invicta arachnid club

[matthew spooner]

hi everyone, i have just launched website for club i am in, it not quite finished yet but was in a rush to launch it. the web address is
www.invicta-arachnid-club.org.uk
feedback from mebers would be much appreciated as i am rubbish it thinking of what to write and it always sounds like garbage lol.

[Colin D Wilson]

Looks Ok for a rushed launch mate.

Wording can be changed as much as you like to get it "just right" so i wouldn't worry about that too much.

The only thing i would change would be to use scientific names (possibly with common names in brackets) for your care sheets.

when you're maintaining a website, everything normally gets "ongoing improvements and updates" so again....... no worries yet.

Colin

[matthew spooner]

i tried using both scientific and common for care sheets. the only problem i had is it would not allow me enough space to fit both in. as they are mainly aimed at beginners, i thought they would be more likely to know the common name and not the scientific so i did it like that jus to make it easier for the amateurs

[Colin D Wilson]

I can see your point about the beginer scenario but (and this is just my personal opinion) if people start off with the scientific names then there will be no confusion later and exact housekeeping and maintenance levels can be obtained.
as an example of this, how many times have we seen "brazilian bird eater for sale" this could be one of many genus / species, of which some look alike, though have slightly different maintenance requirements.
As people on here have quite rightly said, if you only have one tarantula and it's a pet.... common names will do fine, but if the hobby *grabs* like it normally does and a larger collection progresses then scientific names are the way to go.

However you want to approach this, the site is a very good start mate, good work!!

Colin

[matthew spooner]

the scientific names are printed on the care sheets are themselves and i 100% agree with you about the need to start people using scientific names. the trouble is if someone has just bought a chile rose, they are not going to understand what a grammostola rosea is, and when they select to view that care sheet, they will see its scientific name at the top of the page and automatically asociate the common and scientific name together

[Colin D Wilson]

Ahhhh.

I see, should work out ok.
most pet shops (like the small local ones) sell spiders with thier common names so i can see your reasoning.

[matthew spooner]

and one thing i just noticed, changing the subject completely, y does my name come up as a new forum member? i am a full bts member

[Colin D Wilson]

This is to do with the amount of posts you have made i believe, up to 50 is 'new member', 50 to 100 is 'active member', over 100 is 'senior member'.
I had 'BTS member' placed under my name (instead of 'senior member') when i applied for the breeding directory status

[matthew spooner]

o rite, ok then

[Mark Pennell]

and one thing i just noticed, changing the subject completely, y does my name come up as a new forum member? i am a full bts member

Matt
You have to ask to be added to this group, it does not automatically change when you become a BTS member (just yet)

I'll update you shortly.


As for the new web site, yes very nice and I am sure it will develop over time.

One comment is get rid of the flash intro page, it does not help with your sites rankings and it gets pretty annoying.

Scientific names should be in italics IE: Brachypelma smithi

(There are one or two here on our site that needs changing too before any wise a*** mentions it There are being dealt with.

Other than that well done and about time!....
I am sure it will grow into a very nice and informative site...


Regards
Mark

[Tom Forman]

I really like the menu you have made.

I tried making one exactly like yours but never finished it, lol, too much work for me, I stuck with the simple version.

Muchos respectos.

Flash intro is a bit repetitive though and I would agree with mark on that one. If you made it a bit shorter and only mentioned invicta once, then maybe a pic of a tarantula, it would work alot better.

If you are looking for some positive critisism I would say that you should have your caresheets as links on the page, not on the menu itself. First of all I was slightly confused, then I realized your menu would get awfully cluttered once you start adding more caresheets.

Well done though, I think you've done a smashing job.

Regards

[Colin D Wilson]

You know Mark, the flash intro page never even registered with me, i just hit the lovely skip button without thinking.
good point though !!!!

[Mark Pennell]

and one thing i just noticed, changing the subject completely, y does my name come up as a new forum member? i am a full bts member

All changed!...

Cheers
Mark

[James Box]

i'll have a more indepth look later, but i gotta say first thing i noticed, your list of recommended first tarantulas...not a SIGN of B smithi! Fantastic! had to give you respect for that, seeing as it always seems to be the first T anyone and their grandmother ever gets well done on recommending less common T's!

[Peter Lacey]

Forgive my criticism but hopefully its taken as advice rather than negative comments.

FLASH - as stated above does nothing to improve your browser searching, its superfluous and delays the visitor to the info. If that's not enough then consider how many times you expect people to watch it. Ditch the Flash link. If a visitor finds your site and they don't have Flash installed are you expecting them to download it? Many will go elsewhere for their info!

CONSISTENCY: Keep text the same size, there's a clear difference between the Home page and the other pages. Use bold for headings but its considered a bit "Janet and John" to use bold body copy. Personally I prefer the layout of the homepage. You also need to increase your linespacing.

NAVIGATION: The key to navigation is to have the same menu's on each page. That helps the eye and brain to feel comfortable with the site. A change of design or layout through your site merely confuses and the result is the visitor tires. On the welcome page the navigation is split with Guestbook and contacts on the right whereas everything else in on the left.

PADDING: You're missing some padding on the welcome page.

WAVES?: The design suggests water to me, emphasised by the rising bubbles in the Flash intro. Perhaps a more appropriate medium? I could create a simple design for you and a background if you wish, as long as its not wanted immediately.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION: Websites are always under construction and its now considered rather lazy to use that excuse. Instead of that term why not suggest what's coming to entice the viewer to visit again or better still you could invite the visitor to participate, eg. Gallery - we're currently collecting hobbyists images for use in our gallery. If you have some good clear images of your own tarantula why not send them to us to include in the site. Please do not breach copyright and please label your images clearly.

GUESTBOOK: Do entrants see their comments or the comments of others? Can't see mine yet.

HEADERS: These are working fine and will help the search engines however the address should be improved to reflect the page contents eg. instead of:

http://www.invicta-arachnid-club.org.uk/2.html

try:

http://www.invicta-arachnid-club.org.uk/about_us.html

META TAGS: Get some titles in here to help search engines. eg. Invicta

CODING: You're using what is referred to as deprecated coding. Browsers don't favour that so you might want to change your coding from html to xhtml and try using CSS. Avoiding tables is a very good start. Writing in xhtml will mean your site is visible on mobiles and devices.
There's a lot of other errors within the coding eg. no DOCTYPE declaration, missing attributes (the most obvious of which is the missing alt tags). Some of these errors browsers will cure but to become WC3 credited you'll need to sort these. (I've just checked my site and found a few errors too - ooops!)

Hopefully this helps you to go in the right direction. If you're learning how to write websites you should definitely take this information on board and I could give you some direction to improving your design and coding.