Site Review Please

[jmw]

Seeing how I am sooooo new at this any advice will certainly be appreciated......go easy and Thank you.

Discount Travel Deals and Bargains Air Fare, Hotels, Car Rentals, Luggage

[Linda Buquet]

Here are a couple quick tips and some feedback.

The background looks odd in Firefox, like part of it is missing on the left column.

Overall the design looks a little crowded and jumbled since there are not distinct columns. Sorry not explaining well, too tired.

A very important issue for SEO is the meta title tag which shows up as the line of text at the very top of your browser. Your title is: "Discount Travel Deals and Bargains Air Fare, Hotels, Car Rentals, Luggage" on every page.

Each page should use the main keywords that page is about. You need to do keyword research to find the best keywords. Theses aren't the right ones, but just to give you an idea. Your airfare page may have a title like:"Best airline deals and cheap plane tickets for last minute travel.

HOWEVER overall you are trying to target a market that is WAY too competitive for a newbie to start with. IMHO. You are competing with millions of pages built by major travel corporations, travel agencies and pro affiliates. How will anyone find you?

You have a good domain name that could be used for travel or other types of deals. What I suggest is you research and find a smaller less competitive niche at least to start with. It could still be travel if you want to but think of a very specific target market that's not too saturated. I'm not into the travel scene so I don't know for sure, but niches would be things like teens traveling alone or travel to one specific area.

Hope this helps a little!

[jmw]

Hi Linda Well you gave me lots to think about, hence the name edealsnbargain.....I can change it to be pretty much anything I want.

You mentioned Firefox. I am using a template from Yahoo and I don't think I can move those margins. I know that in IE it looks different on my laptop which I like, but on my desktop it looks horrible. How do I address that problem? Or perhaps I need to speak with Yahoo about that.

As far as addressing the titles of each page. You mean just changing the title on each meta tag page?

In any event, thank you for your advice, I think that is really, good targeting one specific area of the travel industry. I know I am green, but this is quite an experience and lots to learn and I'm having soooo much fun with it even though this is not the ideal website. I just love all the info everyone has to offer and hope someday to being doing well.

[jazzguy]

Hi jmw. First off it's great read that you are having fun doing this. That will make working on the site easier...

I have the same issues with the site as Linda...also dude...or dudette...there's way too much advertising...no offense but it reminds me of a site designed in 1996. What I would do, and this is just me, would be to work the home page with a strong descriptive paragraph of what the site is about and how surfers can utilize it to benefit them in the long run. I would not have any ads at all on the home page. Then with the other pages on airfares, luggage, etc., I would add more descriptive text focusing on the specific keywords you want surfers to find your site through. And then place one or two ads, along with the Adsense, in your text. I would shy away from banners and just use text links as they seem to work better and are part of the language or descriptive text.

I'm not sure if this helps you. The site is in a very saturated market as Linda mentions, but if you do it in a style that is personal and interesting it just may turn out to be a cool site that people wouldn't mind flocking to. And I would definitely add a "Tips" and/or "Resource" section. For example, the 240 rule that you mention would fit nicely in that section. I didn't know about it and learned something new...and so would others... That would be something that would set the site apart nicely from the rest...in my humble opinion.

Take care and all the best.

Jazzguy (Lyle)

[Linda Buquet]

More great feedback. Thanks Lyle!

[jazzguy]

Awww-shucks...my pleasure...

Jazzguy (Lyle)

[jmw]

Hi Lyle Thanks so much for your advice. I will start working on all the suggestions I received. 1996, Yikes, I have lots to learn. I'll try to figure out why things are being cut off. Because I see everything okay on my laptop. Jean

Well on the plus side, you learned something today too.

[jazzguy]

You are most welcome jmw...and sorry for the harsh 1996 comment...it could have been worse...I could have said 1896... And about the background being cut off...I too am at a loss...I checked the site out in both Firefox, my main browser, and also Explorer and they both had the same issue. I also thought it may be a monitor resolution issue but that doesn't seem to be the case since it looks the same at 800x600, 1024x768 and so on...is there any way you could take that page and tweak it in a HTML editor or WYSIWYG program? Does Yahoo allow you to do that?

Good luck in all things and let us know how things progress...and yes, I did learn something new, which to me, is what the Internet is all about...so in that regard you are miles ahead of a lot of people...

Jazzguy (Lyle)

[jazzguy]

I found the problem...it is the image of your backround...it's the actual way it looks...I would see if you can find a better background. To see what I mean, click your right mouse button (on a PC mouse) and click on "view background image" or something like that. Then you will see that that is the actual image and not a ***** up with the coding. Hope that helps.

Jazzguy (Lyle)

[jmw]

Well, you certainly are a wealth of information. I am having yahoo look into this, because I still am not seeing the problems on my laptop. I'm not finding the view you suggested to go to. Maybe its because I have Vista.....I did a print preview and it was fine, but when I made a pdf, it was a mess. I hope to get this cleared up soon and will work on all the other suggestions. Thanks again. Jean I won't quit my day job yet......