Modern website recommendations

[patseguin Global Moderator]

Hey guys, take a look at my company's website: www.coveredwagonpromotions.com

 

My brother actually paid someone a lot of money to do that trainwreck.

 

I am getting ready to tackle redoing the whole thing and wondered what suggestions you guys had for making a modern looking site. I am interested in tips for menu layout, images, text, etc. Examples would be great as well.

 

I did www.coveredwagonembroidery.com but people told me it looks like it is from 1995.

[adrynalyne]

Agreed on both counts. The first is a mess. The second one doesn't appear much better.

 

Unless you are taking it to a whole different level from the site you did, I would just leave it to someone else to fix. How much did your brother pay?

 

Sorry, criticism is harsh in this field, but someone has to be the guy to give it.

 

Whatever you decide, learn mobile responsiveness. A huge chunk of Internet traffic today is from mobile devices. Analytics shows our own sites see 60% mobile traffic and Google penalizes against sites that are not mobile friendly.

 

[patseguin Global Moderator]

6 minutes ago, adrynalyne said:

Agreed on both counts. The first is a mess. The second one doesn't appear much better.

 

Unless you are taking it to a whole different level from the site you did, I would just leave it to someone else to fix. How much did your brother pay?

 

Sorry, criticism is harsh in this field, but someone has to be the guy to give it.

 

Whatever you decide, learn mobile responsiveness. A huge chunk of Internet traffic today is from mobile devices. Analytics shows our own sites see 60% mobile traffic and Google penalizes against sites that are not mobile friendly.

 

Thanks, I've learned that web design criticism is deep but I have a thick skin. I was pretty proud of the CWE website I did though. What looks bad about it to you so I don't make the same mistakes?

 

I want to say that my brother paid around $500-600. I know that is not much for web design, but it's a lot for a small business like ours and definitely a lot for such an awful design.

[firey]

Dude.. 

Bootstrap w/ a free Bootstrap Theme (or even a sub 20$ one) .  Throw in your content and you are off to the races in very little downtime.

[patseguin Global Moderator]

2 minutes ago, firey said:

Dude.. 

Bootstrap w/ a free Bootstrap Theme (or even a sub 20$ one) .  Throw in your content and you are off to the races in very little downtime.

I've been told that before. I don't even really know what bootstrap is or where to get it. I can Muse or I can use Dreamweaver. I have no coding experience.

[firey]

http://getbootstrap.com/css/

 

https://wrapbootstrap.com/

You basically just download, and edit.  You should be able to just pull them into DW.

[adrynalyne]

15 minutes ago, patseguin said:

Thanks, I've learned that web design criticism is deep but I have a thick skin. I was pretty proud of the CWE website I did though. What looks bad about it to you so I don't make the same mistakes?

 

I want to say that my brother paid around $500-600. I know that is not much for web design, but it's a lot for a small business like ours and definitely a lot for such an awful design.

Too much white space and no mobile friendliness. I am also not a big fan of iFrames myself. 

 

This is all IMO of course.

[patseguin Global Moderator]

Just now, adrynalyne said:

Too much white space and no mobile friendliness. I am also not a big fan of iFrames myself. 

 

This is all IMO of course.

Yeah Muse has a nice system for adding phone and tablet versions of sites. I have a feeling I'm going to get ripped for even considering using Muse though...

[farmeunit]

Joomla if you don't need a cart.  Magento if you do.  Or a combination of both.  There are many plugins to do things like forms, etc..

[Studio384]

 

9 hours ago, patseguin said:

Thanks, I've learned that web design criticism is deep but I have a thick skin. I was pretty proud of the CWE website I did though. What looks bad about it to you so I don't make the same mistakes?

 

I want to say that my brother paid around $500-600. I know that is not much for web design, but it's a lot for a small business like ours and definitely a lot for such an awful design.

And exactly how much did he pay you for the second site?

 

9 hours ago, patseguin said:

I've been told that before. I don't even really know what bootstrap is or where to get it. I can Muse or I can use Dreamweaver. I have no coding experience.

You have no coding experience and you don't know what Bootstrap is or where to get it yet you want to do it anyway? Honestly, call your brother and say that you simply aren't up for the task and that he should go find a real developer. If you don't have any experience, there is no point in giving feedback, you'll need much more than the visual editor of Dreamweaver and Muse to get a site up and running that is acceptable.

[adrynalyne]

5 minutes ago, patseguin said:

Yeah Muse has a nice system for adding phone and tablet versions of sites. I have a feeling I'm going to get ripped for even considering using Muse though...

I won't be the one to do it. I dislike visual designers myself but its not my place to enforce that belief on everyone else.

 

 

[patseguin Global Moderator]

Here is a basic layout that I am putting together. Am I on the right track for something fairly modern looking?

 

[LaP]

5 minutes ago, patseguin said:

Here is a basic layout that I am putting together. Am I on the right track for something fairly modern looking?

 

Not a fan of the gradient and black. But it's already much better than the previous mess.

[patseguin Global Moderator]

2 minutes ago, LaP said:

Not a fan of the gradient. But it's already much better than the previous mess.

Not sure myself either but I got it from this which I like:

 

 

I wanted a more subtle radial type gradient like they used on the black but I didn't get as far as trying to figure that out yet.