generally what search engines see... Is nothing. Meta tags are only followed by minor search engines. High end search engines such as google, or yahoo, etc, don't take meta tags into account anymore.

[foodbiz]

I like the layout! Very clean and crisp. but don't care for all the text in graphic format! A little blurry....

Great work!!!