Building my own website, please come in and be critical

[Todd@RUPES]

HOMEPAGE UPDATED PER RECOMMENDATIONS 12/3
I have had 3 seperate web designers (who all claimed to be 'pros') so after a year of frustration I have decieded to build my own.

If you have free moment please look around and tear it apart, be brutal.

Bella Macchina: The Art of Detailing -Home

Thanks

[TOGWT]

There are much better qualified website designers here than me (absolutely not my area of expertise) but I'm sure you will receive constructive criticism.

I just wanted to wish you the best of luck with it, and to say that your work speaks for itself and this would be an ideal showcase for it, again good luck with it…

[Todd@RUPES]

Thanks Mr. Miller for the extremely kind words!

[robb01]

Looks pretty good to me

[Pyrocite]

I like it except the font (on top of pics), its hard to read as it blends to the back of the pictures.
Besides that very nice!

[2old2change]

I like it except the font (on top of pics), its hard to read as it blends to the back of the pictures.
Besides that very nice!

This also caught my eye. Great photos but lettering faded into pictures. Overall nice site. Good luck.

Paul

[Todd@RUPES]

The font is tricky because I really wanted to have different headers on every page (I think it looks cool, it has always been my idea). I know its not easy to read, but is it necessary to change it or could it be a necessary evil.

Also on the before-after gallery, the idea is to scroll over the photos and get a view of the after. This works but it takes up to 20 seconds (the first time) for each after picture to load, so I am considering scraping that idea.

[hayden]

I think it looks great. I'm sure as time goes on you will find things that you want to change and you will have that option by doing it yourself.. Great job for you 1st website

[mazdaspeed]

looks good cars look great!!!

[lgtspecb]

Just as anyone with a porter cable can call themselves a professional detailer, anyone with a computer can call themselves a professional designer. Just as there are a lot of hack job detailers, there are a lot of hack job "web designers". Just like a customer picking a new detailer, when your picking a developer check examples of previous work and referrals.

The homepage is over 1MB, uses invalid markup, table based layout and no css making maintenance a nightmare.

The site is fine for a first attempt diy project, but using a site builder, white text on a black background and heavy use of unnecessary graphics screams unprofessional. I'm sure you do great detail work and if you want to portrait that through your website you need the help of someone who can create good websites.

I would at a minimum, suggest a compressing your graphics, changing the color scheme, and picking up the book Head First XHTML + CSS by O'Reilly Media. The image text and borders are a major distraction from the photos showing off your hard work, that would be something to look at next. I first tried to view your site on my phone, and after a minute I gave up. My connection at home is 30Mbps fios and even then it still took a few seconds too load.