opinions please

Hi everyone, as some of you know i design websites on the site, specially for restaurants and pizzerias… anyways i am working on the new website for my brother in law’s place…
www.louiespizzeria.net im still working on it and theres alot more work to be done, i just want to know what you guys think so far… im also working on a website for a local pizza shop near my house, once im done with it i will post it to get opinions… thanks in advance

List the menu. Right now the only option when you click menu is to print it off. You should have it so you can look at it on line and print it if you want to.

It takes a bit of time to open up on my browser. I would really need to see it more completed to comment further. But it does take nearly 15 seconds to load on my computer.

Are you on dial-up Paul? It loads for me with no delay at all.

A few opinions (and only my opinions):

  • You should probably hire a professional photographer for the food pictures. Taking pictures of food and making it look good is extremely difficult. I don’t think the food is being shown in the best light (figuratively and literally.)

  • The site looks a little bit dated. Web design has moved ahead at a very quick pace over the past two years. Everything now has the “Web 2.0” look… glass buttons, gradients, subtle 3D effects, simplicity, etc. Check out http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/web-2.0-design-style-guide.cfm for a nice page describing what I mean. It’s amazing how quickly the web changed in design quality; it seems like it happened overnight.

  • You probably want to get some regular old HTML text along the top somewhere. As it is, the site is not very Google friendly. Google still has a lot of difficulty reading flash. When I search for “Pizza in Millis, ma” you’re not in the first 3 pages. Even when I search for “Louie’s pizzeria in millis” you get beat out by seven other sites, and that’s with “Pizzeria” which most people don’t know how to spell.

I find most people find my site with my company name followed by “pizza” and then my city (even though our company name has “pizzeria”). When I google “Louie’s pizza millis” you’re nowhere to be found. I see you addressed this with your meta keywords, but Google ignores those now. Actually, the last major search engines dropped support of meta description tags in 2002. You need to have the text in your page to get noticed.

  • Take the counter off the page. That dates the page back to the internet dark ages (circa 1996).

  • The comments section: I’m not a big fan of linking to any type of content that you don’t control. Gather up some quotes from existing customers and use that in the comments section, or quotes from food reviewers. What you have linked to can seriously backfire if somebody (or a competitor) leaves a nasty review and you don’t catch it. Always control the content your visitors see. I don’t think you’ll see many restaurants linking to their Citysearch or Yahoo Local reviews. It’s kind of like referencing Wikipedia in a thesis paper.

  • If you are going to link to something outside of your page, make it pop a new window or tab. You don’t want to send people AWAY from the site.

I love the red to beige gradient… those are also my company colors. The work great together IMHO. And the menu board in the background looks awesome and provides a nice depth to the page.

Anyway, just my opinions. I’m not a pro or anything, but I’ve been doing websites as a hobby for about 12 years now.

Nope, not on dial up, on AT&T DSL and just timed the page at 18 seconds to load. The top three pictures are instant but the main square takes that long to load on my fairly new laptop which doesn’t take that long for any other site. I don’t know what the difference is, but the web designer should be aware of this.

Looking better than ever.

Ditto the need to see menu online. I hate having to download and print if I want to read something.

Ditto the long download. Not sure what it is, but took me 21 seconds to get the middle box.

Coupons seem small and not really easy to read on my screen. I would want them clear and easy if they are part of the business model.

You may be wasting available real estate on the screen by using that little box for your primary content and leaving black screen vacant.

Overall, looks improved over this time last year.

First of all, I want to thank all of you for the comments and critiques, I like honest opinions and that’s why I love this forum… Some of the stuff you guys pointed out I had them in mind, like I said I have a lot of work that needs to be done, I published it that way I can keep working on it and I know in my mind I have to hurry… the menu, I did it like that temporary, iam working on a page like I had it in the old website… the pictures you guys are right, it is hard to take good pictures but I did them like that kind of like a preview… I’m going to work on that also… paul and nick that’s weird it takes so long to load, because for me it take 4 seconds, I timed it… maybe you have to update your player?..

Piper thank you for all of those comments, you are right everything has changed so much… I have been designing on and off as a hobby since 98 and there is so much to keep up with… the comments page, I’m working on my own flash guestbook, I have that free as a temporary solution… the yahoo comments and citysearch etc… I just thouth it would be nice to have comments in other websites that customers wrote… also I will work on the html tags, I didn’t realize search engines aren’t big in meta tags…

thank you all of you and any other comments and critiques are appreciated…

It took me asges to load the images as well, and I’m up to date on browsers etc so I think the issue is at the host end.

The whole page looks rather ‘squashed’ on my screen the box with all your images/text etc take up only about 1/2 of the screen width wise - like Nick says, for example, the coupons are tiny.

And the background looks a bit confusing with menu items/prices going behind the main text/images.

the coupons when you print them are a good size… customers have been bringing them and they look good on paper… the number in the background are our menu board faded and those colors are the colors we use on pizza boxes and bags… maybe I can fade it a little more, would that be more clear?

I don’t like how the text runs over the adjacent text when mousing-over a heading like menu, etc.

Okay everyone… reading all of your opinions really motivated me and start working on the new one asap… this is what i got so far… this is just a preview of how the site is looking… buttons arent working yet… this is the home page:

http://www.louiespizzeria.net/Feb08.html

like i said… im not done yet… any comments and critiques are welcome… thanks

The site looks alot cleaner Raymir.

I think the Louies Pizzeria at the top should be in a better font. It doesn’t stand out as much as it should.

Also on that Patriot banner I’d add “18-1” at the bottom in big numbers. :shock:

LOL… thats funny 18-1, i’ll give you that one heehehe… the louies pizzeria on top is the logo of the place… i have been trying to find a font close to it so i can re-create it but i cant find one… i scanned an old take out menu, took the logo from there and cleaned it as much as i could… I am going to keep looking for a font like that, hopefully i’ll find one before im done with the site… i cant wait to take that other website down…

The address is off-center due to the knife. It detracts somehow. Also, the shadowed pizza guy in the upper left bothers me. I also think I’d replace the negative of “sorry we do not deliver” with “Dine-In and Carry Out” (not ONLY).

The font and the knife give me a scary dark side feeling. But until I come up with my own, I ought to keep my mouth shut. 8)

sorry but…
the food photos low quality you ll do better not having em at all.
the logo is scary.
the dining room photo looks uninviting
just do not use any photos if it is not going to be high quality
just my openion ty

loaded no problem for me. looks dated. little messy. more like a personal site. If you don’t have professional images use stock. pictures should be cropped.

thank you once again for all the opinions… so you guys think the knife has to go? the logo I may work on a new one that looks close to that one but more dated and alive… I think I’m going to take your advice on the pics, if they aren’t professional pics they don’t look too good… anyways, overall is this one looking better than the other one? and what else you guys think I can do to make it better… I’m glad I’m getting input from all of you, we all in the same business and close taste…

http://www.louiespizzeria.net

all done guys… please let me know what you think… I kept the logo because that’s the logo from the shop and the knife, every person that I showed to they like it… they say is pretty neat having the pizza knife there… piper, I’m waiting for one of your reviews… thanks in advanced everyone

-Why does your pizza maker on the first page still have the nuclear bomb shadow behind him ?

-The knife has got to go.

-You may want to review the past post already offering advice. It seems like you’ve ignored or overlooked a lot of valid opinions.