Time for Site Re-Work Please Advise!

www.evergreen-companies.com

What is the easiest way for me to learn how to add pages? I have a Content Management System that allows me to change page content.

Nice looking site with clear content. I understand what I read (I am a retired UK academic so may not be a good judge for NC). It is easy to use although I believe that your home page does not correctly balance the things you want to sell with the 'other' stuff. It is quite acceptable to put things like 'About Us', 'Contact' , 'T&C', 'Privacy', 'Legal', etc in a separate vertical menu while the space of the horizontal menu is used to display a wider range of choices to your visitor.

If I were your web designer I would probably suggest to you that you attempt to engage your visitor more - a forum to discuss how to benefit from your services and the supplies from your nursery. If you were to become more adventurous you could engage your users by asking them to subscribe to an email newsletter (or perhaps to select from among a series of specialised newsletters), to follow you on Twitter (that would allow you to tell your followers that the new spring bulbs have arrived in stock) or Facebook or YouTube (where you could publish videos showing how to prune azaleas, or whatever you would like).

And with things as they are I think I would encourage you to ask your web designer to explain not only how you may modify existing pages but how you can also modify the navigation system of your site. My suggestions above will require some changes to your navigation. Draw it out like a family tree on a piece of paper. Your web designer should be able to show you how to move pages around the navigation tree and have those changes reflected in the menu layout. And, after that, the next step is to add a new branch - that is, a new page - to the tree.

Perhaps also they should show you also how to do things like change the images to reflect major holidays and gardening events through the year.

Good luck with your journey

Tony

Hi cfortunes,

Do you know what the name of this Content Management System is? I don't see any recognizable signs in the code (systems often use recognizable paths to their CSS files or other markers that make it easy to tell what content management system is used).

Is this a recent design? It looks rather dated to me. I can't really explain why. It's something about the colours and the way the layout has been put together. There's also a big lack of attention to the typography - lots of different types of fonts used in different places. The way the tabs pop up on the navigation kind of seems like something a designer would have done 5 years ago.

Also, the code has been written using <table> tags to create the layout, which is a very outdated method.

Overall, I would have guessed that this site was designed in around 2004. It just looks dated and a lot of modern design methods haven't been used.

Hi cfortunes,

I am a professional web developer I have been doing the job for almost seven years now. Looking at the source I would agree with Megan that your developer has used <table> tags to structure the website instead of <div> tags.

Also it looks like they have used some GUI editor to create this site as I have noticed a lot of empty tags (font, strong etc). Also the font sizes seem to be specified in the paragraph elements. I am not sure however if this was created automatically by your CMS. This might also explain unneeded space characters.

I am also a bit dubious about the use of flash for the website. For usability I never like to use any technology that would require a download, and if it does it needs to degrade nicely. Have you seen what the website looks like without flash?

Your developer should tell you the CMS they used, by not telling you they are probably trying to tie you to them for future work. Once you know it, it will hopefully be a well known one and then you should be able to find plenty of tutorials on it or even youtube videos.

Hope this helps.

As many people here have said the colors put me off, change your template design and colors

Very informative, loads of content. I'd get rid of the flash animation at the top or just make it load once only when the user lands on the home page. Do you have larger portfolio pictures? You might want to include them so potential clients can see your work in better detail. Good job!

I looked at your site from a consumer's point of view as I'm not qualified to critique the technical design aspects like some of the other reviewers did. But, I do have to say that I spent 30 minutes on your site just trying to find something to criticize and I couldn't come up with much negative to say.
I asked myself some of the following questions as I browsed:
Would I ask your company for more information on your services based on the look of the site?
Would I feel comfortable hiring you if I lived in N.C.?
Does it look like you have the expertise and people to do the job?
Are you creative?
The answer was 'yes' to all.
I did expect the left side menu to be navigable, but it's just a listing. I wanted to see pictures of your Plant Material and Hard Goods instead of a statement just telling me what you have. The statement "Now in Progress" reminds me of "Under Construction". I just think that when it's ready to put it up, put it up. Until them find something else to fill the space with.
I respectfully disagree with the review that said your pictures were too large. I'm looking at pictures of landscaping and hardscaping and I'm interested in detail. I'll wait the extra second or two for larger pictures to load.

Hi,
I have review your website. It looks really good. It has everything that a good website needs. It navigates well, it has good consistency, good response time, good appearance, availability, media rich content, usability.
I am just a student and have reviewed the web designing rules and I am impressed with your web designing.

Its a very nice site but there is nothing inviting about it and it does not speak out a message .It looks like an add at the back pages of a tabloid magazine .Use nicer text fonts make it more fun...Is that your logo??? ..also that image of pipes on the right ... doesn't work .The images on top should be still , those changing images are so 2001.... Good luck