The Genii Forum

Hi Everyone.

Not sure if this is the place to post this (Richard, please move it to the appropriate forum if not). I'm not normally one to foist my wares upon others in this manner, but I would be curious to hear some feedback from some of the members here.

The site is a simple one I built in Apple's iWeb. I'm no web design guy, and I'd eventually like to move it to a Wordpress platform, I think, once I figure that out. Mainly, I wanted it to be simple and clean and easy to navigate.

www.wonder-show.com

I'm somewhat visually handicapped, and the color scheme for your headings is very bad for a person like me. Light brown text on a black background is a poor choice of colors. It's very difficult for me to read, and probably not as good as it could be for someone with normal vision. You also use brown on black in the main image of the page. There is some text there (written, produced. . .)that is almost illegible. You'd need a bigger font, or better contrast.

If you want readability on your site, try for more contrast between your text colors and background colors. Leave the low contrast, "artsy" stuff to less important material that you wouldn't mind being ignored.

On a technical level, your site is using "frames" in your source code. This is considered undesirable because of problems with bookmarks and web searches. That technology is considered very old school and discouraged. You should look for a tool that doesn't generate pages using frames.

Good luck!

I'm guessing you used an older version of iWeb in order to end up with a site that uses frames. But, really, I wouldn't worry about it. Web snobbery aside, it's perfectly functional the way it is. In fact, it's guaranteed to work in simple and older browsers that some of your customers might be using.

Let's face it, the average magician's site is neither an HTML showcase nor a highly-optimized Google-trap. Focus on making it more readable and you'll be spending your time on what really matters.

You are certainly on the right track with establishing a "look & feel" for your act. However, I think the balance between artistic and readable needs to be adjusted.

The fancy words are a nice touch, however "Praestigium" is too obscure. I'd choose a more common word. Avoid have all the text as graphics. That really makes it difficult for search engines. Find a font and stick with it. There are too many fonts on the page, making it almost illegible. I didn't bother to read it beyond the first sentence... too much of a hassle. As EMH mentioned, the color contrast needs adjustment also. By utilizing HTML5 and CSS3, you can use custom fonts on website.

As for the frames, avoid them at all cost. They also can cause havoc with search engines, and do not work well on mobile platforms. All sites nowadays must be designed with smartphones in mind. Very important!

One last note. Instead of merely placing your email address on the page as a link, include a form they can fill out. All you need is their name, email address and a textarea field for their question. That can then be hooked into a contact manager (such as aweber.com) to help you build a mailing list. Very important!

I think the site looks great.

I'd just say don't get in too deep with iWeb (and this is coming from an Apple fanatic). I built two sites on iWeb, but I eventually became frustrated that Apple has not updated the software in ages. It's fine for most of the site, but as a blog, iWeb is the pits. No ability to tag stories is ridiculous. Also Google is no fan of iWeb created sites. It's hard to get them listed. And a lot people told me they had trouble viewing my iWeb site. Also, tech support is non-exsistant if you are hosted by MobileMe. I had a problem once and the only solution was to move the site to a new server.

Ultimately I created a new site via Blogger, and it's soooooo much better. But, again, I mainly blog. Design is limited in Blogger.

Good luck!

it looks like the text is an image? is that true? If so, I'd fix that right away so the search engines can figure out what your site is about.

love the front page image though. best of luck.

Nice website, I too have been working on websites recently so appreciate all the work that goes into something like this! Well done!