new site up-please advise

[esco4466]

ya'll have been a great help thank you. the site still needs a couple of kinks worked out and I am going to design a feeds page for our updated content but for the most part is done. please let me know what ya'll think. good and bad

site (http://www.hopeworks.us/)

[tmreg]

It took me a minute to find where you guys are located. Put that on the front page. Phone numbers and addresses should be easy to find. Also an easy way to find directions. (ie give them a google map link with your address already filled out) I still don't know what town you guys are in (I am assuming the DFW area because of the area code but I can't see it anywhere. If possible, put it in the title of your main page (Hope Works - Dallas, TX) It will do wonders for city specific searches. If your city is not listed on the site, how often do you think you will pop up on a search of "church dallas tx"?

How is this working? A html page as the front page with links to the blog, forum, etc? Are the "updates" on the home page an rss feed of the blog? I like it. I think the page is very nice.

I would play with your wordpress theme and get the background matching the edges of the header, footer, etc. It looks amateurish for it not to match. I would also play with the way displays the urls. This will help you with SEO. (ie see how the urls in this wordpress site match the content of the page: http://thejesusenterprise.com )

I like the site and think you are doing a great service for your church.

[esco4466]

Are the "updates" on the home page an rss feed of the blog?

no. i dont know how to do tht. I will update them by hand weekly.

would play with your wordpress theme and get the background matching the edges of the header, footer, etc. It looks amateurish for it not to match. I would also play with the way displays the urls. This will help you with SEO. (ie see how the urls in this wordpress site match the content of the page: http://thejesusenterprise.com (http://thejesusenterprise.com/) )

struggling with the header. trying to use custom header cant figure it out. I am using permalinks so I will change the urls in the html to match the wordpress pages ie hopeworks.us/blog/upcoming-events/

[generalhavok]

Don't forget to optimize your photos. The image in the center of the main page weighs in at a whopping 144,797 bytes. I took the image and optimized it as both a JPG and a GIF:

JPG: 42,554 bytes (save 71%)
GIF: 91,215 bytes (save 37%)

You can cut the download time of this image significantly by reducing the file size. This is an important last step to take before going live with a website.

Some might be wondering why I'd optimize a photo as a GIF...they're usually much better as JPGs, as you can see from the filesize. In this case, optimizing made the red letters a bit blurry. Because GIFs are calculated mathematically, lines like letters are usually crisper than in JPGs. Even at the larger GIF filesize, you're still downloading 37% faster. Some websites can reduce their page load time by 30 seconds or more by doing nothing more than optimizing their images.

I've uploaded the two images here:

http://www.godwords.org/temp/images/forumpics/hopeworks.gif
http://www.godwords.org/temp/images/forumpics/hopeworks.jpg

Feel free to use them, if it makes your life easier!

[esco4466]

thank you. im assuming optimizing is easy with CS2 or 3?

[StubbyD]

thank you. im assuming optimizing is easy with CS2 or 3?

In the "file" menu there is an option to 'save for web' - use that and go through the options provided.

In short you get a drop down menu on the right to pick PNG, GIF or JPG. Pick one and then go for 2 up or 4 up and look at the opomised pictures. They'll give you a file size and averaged download for someone on a 56k dialup link. Pick the one that is smallest yet gives you good enough quality to allow the image to be recognised.

All the best.