am I ready?

[Lee]

Thanks to all the kind help from everyone here, I think I have my site to the point where I'm ready to submit it to the directories. It's too bad that I had previously received so much bad advice from other so called SEO's....I really don't know how I ranked as well as I had in the past. I have to thank this message board for showing me how to make the necessary changes.

I've focused on a few keywords now and tried to have the page text support those words. I am concerned a bit that I now possibly have TOO MUCH written on the pages.
Could someone please take a look and tell me if this is ready to be submitted? And if anyone sees a glaring boo-boo, would you please let me know.
Thanks, Lee
http://www.RSVP-etc.com

[JuniorHarris]

Code looks nice and tight and at just over 13k it loads very fast!~

I see nothing which jumps out...

[Lee]

Thank you JuniorHarris. I guess I'll jump right in then and I'll know pretty soon just how big a mess I have made!

[ihelpyou]

Hey Lee, looks real good to me! No, you do not have too much content. Your content will do you lots of good. :up:

[highman]

A bit late on this post.... sorry

I would make the text slightly darker, its quite hard to read (maybe my eyes though ;) ) and try and remove the mass of spaces in the code. I mean the nbsp bits, I cant show the whole thing as it disappears in this message as a space
:up:

[Lee]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I have a question about the directories. I found my site listed in Looksmart. I had no idea I was in there and now I can't even find my listing again...but I do know it's buried there somewhere. It was an old listing so they must have picked it up some time ago. I think I'm going to pass on Looksmart, but with the others, will it hurt to resubmit if they already have me listed. I know I haven't submitted to anything for at least a year and a half, so do you think it would hurt? Also, if you're listed and you want to improve your rank, do you make your changes and resubmit? or do you just wait for them to find the changes themselves?

[Mel]

Hi Lee:
A very nice site, but I concur with highman that you could remove the many non blanking spaces.

I just took a quick look at your site with various browsers and screen resolutions. In all cases something is either underneath or over the top of the text on the middle to the bottom of the page.

You really should do something about that before you submit as it spoils what is otherwise a very nice site.

I hope you have researched your keywords well and used them in your content. I would also try to get your most important keywords toward the top of your body text.

[Blue]

Hi Lee!

I found a coupla boo-boos....
This sentence, IMHO, should read:
"One of the first and most basic details on your wedding checklist is your guest list." Read: without the comma and there was an extra space between "and" & "most" and between "is" & "you".

And now that I'm looking more closely, there seem to be many extra spaces. I know some writers use double spacing between sentences. You may wish to check the spaces on your text....copy it into Notepad and the spaces become much more visible. It may be just a small thing but I guess my attention to detail gets me.

Also this sentence should read:
"or who don't bother to show up at all."
And this:
"great amount of unnecessary expense."
And this:
"wedding planning industry, but"
And this:
"Miss Ohio America 1999, Cheya Watkins,"
And maybe this:
"RSVPetc to manage their wedding invitations!" (without the tilde).

I also see a few spots where a paragraph ends and the new paragraph starts directly on the next line, rather than having a space between them.

I agree with highman that the text is not contrasting well against the background. A shade or two darker should do it.

I do like the site though and think it conveys your business message well. Good Job!

Hope this helps,

[ihelpyou]

Hi Lee, you are not listed in the Looksmart directory. You may be in the Inktomi index, but not Looksmart. Inktomi handles the secondary results for LS and has nothing to do with the directory. You should get into LS also.

You are always better off to wait for the spiders to find you instead of resubmitting, but in your case, you may want to submit again.

On second thought, If you get directory listings to ODP, Yahoo, and Looksmart, you may not need to submit anywhere else.

[Lee]

Goodness, you guys are wonderful!!!! Thank you all so very much!
Let me see if I can address each of you and still make some sense.

Mel: I'm not sure what you are meaning when you say

"I just took a quick look at your site with various browsers and screen resolutions. In all cases something is either underneath or over the top of the text on the middle to the bottom of the page. "

I'm very new to all of this and I spent the last two weeks learning dreamweaver to remake this site. I don't know a thing about computers so maybe I am doing something wrong that would cause this problem. I used the same graphic on all of the pages and when I wrote the copy I just did it the same as I did with the rest of it. Do you have any idea what could be causing this problem?

Blue: A fresh pair of eyes can be so beneficial! Thank you for finding those errors. I've stared at these pages for far too long! I was just starting to go over each of the pages one final time and with any luck I'll catch the rest of the mistakes.
Also, I'm wondering if the "extra spaces" you guys are talking about is my Son's attempt at right hand justification. Dreamweaver doesn't do full justification and I have never liked the looks of copy that wasn't fully justified. He offered to do it by hand for me.....is this what you are talking about? And if so, do you think I should change it back to the way it was?

And Doug: What was I finding my listing under? After I wrote that last question about Looksmart, I went looking for it again and found it. What I did was type RSVPetc in the search box. It brought up a page with my company on it and some of the other listings were links that I have. What is this? Where is this coming from?

Thanks again to all of you....

[Mel]

Hi Lee:

Examples:

When I view your site just underneath the Pia Menke quote the last line of the signature is underneath the words "the reality settles in" from the following text.

Near the bottom of the page the words in script "please enter" are underneath the words "with managing their guest list"

One other correction - I believe that the sentence
former bride can tell you about the guests who show up with unexpected dates, children, extra family members, or who doesn't bother to show up at all. should be

..former bride can tell you about the guests.....who don't bother to show up at all.


addendum: I suspect that the text overlap is due to layers shifting when viewed in different ways. Also the text does not apper to me to be right justified so you might want to take those spaces out as they are not doing what you intended.

P.S. what browser and screen resolution are you using?

I really like the concept and content of your site - keep at it!

[Lee]

Doug: I just went and looked at that listing a little closer....It is from Inktomi.
I don't know that I want to pay all that money for the Looksmart listing just yet.

Since I have an old listing with Inktomi is it ok to go ahead and resubmit? I was thinking about the paid submission for them....any advice on that idea?

[ihelpyou]

My advice is if you are already in Inktomi, do not pay yet. See if the changes you make will help with ranks first.

Directories are very important to all the search engines. They give you added link popularity which helps a bunch with Google.

Whenever you have the bucks, I suggest getting those listings asap.

[Mel]

Hi again Lee:

If you don't want to pay the big bucks for LS here is a site for a Cincinatti wedding company which is listed in LS, does not appear to compete with you and best of all will post a link to your site for free!

http://www.weddingdjforyou.com/

[Lee]

Doug: I just went and looked at that listing a little closer....It is from Inktomi.
I don't know that I want to pay all that money for the Looksmart listing just yet.

Since I have an old listing with Inktomi is it ok to go ahead and resubmit? I was thinking about the paid submission for them....any advice on that idea?

[ihelpyou]

Paid submission to Ink is preference. It will not improve your ranks. All it does it get the spider to reindex you every 48 hours. Does not help with ranks.

If you content stays the same, there is no reason to pay. The spider will come around about once a month and reindex any changes you make. This is why I said to wait and see what happens after you make some changes.

I still say to get directory listings. I cannot stress to you how important they are to ALL the search engines.

[Lee]

Ok! I understand now.....I just don't know exactly how I'm going to remedy the problem. I'm using IE and my screen res. is 800x600. I used to have a larger resolution screen but one of my children "borrowed" it and has yet to have brought it back...you know how that goes. Do you have any suggestions on how I can fix this problem or do I have to lower the boom with the kids?

Thanks for the link....I'll get right on that. I know this is probably a stupid question, but how will that get me into Looksmart?

I'll say it again....you guys are GREAT!!!:bouncy:

[ihelpyou]

You would not have any problem getting into Looksmart. Yahoo is a little different though. You have to be capitable in Netscape 4.7 to get into Yahoo.

[Mel]

HI Lee:

I think you might have to ask someone like Blue what is needed to rectify the overlap problems you have. Personally I would tend to do it with some tables instead of all in layers, but that is really not my field at all. The problem is not with your monitor, but with the way others see your site, which can vary with browsers (even different version of the same browser) and screen resolution.

The link I posted will not get you into Looksmart but it might get you traffic from Looksmart since anyone searching LS for Weddings and Cincinatti will get that page and will see your Link to your site. IF you can arrange a link which gives a bit of a description of your services you might do well with it. This page will also come up in MSN search results.

Good Luck

[ihelpyou]

Mel is right. That link will do you much good cause it is already in the directories and is relevant to your site. Since you cannot get into the directories right now, that would be your best bet.

[Mel]

HI Lee:

Here is a link to a tutorial on browser compatibility and what to do about it. You can also purchase for $15 a series of webshots of how your site looks to different browsers at different resolutions.

THE LINK (http://www.netmechanic.com/browser-photo/tutorial.htm)

[Blue]

Hi Lee,

As Mel pointed out, layers can get mighty tricky, and tables IMO are much easier to work with and can a lot of the time acheive the same results. PM or email me if you need assistance in that arena.

Now, as to the browser/screen resolution issue, here's a coupla tips and links.

First and foremost, I think it's agreed by most webmasters that the minimum screen resolution you should design for these days is 800x600. In other words, ensure that your pages look good at that resolution and up.

Since you're using DW, I'll start there. With one of your pages open in DW you'll notice in the lower right hand corner a bunch of icons and then two little indented boxes with numbers in them. The left-most box has a little down-arrow in it and if you click on it you'll see about 6 different metrics in there. These numbers correspond to roughly what your page will look like at different screen resolutions. It's a pretty handy little tool.

I think it's also agreed that the minimum browser version you should design for is the 4.x series for both NN & IE. What I mean is, you should design your pages to be compatible with those versions (and up) of both browsers. With that in mind, here's (http://www.hitbox.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?reference/browser) a link that tells you what technologies are compatible with what browsers, andhere's (http://browserwatch.internet.com/) a general purpose link with good browser info.

One tip I use and love is the two monitor thingy. I have 2 monitors hooked up to one computer, the first being a 17" set at 1024x768 res and the second is a 15" set to 800x600. Then when I'm designing, not only can I place all my tools on the second monitor leaving the bigger better monitor holding my workspace, BUT, I can instantly view my pages at both screen resolutions simply by dragging the page to the second monitor. I have even set the color controls on the second monitor different to the first (somewhat darker) so I can judge how well everything looks that way too.

I would also suggest that you actually have as many different (freestanding) browser versions installed as you can and always check your work on all of them. I check on IE 4, 5, 5.5, and now even 6 as well as NN 4.7 and 6. Also, if you can, check your work on a MAC.

Another area of design to keep in mind is designing for the handicapped, as I presume that many handicapped need wedding invitations. There's lots of info about that out there.

[Lee]

Thanks Blue and Mel. You've both been such a big help. I'm working thru the pages one by one and adjusting them for the larger and higher resolution monitors. Believe it or not Mel. I check my pages with Net Mechanic and they said I didn't have a problem other than a warning for web tv! But we both know that isn't so!! Anyway, thanks so much....you're great!
Lee

[Mel]

Hi Lee:

I'm sure you will get your site up to snuff soon and it will be a great one when done.

I note that on some of the interior pages you have not declared the layer which contains your sound player as "hidden" and thus it shows up on the screen - don't know if you want it that way or not.

You may also find that not everyone will want to listen to music while surfing your site. Providing an option to have sound or not might be nice.

A question - did you use the $15 browser snapshot option or the free web tuneup at net mechanic? The reason I ask is that the free site tuneup just checks that your code is in compliance with standards, while the snapshot is supposed to be actual images of your site. If the paid snapshot option is not retuning accurate results I for one would like to know more about it.

[jimi_l]

I gotta add this again for "on the fly" resolution changes.

http://www.pythoness.com/index.asp

It really works well, is free, and just sits in the tray for whenever you want it. Just drag the desired res to the browser and "POOF"
Too cool

[Lee]

Thanks Mel...No, I didn't use the $15 snap shot thing so don't worry. I used the free net mechanic diagnostic. I found where I could check the different type browsers in dreamweaver thanks to Blue. I'm just learning it so I didn't know it was there. I think I just about have all the problems fixed now thanks to you guys.

Jimi...thanks for the tip. That sounds like a handy little tool.

You've all been a great help...I appreciate it!
Lee:cheers: