Save for a few remaining pages that require design updates, the site is finished. If anyone has any comments on the informative/content, design, and/or seo aspects of it I would be most grateful to hear them. Thanks, Steve
Looks good. As a consumer, it would strike me as an informational site. It does not look spammy or like it is trying to sell me something; it looks like it is full of useful pages. Good first impression. Where is your H1 tag? Typo: "Refer the following sections for more detailed escriptions of each. " on: http://www.mortgagedisclosure.com/TypesOfMortgageLenders.htm
OK one more note... I'm really not fond of the top of the page. It is a LOT of wasted space above the fold. There is a large field of blue up there doing absolutely nothing for you. Even at 1280 x 1024, the links and text don't start until halfway down the page... that is half of your viewer's eyeballs being wasted.
You need more vibrant colors than those two shades of blue. Either that or get a logo/slogan up top that has a lot more color in it. I agree with this...
Its a nice simple design. Search engines should like the site. Just a suggestion...the top navigation "Home" link is in the middle. It should start at the left, then "About" link, and so on. I know it may be a different style but you will find that it is best to stick to the regular routine especially when dealing with navigation. Most visitors will not take the time to learn your navigational system and changing the regular navigational system which was pioneered in the early internet days, will have some visitors back out. You also do not have a footer...which is where you can add some other links (if needed) and put the "advertisers" link. I hope this helps. I would also use .php or .shtml for the pages so you can use an include file for your header and footer. This way if you make changes to your header or footer then you will be able to make global changes to all your pages header or footer by just changing one file oppose to trying to change every page.
I appreciate seeing a site with some real content that doesn't have SELL all over it. The design is probably improvable, but I am one of those who thinks content trumps design. For additional content it might be worth interviewing people in the business for stories of mistakes applicants frequently make that cause their loan applications to fail.
All great thoughts. Thanks all of you. My programming is VERY elementary, so it seems I have some things to learn about headers and footers, and .php, & cetera. I actually WAS in the business, and got out of it, and wanted to put the info to use somehow. There top reasons for failure is a good idea. I'm sure there's a way to generate revenue from the site, and that will come at some point. There's a lot of mortgage sites out there, and the competition is pretty fierce. The SEO bit is daunting and I'm looking for forward to the day when Alexa puts me in the top 100,000. Sigh... Thanks again. Any more feedback?
I like the color combination because it's very pleasing to my eyes. You might want to make your house logo link back to your homepage. For a first time visitor, I had some trouble finding your "home" link. I'm so accustomed to seeing the home link at the beginning of a menu. Good luck!
Have you thought about changing the font to "Verdana" or "Arial", might look a bit better. For the rest it looks fine.
1/3 of your non scrolable area is wasted in blank purple !!! create a new banner, with new logo and much less empty space change your color schem