Posts Member

Looks pretty good to me! I don't know a ton about coding for web pages, but I think I have decent taste in web design and layout and yours is not too bad. It's not exceptional, but it looks good for a pretty basic set up.

I was just looking at the page of Mark Van Akkeren yesterday, the new trifueler who posted the Kona AG report. http://www.markavan.com/main.htm

I like your color scheme better but he has better interactive features (more interesting buttons and links, animated picture, slightly animated name. Obviously don't steal his set up, but you might be able to use it as inspiration for a few improvements of your own.

Anyway, yours is straight forward and easy to follow. It has all the important info I can think of, and good enough web design to keep ones interest.

Posts Member

Yeah, I never actually said that, seeing as how I'm not complete tool and the quote makes me sound otherwise......the girl who wrote that has a tendency to make things up in all of her articles....I'll fix that, though....thanks.:)

Keep 'em comin'!

Posts Member

I think it looks pretty good. Have you looked around at many of the pros? I think Desiree Ficker has one of the better ones for a basic information site. I alos think that some of the blog type sites can be free, cheap and effective - especially for your first until that lucrative 100MM gatorade sponsorship!! Some flash animation (changing photos etc) would be catchy.

I would remove the comment - beaten by Spencer Smith ... You finsihed 3rd. Great result regardless. Save the discussion of your results for your sponsoirship interviews and highlight that one in a conversation. Just a thought. Overall your results shouldspeak for themselves.

Posts Member

I'm not sure why bullets aren't showing up on my screen. I'll try to format around that.

There are three things that shoot out at me (and to preface that I do rather like the layout/design overall. You've got a nice color/scheme that works well):

1.
The biggest thing is that it covers the entire page, but you've a fair bit of whitespace within the page (take for example the completely blank area between your photo on the left and the upcoming races on the right on the homepage). While you've got the links up top, the space makes me stop, ask myself, and actually look for where those links are located.

Changing desktop resolutions, I can see that the white space is due to a larger screen resolution (I run 1280x1024). If I knock my resolution down to 1024x768 it's much less noticable. This, however, brings up a salient point regarding the site. If you have space that will expand/contract depending on your viewer's screen resolution it's by far preferable to have it at the edges rather than somewhere in the middle of your site. That is one of the driving reasons why centered sites with sidebars have become so common - the sidebars contract/expand as needed and your primary layout stays exactly how you like it formatted. It keeps the flow of your site neat (and consistent!)

To note (in case you're not familiar), the easiest way to implement the two sidebars is simply a centered, fixed-width table with a basic background setting that takes care of your sidebar coloring/imagery.

At the very least I would suggest some sort of minor sidebar (I'll get into more detail in #3)

2.
Alignment in your subtable/subframe (where your picture of you on your bike resides on the home page).

Your home page, bio, schedule/results, & media are all left-aligned. Your photos, sponsors/links, & contact me are all centered-aligned. Based on what I see, the following is what I would run based on a flow perspective:

1. Home - center the image. If you're going to have any white space there, distribute it on both sides. Even if you change styles to something with sidebars a centered image will in general look "cleaner"
2. Bio - it's text, keep left-aligned as standard
3. Schedule/Results - it's text, keep left-aligned as standard
4. Media (news) - it's text, keep left-aligned as standard
5. Media (photos) - images, center-align as standard. If you end up using thumbnails use more than one per line, but make sure you don't have too many to crowd things off the page for lower resolution browsers (generally consider 800x600 as the absolute minimum nowadays, though most newer sites develop for closer to 1024x768 due to the common retail screen space nowdays)
6. Sponsors/Links - center align as you're using graphics as your primary interface.
7. Contact Me - center align. Though it's text, it's information you want to stand out...and most standards keep the contact info centered as it makes it stand out from the rest of the text, wherever the contact information is located.

3.
Force some sidebars, even if they're really small.

Most notable is when I'm looking on the news section and sponsor section in relation to your contact info section. In both the news and sponsor your right image goes to the very edge of the page. In your contact info you've got a bit of a sidebar (though caused by different picture dimensions). Having that sidebar gives a definite stop to the edge of the page, rather than letting your viewer wonder if they should be able to scroll to the side for some reason.

If you compare those further to your home page, you can see that the home page has very defined edges. It keeps you centered (horizontally) on the page.

Hope that helps :)
Jeremy

Edited to add:

I'll second Desiree's site as something to take examples from. My notable reasons why:

1. - A clear delineation at the sides, top, and bottom
2. - A nice top to bottom flow
3. - Her sponsors are featured front page, as well as on her sponsor page (something it feels they would like, and would encourage them remind them that they'll be front and center as well)

If I changed anything on her site it would again be centering the pictures (they're just slightly off-center) and aligning the picture titles (ala Kona) to the left of the picture group

Posts Member

It's looking pretty good so far. Riverbrady had some great suggestions, and I would second all of those.

Also, I noticed that you are using kind of a cheesy free web server. If you're going to go that route, you might consider WordPress. I think it's much tidier, and you will find that the ability to add custom side-bars will be nice. Also, there are hundreds of templates for WordPress pages, and you can make some great looking pages. My page is at http://scottnlucy.com right now it's a travel blog, but pretty much everything on there is customizable, so you would be able to scale/change it to suit your content needs.

Funny how all the guys know exactly what Desiree's webpage looks like... ;)

Posts Member

Hey Matt,

I used to publish an amateur sports magazine in Alberta, so I'm used to some print publishing formatting - specifically pictures of people should not face "off" the page. So, I'm suggesting that you place the RHS menu of upcoming events on the left side so the rider in the picture is racing towards the events - this takes the eye in the right direction as it scans the page. Same with the header, put the rider on the RHS. Same with the bio page - the pic on the right has you riding off the page, reverse it so you face the text.

If the formatting tool from GOWide doesn't offer this option, try reversing the picture so that you appear to be riding from left to right. This can be done in Photoshop or most any photo editing software.

Secondly, if getting sponsors is the goal of this webpage, let's personalize it: who is this guy Matt Greene? I want to see his face - nice smiling face - looking at me on the front page. All I see at the moment is a pretty tri-suit (mostly butt) riding away from me, anonymous, I am unable to relate to that, give me a face - and no sunglasses! I gotta look you in the eye if you want me to give you money!

Further to that re-write the bio so it appeals to a sponsor. Delete the stuff only your aunt would think is cute, eg. "I got my first speedo when I was four."
Say instead, "I have been racing in a Speedo ® since I was four." - and include the Registered Trademark symbol!

Some useful site-building tips here
and here: Funky Chickens

best of luck,

PoC

Posts Member

I figured that I'd just mirror flip the pictures to make this work. Then I realized my suit said ADIROLF instead of FLORIDA. Oops! :D I've been making tons of changes today (would've been more, but my professors are slightly sadistic). Thanks for the help! Hopefully it'll be somewhat presentable in the next few days.

Posts Member

Sounds like a great name for a new brand of wheels, hints of Adidas and Rolf conglomeracy.

If the page is set as a table then the menu element on the right will be bracketed by a pair of [td> [/td> tags (I can't use < brackets or the browser reads them as "real" so replace the square brackets with brevets in HTML <)

Likewise the picture cell will have td tags

table
tr
td
/td
/tr
/table

Just copy the whole menu cell and insert it into the code above the cell containing the picture. This will place the menu on the left on left on that row, followed by the pic.

Have fun.

POC

Posts Member

Okay, smartypants.
Your file manager should let you edit your index.html file.
So, can you make a table?
Put your header on one row with a colspan of 3
next row 3 cols, that td /td thang
insert pix and text.
repeat as necessary.

I've done so many of these that it is hard to imagine OP having trouble, but I think you can master this and you won't need an online website creator. I don't like the things myself.

P.S. I just looked at your page. That looks much better. I like the photo montage because now we can see your face. I think sponsors can relate to that better. How about a photo gallery? Then we can see the full sized pix.

Some pages I have built:
EventsBC.ca
Powerhouse Theatre, Vernon
Madcapper's Brew House
Vernon Vintners
Fre-Da-Ro Organic Farms
Commercial Kitchen Design
2008 Okanagan Theatre festival

PoC

Posts Member

I'd suggest getting off of a free creator (despite its ease of use), in order to remove the advertisement at the bottom. It may be as easy as paying them a small fee every month to have "paid hosting." Also, if this service you are using allows the association of a domain name to your site, I would advise you taking advantage of that. Those can be had at a really low price: Godaddy.com, Tucows, etc...

Posts Member

Really? You've paid for all the banners to be taken off? I just went back to check the original link, and there is still the "powered by...free web blah blah blah" thingy. That sucks about the dude in hotlanta; were you planning on your first/last name? Maybe you could give yourself an egotistic nickname like Macca's, except his was already taken by Paul McCartney, too. lol, off topic. Anyway, gl.