Starting out, where are my mistakes?

[rgold]

Hi, my website is Research your Jewish family!. I'm new to all this, i have had some clicks but no buys and i was wondering where i am making my mistakes?
Looking forward to some constructive criticism!
I know some of my links are broken, by the way, i'm still working on it.

[Fireproofgfx]

You have a lot of issue but that is to be expected when you first start out. It's good you started out and tried to code a site on your own, rather than taking the Wordpress route. As for your code it could be a lot better. You are using Tables with individual styling rather than DIV's with external styling which is easier. I would highly recommend https://www.codecademy.com/learn, it's free and you learn at your pace.

[brandMatt]

There is nothing wrong with using Wordpress. I have been developing websites for several years now, and still use Wordpress. It gives you a solid and secure login system. It's api allows for some fantastic customizations. In fact even with my several years of web design experience, I would have used Wordpress with a custom theme and custom plugin to build your website.

[Vapr_Arts]

There is nothing wrong with using Wordpress. I have been developing websites for several years now, and still use Wordpress. It gives you a solid and secure login system. It's api allows for some fantastic customizations. In fact even with my several years of web design experience, I would have used Wordpress with a custom theme and custom plugin to build your website.

The reason for the WP hate on this forum isn't really an issue with WP. The problem is we see a lot of people who want to be "developers" but think that getting WP installing a theme and changing some text around is the way to go. Most will try and get by with little to no coding. So when we see a newbie trying to break out into the coding world its sort of satisfying to see them doing it this way.


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[brandMatt]

Right on. I apologize for derailing this thread with my pro WP post.
I'm on my phone, your site isn't responsive, so I can't really comment beyond style, which leaves a lot of room for improvement. So I'll hold back commenting beyond that, until I'm back at my computer.

[TheGAME1264]

The major reason you don't have any "buys" is very simple. It has nothing to do with the layout, although as others have pointed out it isn't helping. It has nothing to do with your copy, although that isn't helping either. The reason...you don't have a way to order anything! You have a list of services and prices, but no way to order them. I can't order online. I can't call. I can't figure out how to order it at all! I also don't see any refund or privacy policies, but that's part of the ordering process.

Even a simple Buy Now PayPal button would go a long way compared to what you have now. Start with that and then you can work backward from there.

[gesturepoke]

Before I go into my critique, I'll start off by saying I second Fire's suggestion on using codecademy. I got more from those tutorials in a few weeks than I did learning HTML in high school and Dreamweaver in college. Just reading up on html and css will do wonders for you.

With that said, I wouldn't feel comfortable critiquing your coding since I'm new to it myself, but being an illustration major, I think I can help with the color scheme a little. Right now, you have dark blue, beige, black, gold, red, and royal blue on your site. The first 4 colors are okay, but the red text is hard on the eyes, especially when it's against a blue or gold background. I'd switch the red text to beige when it's against a dark background and dark blue when up against a light one.

Look into using hex codes for your colors instead of the defaults (e.g. color: red; ) when styling elements. If you don't have program that makes it easy to find hex codes, there are plenty of sites you can use to help you out.