Please review my dumbbell excercises website

[lewisday_]

Hello, I've just published my first Wordpress site here: http://www.dumbbell-exercises.co.uk and would really appreciate some feedback. This is the second or third site I've built, but the thirst for quite a few years. The site is still a work in prgress so there are a few things that need to corrected still.

The white (pale blue) areas are where I've added adsense boxes but am still waiting for Google to approve the application.

I am pretty happy with the overall layout and structure of the site, but am uncertain about the look and feel.

Currently the site is number 5 on Bing, but nowhere on Google.

Please let me know what you think, don't pull any punches!


Many thanks

[Fokebox]

The website is very informative for those who wants to train ) ... It looks good from the design point of view and there are some thinks that can be improved like: logo (the simple text on the top is not so attractive ... create something that can be recognized and has specific elements according to your website )
The second thing that I can advise is to make the horizontal drop down menu darker than the background color or to make borders of submenus

[lewisday_]

Both valid comments thanks. I'm working on the header graphic already. Not sure how to change the drop down menu though, as it's a Wordpress theme I've installed. I will contact the developer and ask them.

Thanks for the feedback

[piyush.dcs]

Hi,

Your website has some w3c errors which you can solve.

There is too much of white space in the content which you can use to present other information. Little use of graphics will make your site look good.

[lewisday_]

Hi,

Your website has some w3c errors which you can solve.

There is too much of white space in the content which you can use to present other information. Little use of graphics will make your site look good.

Thanks for the feedback.

What white space are you referring to? If it's on the homepage that will be filled with adsense in a day or so.

I will check out the w3c errors, thanks.

Finally, do you mean that I should use less graphics, or more?

[lewisday_]

Hi,

Your website has some w3c errors which you can solve.

There is too much of white space in the content which you can use to present other information. Little use of graphics will make your site look good.

I've taken a look at the errors. Didn't realise there were so many! I'm not really sure what to do about these as the site is based on a Wordpress theme so there is a limited amount I can do to change things. The main problems seem to be coming from two plugins that I will look to replace. The other errors I'm not sure how to deal with though.

My limied knowledge suggests these are not serious errors. Or have I got that wrong?

[Hendosrus]

Hi Lewis,

I thought it was a very straightforward site. Simple to use and very comprehensive. I would also like to have seen easier on the eye drop down menus, and more use of graphics. But hey, it's only an opinion, and it already is a great site - well done. I don't even know what w3c errors are - so I can't help there - lol. Care to share?

My best to you,

Paul,
from Down Under

[lewisday_]

Thanks for the feedback. I guess your talking about more graphics on the exercise and workout pages? I take your point and am working on this.

Also, I agreee about the menus. This is a Wordpress theme though, so I've asked the developer if they will consider this for a future release.

Re W3C, it's the World Wide Web Consortium. They are an international community that develops open standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web. Or at least that's what it says on their website. They have a tool that you can use to check your html for errors: http://validator.w3.org/ . I'm not an expert on this by any means, by I think the rules they apply to these tests are pretty strict. Not sure what impact they will have on SEO. Anyone care to comment?

[GavsCoupons]

I think its a very clean and well laid out site. A logo would be good to make it that little more proffesional looking and giving it a brand id. The spacing will look better once the google ads are there, I would try and change anything until the ads are up and you can see what the spacing is like. I know that adsense has rules on ad positioning so its worth checking up on that. The last thing you want to do is get the account suspended just afte rgetting it approved.

[RyanReese]

The iframes you are using on your page seem to be empty. I'm getting no content from them. Try to avoid iframes when possible. They are deprecated . Overall I like the page. I do think the logo at the top right (curling guy) should have the image more focused on his bicep, since his chest (what is mainly showing) isn't what's affected by doing curls. It does look nice but a more bicep shot would be better I think.

I'd have some sort of divider between the posts on the homepage. Perhaps a border or something.

[Lewisday]

The iframes you are using on your page seem to be empty. I'm getting no content from them. Try to avoid iframes when possible. They are deprecated . Overall I like the page. I do think the logo at the top right (curling guy) should have the image more focused on his bicep, since his chest (what is mainly showing) isn't what's affected by doing curls. It does look nice but a more bicep shot would be better I think.

I'd have some sort of divider between the posts on the homepage. Perhaps a border or something.

Thanks for the feedback. Which iframes? I agree about the logo. Am working on something better.

[RyanReese]

Do you see all those light blue boxes with nothing in it? Right click that and check the element in either Chromes dev toolbar or Firebug for firefox. If the Iframe is being generated somehow, you need to somehow fix it .

[Andy Button]

The design is too simplistic, the graphics are too "slapped together."

[rosiebrown0]

The site is really very clean and professional..But i am not getting why you have left that light blue space..If you wish you can add images and themes to it.
to attract more users and traffic..

[ClickController]

Nice layout and the content is well written. Suggestion; Make the top banner shorter. This will look more professional and put more of your content above the fold.

[Conquer]

Good concept for a site. This is something I'm personally interested in, as I do all my weight training with dumbbells and body weight exercises.

The content is clear, easy to understand and useful.

The site design looks like a million other WordPress sites, but... Who cares? The content is what really matters in your case. It looks nice enough. Nothing is getting in the way of the site's usefulness.

One fairly big issue though: Your videos do not play automatically on Linux and don't think they'll play on a Mac either. Not without separate programs installed to play WMV files, anyway. I wouldn't worry about us Linux users too much, we're a tiny percent of users and we can get get the videos to play, but what about Mac users?

The header could be improved a bit. In my opinion, the site name is too big and that blue is too hard on the eyes. The tagline is not enough contrast and the "Library of workouts..." text is kinda blurry and should be positioned better, because that's the answer to "What will this site do for me?" so it should be one of the first things seen. But those are pretty minor things.

If that's your picture on your "About Me" page, Good Job on that!

[printbucket]

Nice website, although you could do better with a good header and logo. As for the white space, I think piyush was referring to the space between paragraphs.

[fady]

It's a pretty nice website considering that it's built using Wordpress. One thing which I want you to know is that the font size of your name at the end of the 'About Me' content is a bit too big. At first when I looked at it, it seemed as if it was some heading as the font size of 'About Me' and 'Lewis Day' is same. You might want to replace it with a digital signature of yours and with your name under it (smaller font, ofcourse). Secondly, you should replace the websites URL with a logo in the header area. Other than these two things, it's a good website.