http://www.PinataZone.com

Hello,

I designed and built this small time party pinata & supply website a 1 year ago and I would like feedback on the site's usability. I'm starting to think that I should get rid of most of the images on the site to save loading time. I've tested the design in 5 major browsers and every thing seems to work fine. I viewed the code validator for my site and it said that it wasn't valid due to missing alt tags. Do I have to put alt tags on every image to make this site valid? Any feed back on my site would be greatly appreciated!! I’m also trying to improve my search rankings and I have to admit that I’m a complete novice when it comes to search engine optimization. Thanks!

http://www.PinataZone.com

Vor

Alt tags on every image isn't a necessity, but it will help with increased keyword density for search engines. This would especially useful if used on all items and thumbnails, and boy will it build up.

The site looks good though. I like the way you've incorporated all of your shipping and payment information at the top. Overall it looks quite professional and clean. Spacing is nice, as are the colors.

very good use of colours, maybe make the google adsense the same theme as the site? (ie: orange/purple). And maybe preload the images for the onmouseover links.

nice work.

agreed...good looking site. very fitting colour scheme, smooth layout, and easy to navigate.

and accessibility if people have images turned off or are using a mobile device or a text reader... and if you want your code to validate.


It does look good though.

It's funny that you mentioned mobile access, because that's my next project. From what I have learned so far it seems better to offer an alternative site for mobile users rather than a complete reconstruction of the old. But it looks like I do need to include more alt tags in my existing site. What would you recommend? Thanks for the info!

Vor

Use CSS for layout. By that I mean for laying out everything. This way, if you just drop your css (as any mobile device will usually do due to it's inability to layout anything), all you will see is pure, unadulterated text. You'll just need to make sure that the order the text comes in your code is in a logical manner for reading top to bottom.