Sooooooo, I finally finished my site. It's not really the design I wanted to go with, but it will do for now. Until I have the $$ to create my own I'm with a "site builder" and free domain.

I know it's sparse. Sparse is what I like, but tell me if it's too sterile. I don't want to turn anyone off with my starkness. LOL!

Also, I used "I" instead of my business name because, while I know it's frowned upon, I wanted to personalize it. I live in a rural area and anticipate business from the locals. They frown upon "uppity" people. I don't have a host of employees or anything like that so it seems superficial to pretend that I'm some lofty conglomerate. When I get to that point I'll consider switching it, but until then I'm all about pleasing the locals.

Here she is:

www.mosaic.vpweb.com

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Eyreka

I actually don't think it's sterile or boring and the use of I reads well to me. You have the right amount of information and you didn't try to fill it with information that is not to the point. The third sentence that starts with Having loved being might need to be edited grammatically, maybe combine the first two sentence but I'm not good with editing text so I could be wrong.

I liked your site.

Kemi

I think it looks very nice! It's nice and clean and not busy! Great work. You should consider bartering with someone that knows how to build websites. Wordpress is the best and most affordable site to go with. It will be a huge benfit for you. I do that with some VA's. Bartering is a great way to build your business!

Hi Eyreka

Sorry for the double post but I just noticed one thing about the Contact Us page. You probably don't need to collect address information - even phone number should be optional at the initial stage.

As a potential client I wouldn't know the purpose of entering my contact information - What's the purpose of being added to the customer list - is it to sign-up to receive newsletter or emails, or for service request. After I enter all that information what should I expect to occur.

On the About Us page - the contact me link - Maybe it should be directed to the updated contact us page. I don't use a desktop mail client so whenever I click on a mailto link I usually have to go back and get the email address to send the email. This might just be me so I would like to hear what others think about mailto: links

Kemi

Hi there! I am working on my web page also, so ill gladly give you my two cents if you give me yours when I have mine up!

1. Site is visually attractive! love the colors.
2. Home page - Suggest you change your "welcome" tagline to something more enticing. Your headline should grab attention and bring the the reader in for more. The font for the first sections should be one size larger so that it stands out and separates it from the rest of the page, also giving visual direction. Sometimes having one long page makes it easy for the reader to get lost.

3. Home Page - add your company name, contact info on bottom of home page, in addition to its own contact page.
just my opinion.

also, i agree w/ post above about your contact us page and also suggest getting rid of the form boxes, i find them distractive whenever i visit any website that has them.

Thank you so much for the advice! Bartering, linking to the contact page and adding my info to the bottom of my home page - all things I hadn't thought of.

I'm grateful each of you were able to truly analyze the page and provide some great ideas!

Now I'm going to get to work on all of them.

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Eyreka

i hope i was helpful! gosh..if i can only get my own site up? lol