My first website, what do you think?

My website theme is primarily the provision of articles on my pet subjects. I also included a PHPBB forum for interactive discussion among fans. Any thoughts or suggestions? I am always open to help.

I would suggest though that you provide 1 positive for every 2 negative feedback. This is not required though.

The site is http://debatefaith.org/

 

For your first website it is excellent. There is a good amount of content that is well laid out. What I suggest you do now is focus on creating a new layout for you main site and forum that is consistent throughout.

Otherwise well done!

 

If you coded the whole thing yourself, then it is not a bad attempt at a first website. I would suggest you enhance your skills by using divs instead of tables and do some research on cross browser compatibility. At the moment, your website will not load in IE for some random reason. Cross browser compatibility is a must for any web designer so work on it a little (there are my two negatives, although i could go on).
As for a positive note, you have learnt many core principles so im sure you will do well in time.

 

I appreciate the responses!

Oxi, I did code the whole thing myself (with the exception of the forum of course). I'm puzzled as to why the site won't load for you in IE. What version of IE are you using?

"although i could go on"
By all means, if you have more negative points you would like to make, please make them.

Andy,
Would you suggest I format the site according to the forum, or the forum according to the site? Just curious.

I really appreciate the compliments. I came in expecting to get nuked.

 

no worries, i disabled some addons and it seems to load fine now. The reason i didn't nuke you was because as you said, its your first site. I remember when i made my first site and it wasnt far off yours. If people are expecting brilliance from you for your first site then they have something wrong with them
Another point is to clean up your css code by learning how to decrease your code. I can see your from css at the moment that you define every border individually. E.g. border-right: 1px solid #000000;
Try combining these into one statement. E.g. border-width: <size> <size> <size> <size>;

 

I really appreciate the advice. I am very new to all this, and everything I have done so far is self taught through trial and error mostly, and ADHD limited sessions on CSS and HTML help sites.

Some questions:
I don't really know what you mean in your example "border-width: <size> <size> <size> <size>;". Is this to define the different possible sizes up front? I thought I was required to do custom border applications with each one.
Also, I have no idea how to use divs. I have used it in a very limited application @ /religion/christianity/gods-morality.html as a sort of "quote box".

Any resources or advice you can suggest to me would be greatly appreciated.

 

Anything you need is on http://www.w3schools.com. By the border width i meant say u wanted to specify a quote box which has borders on all sides, is (i dont know, lets pick something wacky) bright pink! and dotted and big dots. You could do this by using:

<div class='pinkness'>This text is in a quote box with a pink border. Lovely jubbly.</div>
<div class='pinkness'>This text is another quote box with a pink border. Lovely jubbly.</div>

then in css:

.pinkness {
border-width: 1px 1px 1px 1px;
border: solid pink thick
}

 

Whoa. So I don't have to individually do each border? It assumes each side of the box just by the placement in the sentence alone? Wowza... I am definitely looking into this w3schools site now. You are very much appreciated!

 

looks good so far

 

As yo said that its your first attempt, so i think that its an excellent website. You have done a great work. I don't think their is any negative point in your site. Its completely fine.

 

It looks great. A couple tips that I would use. One, people like to see who the author is. I know some people don't like to have their picture on the web but putting a face to a website could bring some more traffic to your site. Also, its all about the videos!!! When you get a chance, try adding a few videos. Other than that, great site and keep it up.

p.s. Make sure you add some keywords if you are looking for some SEO love. This will boost your google ranking if you are going to submit it to google.

 

Hi Jared,

Thanks for the advice! I am a bit curious as to how I would be able to figure out what the ideal keywords to use would be? I would appreciate the help.

 

Looking at your site, I suggest looking into keywords that have a low search results but high volume. To my knowledge your looking for people that are open to discussing topics on faith. Let me look up some keywords in google keywords for you.

 

Ok, so Here are just a few that I would use. Since you have Christianity, islam, scientology, deists etc. Try using relevant keywords to those particular faith's. For example you could use keywords like "Christianity faith", "islam faith", "scientology faith" etc. Also use keywords such as "faith forum", "the faith forum, "faiths forum".

When you do your keywords make sure you put them relevant to that page. Your home page might have all the keywords but your religion page will not have "faith forum" but more targeted keywords just for religion.

If you go to domaintools.com after you put your keywords in your page, you can see the relevancy of you keywords. I might take a few days to update but its a great way to see how your keywords are relevant to your page.

 

Well, appearance-wise it's ok, but the code - well, it would be great if this was 1997...

Whoever is teaching you and/or whatever sources you are learning from are filling your head with outdated methodologies that so far as I'm concerned shouldn't even be taught anymore. Table for layout, frames, presentational markup, it's filled with stuff that is a decade or more behind the times. Not your fault - so are the skillsets of most educators and the rubbish filling up 95% of the books on shelves.

Do yourself a favor, forget ALL of that table nonsense, and pick up a copy of Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way Using HTML & CSS, 2nd Edition by Ian Lloyd. You can get it at sitepoint, most major booksellers carry it, and I've seen it on shelves at local libraries.

Still for all that, quite impressive for a first outing - certainly better than what I did a decade ago.

 

Not bad for the 1st site

 

Once you have a design that you like you could create a custom Style for phpBB to match your site. Otherwise, not too bad.

I would try validating your site with the W3C Validator though, even if it does work in all of the major browsers.

 

For a first website, good job. Definitley get yourself into XHTML / CSS and you'll be making sexy pages in no time.

 

Good job for a first website, simple and good

 

Thanks everyone for your comments. Especially Jared, I appreciate the help on keywords and the site referral.

I have taught myself everything you see. Essentially I figure out what I want to do, and muscle head my way through it.

I really appreciate the advice, and I am currently looking at the info on that book.

Oxi suggested I look into Divs a little back, and since then I have hammered out a general site design using divs only (well, with a single table outline to center the whole thing, haven't figured out how to do that with Divs yet) So, this is really the first time I have asked other developers for tips.

Thanks again everyone! I really appreciate the help.