Here is my attempt at a website:
Nothing great, but I just thought I better get something on the web (besides forum posts and photobucket). A professional site will be developed in the futrure, this is just a start.
The photobucket portfolio and other albums is still a better view of my work:
http://s436.photobucket.com/albums/q…ree/portfolio/
All the best,
Bass
Built from locally sawn hemlock, this functional outdoor feature uses structural screws and metal connectors for fast, sturdy construction.
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Replies
I just had a look at your site and I think it is great!!
You made that yourself?? Great job.
I feel that many sites I see are way too complicated,,,, not yours.
Congrats, Harry
Very nice start, simple but elegant...PaulB
http://www.finecontracting.com
Brian
I like it, clean, simple, and of course the work shown is outstanding.
Thanks Harry, Paul, and Dovetail,I'm not very savvy about such things. I can't figure out how to add live links to other sites.Might need to email the host to get a clue.All the best,Brian
Link: (a href="http://www.othersite.com")CLICK HERE TO GO TO OTHER SITE(/a)
Substitute < and > for the brackets used above.
You have a good start there. My only comments would be to make sure you understand search engine optimization (SEO), and install Google Analytics from day one.
Thanks David,I tried what I thought you were saying to do for this link:https://www.finehomebuilding.com/how-to/departments/master-carpenter/sculpting-a-radiused-crown-molding-in-plaster.aspxI appear to be clueless about something though:http://basswoodcarpentry.com/references.html
A couple of quick pointers on SEO. Others here know more about it than I do. Check out what I did on my site, it has been very effective in getting me to the top of every search I want to show up in (took a few months for that to fully happen, it does not happen overnight, more like 3-6 months).
1. Title each page with something meaningful. Instead of just saying "Home" in the page title, say "Basswood Carpentry, Fine Architectural Woodworking, Winona, Minnesota" or something similar that imparts information. It helps search engines decide which searches you are relevant to.
2. Do the same for each page, i.e. on a portfolio page you might title it "Stair Rail Detail, Victorian remodel, Basswood Carpentry, Winona, Minnesota".
3. Put as much info on TEXT form as you can on each page. Using images that have lettering contained is not as useful for SEO, since the web crawlers can't read that lettering. They want to READ the words on your pages so they can decide what you are relevant to.
4. Use image tags to give all of your images captions. As you may be aware, Google and others will put your images into their libraries by subject if they can.
5. Re Google Analytics, go to the Google site and read up on it. Very useful for knowing who is visiting, from where, what they are doing, etc.
David, thank you for all the good info. I'll get to work on that stuff.All the best,Brian
Brian, that References page is still showing the faulty html.
At the very top of the first table, you've got 'click here to add text' lying right under your first image. It's visible extreme upper left of the page.
Edit to add: In the code, that text is ID'ed as "element 52".
More critical, at the bottom of your list of references, the code you copied and pasted from David's post is coming through as text because you didn't use the proper brackets.
Cut all that out and replace it with this:
<p>
<a href="http://www.finehomebuilding.com/how-to/departments/master-carpenter/sculpting-a-radiused-crown-molding-in-plaster.aspx"><i>Fine Homebuilding</i> article on sculpting a radiused crown moulding in plaster</a></p>
It will show up on your website the way it looks below:
Fine Homebuilding article on sculpting a radiused crown moulding in plaster
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
Edited 11/28/2009 3:48 pm ET by Dinosaur
Thanks Dino,I pasted in your example, but it still seems to lack something.Hmmmm....Brian
Brian, I saw that. What's happening is that you're pasting code into the 'view' or 'WYSIWIG' panel instead of the 'source' or 'HTML' panel. I use Dreamweaver so I'm not that familiary with the software you're using, but generally html editors used for website building offer the user either a code view or a 'finished look' view. In Dreamweaver I can see both panels at the same time, or turn whichever one I want on and the other off.
What I gave you is html code. You need to paste that into the 'code' window.
The software probably has the ability to write that code for you automatically, but if you want to do it that way--using the 'finished product' window--you have to type into that window the plain text that you want to become the link, highlight it, then find the 'link' button in the controls and click that, and then paste in the URL to which you want the link to direct the user.
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
Gotta go for a few hours; I've got a bud whose wife is dying and a bunch of us are gonna feed him and try to take his mind off what no one can help. I'll check back later to see how you made out with this.
Just stick that code into the code view and it should work. For the 'click here to add text' hiccup, change the value of the Visibility property to 'invisible' and it oughta disappear.
Later....
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
Dino,Sorry to hear about your friends wife... sounds like you are doing what can be done.This "Sitebuilder Lite" is a page view only program... no code. Just insert you info and pics. Quick and easy for a basic site, but not very capable.I'll see if there is an Intuit tech person who can help me get the links to work.Thanks,Brian
If it's a 'page-view-only' program, then there has to be a 'link' button somewhere on the control panel. Every website contains links, even if only to other pages within the same site. A website building program without a control to create links from text would be pretty lame.
You need to find that control. It might be a button, or show up in a drop-down menu or whatever. If there's no button, look under 'Tools' or 'Commands' or 'Edit'.
Once you find the link control, here's what to do:
1. Type the text you want to become the link in the place you wanty it.
2. Highlight the text with the mouse.
3. Click the 'link' control. A small popup window should open with a blank field in it.
4. Type in, or copy-and-paste, the full URL of the webpage to which you want the link to direct people.
5. Click OK on the popup. The popup will close, and the text you highlighted should appear in 'link blue'(or whatever colour you've designated for live links) on your page-view.
I can't see the exact control panel your software uses so I'm guessing a bit, but it should be something very similar to that process.
You could also edit your source code using Notepad instead of the html editor, but that's a bit trickier. The program you're using is a real 'code soup' generator and it's easy to get lost in there.
A third option would be to download a free, simple html editor like Netscape 7, and use that to edit the page.
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
I think I figured out what to do... I'm gonna have my daughter's boyfriend fix it. People half my age are generally twice as good at this stuff.This software is very basic... no control panel or link menu. The only links are on the homepage and are already there.I'm already at Google hit # 11 for "trim carpenter, Winona, MN" I'll keep improving on this, but it is a nice start... for a Luddite. ;o)
That software doesn't sound a real webpage composer; more like a set of templates--what hosting companies offer as 'Free Web Builders' to get people to buy the hosting package. The template you chose looks very nice, but if it won't even allow you to place a live link in the text, it's too limited.
Here's a google search showing a bunch of free html editors (webpage composers) that you can download. If you're going to have a website, you need to learn to run the tools. The learning curve on Netscape isn't long, once you understand the diff between absolute and relative links. BTW, you can open your already-existing pages with any of these and edit them.
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=netscape+html+editor&meta=&aq=f&oq=
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
Actually... I was wrong about the limits of the "Lite" SiteBuilder... it is me that is "Lite" when it comes to this kinda thing.We (meaning the kid) fixed all the problems in a jiffy. Now all the links work and the photos enlarge if clicked on, etc.I will still get a better site done professionally, but the worst of the issues all got fixed this afternoon. There was link button that just blended in with all that toolbar stuff and the teenager was all over it like stink on $#!+.Thanks for attempting to help. I have the "rent a teen tech support dude's" cell number now... so I'm good. :o)Cheers,Brian
Roger-dodger, ye olde codger....
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
Wow Brian! like the other's I'm impressed. Nice Job!!
Doug
For a basic website my only compliant is that the pages are not titled with anything meaning full.
It appears to default to name on the button (Home, About Us, Services, References, Contact) except Portfolio which has "Blank" for the title.
If you bookmark it Home is not very informative as to what website that it is.
For the interior pages the defaults are not too bad. But I would still like to see your name on them. Some one might end up bookmarking say the portfolio or like I like to do have multiple tabs open it helps to show what the tab is about.
BTW, this is a fault that I find on many many websites, even a few "high end" ones.
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
Bill,Thanks for the feedback. I'll see if I can fix that.Cheers,Brian
I don't see what you see. I could not find anything labeled "blank" The site is optimized for Firefox, one of the browsers I use. Not sure if that is the issue, just guessing.Thanks,Brian
Look at the very top border of the browser it will show Breaktime #127024.x. That is the Title. It will also show on a tab.If you go here.http://basswoodcarpentry.com/Portfolio.htmlIt show the word "Blank". I don't know if the title got delete and that is a default for the browser or somehow it got labeled "Blank". The other pages show defaults for those pages (Home, Contact, etc).I am also using FF..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
Bill,I edited the Portfolio name from Blank to Portfolio and it still shows as "Blank" need to ask Intuit for some tech help.Thanks,Brian
Ahh finaly. Thanks.
Hi Gunner,I'm kinda slow. :o)All the best,Brian
Man anything you do is worth the wait.
Gosh Gunner, Yer gonna make me blush. Thanks.Have a great weekend,Brian
I think you have a very good looking site at certain resolutions.
When "Viewing Source," on the References page, I saw that you used Homestead SiteBuilder to create this. I think it defaulted to programmatical locating all page elements which will cause the page to break in some monitor resolutions. See attachments.
The "Substitute Brackets" text on your "References" page is broken in all resolutions in that the "hard wiring" of locations causes the word "above" to be covered.
Part of Element hs52 needs to be deleted from "References" page. See "Click here to add text" at top of "References" page.
hs52:
<!-- <hs:element52> -->
<div class="lpxtext" id="element52" style="position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; z-index: 12; width: 300px; height: 20px; visibility: visible;"><div><font class="size10 Helvetica10" color="#000000" face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Click here to add text.</font></div></div>
Without further analysis, I can't tell if the rest of the element is needed.
SamT
A Pragmatic Classical Liberal, aka Libertarian.
I'm always right!
Except when I'm not.
Sam, Thank you for your input......but I have no earthly idea what you are talking about. :o)I used SiteBuilder "Lite" which must be for dummies.Cheers,Bass
I only saw two errors on your "Contact Us" page
1: the link http://s436.photobucket.com/albums/q...ree/portfoliois broken as it is not complete; the three dots show that much of the link is missing and there may also be a misspelling in it, ie;. "portfoliois."Also, shouldn't that link be on the "Portfolio" page?
SamT
A Pragmatic Classical Liberal, aka Libertarian.
I'm always right!
Except when I'm not.
I fixed the link but it will only work if you "copy and paste" into your browser. Looks like I picked the wrong software. It likes Firefox, but it won't work on a Mac, so I'm stuck with the "Lite" version online... no full software download for the HTML stuff.Bummer Dude,Brian
Could I suggest you tell right on the front page where you're located and what area you serve? Otherwise people who stumble onto the page have no idea.
Hi Boss,It says I serve the Winona, Minnesota area, on the first page. Do you think it should be in bold print?Brian
Sorry - I didn't read all of the welcome text. Maybe since there are others that don't pay attention any better 'n I do you should put it right under "Basswood Architectural Compeny".Ya have to make it obvious for some of us.(-:
When I was a kid we had a sand box with quicksand in it. I was an only child... Eventually.
JLC had an article "this summer" and setting up a website.Look at what they say about identifying location.I am not sure, but what is in the title might be more important for the search engines..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
Thanks Bill,I'll check out the JLC article.Cheers,Brian
Brian, just visited it again now that I have a little more time. I know the site is just the first set up, and for that you've done a great job. I might suggest however you have a mechanism for making the photos bigger. Either a click thingy or when the curser roves over one the photo expands.
You've got great stuff so nothing like showing off the detail.
Doug
Thanks Doug,I'll see if the photos can go larger as you suggest.Have a great day,Brian
Brian... you do great work.
I think butt kissing is not what you seek here--honesty works better I think when you are trying to market yourself.
I am no expert, but I don't believe that template driven website is going to get you where you want to go. You need a professional design.. and where did your logo get to?
Photos are too small, you don't have the ability to display your photos that show off what you know. It looks dated.
Sorry Pal. I have an old .ca website I am reworking that looks similar... I have only kept it around because if helps ranking and still sees 40k visitors a month peak season.
You need a slick website that actually will rank for keywords that help your buyers find you--having that site up will help you for sure... but plan on spending more than a couple of thousand to do something nice ok?
LW
GardenStructure.com~Build for the Art of it! Decks Blog
Lawrence,Here is a quote from the OP:--"A professional site will be developed in the futrure, this is just a start."I have a web guru lined up, he is based here in MN, but all most of his clients are on the east and west coasts and he is gone for a while. I just wanted to get something together in the meantime--that's why I called it a "basic website." Just a temporary version.My Photobucket pics had 67,000 views in just a couple of months, so I know I won't have trouble drawing traffic.Here is my logo, it is a Basswood tree, rendered as a Celtic knot in what I call a Marquetry Medallion Motif (it will be on the new website soon):Cheers,Brian
I remember the logo... it is fantastic and should be paramount to the design.Good Luck with it Brian. Take your time.LWGardenStructure.com~Build for the Art of it! Decks Blog
Lawrence,The logo is new this fall... here is the old one it replaces:All the best,Brian
Brian,
Looks good.
Chuck S