# Site Re-Launch! Success! Help me find any errors please?



## Lane (Jun 1, 2008)

www.LuxuryLaneSoap.com

Check it out and let me know what you think! (I built it   )

Tomorrow is the "official" re-launch... If you see anything wrong, lemme know so I can fix it. Thanks! ♥

*Excited*


----------



## Guest (Jun 1, 2008)

I don't know if you're interested in a technical validation, but if so try this:

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http% ... esoap.com/

Even if not interested in technical details the W3C validator might help you spot some other errors. A lot of the errors are cascades caused by single faults or missing elements like not having a Doctype.

Your site is very clear and legible and well organized. The writing is crisp and concise, and although I don't have the time to read every page I found no spelling or grammar errors.

The color on black background is not my favorite schema but you've used it very well, well enough to cause me to reconsider my preferences.

Is flat rate shipping for $5.00 for all shipments of any size?

Good prices! Big selection!

Nice idea on the sampler packages. 

If I were buying your soy tart bar I would want to know where to buy a tart melter/burner. If you don't sell one you should add them to your line, and put a link on the soy tart bar page.

To sum up my site visit, you've got a very nice, professional looking website, and I think you should be very proud of your accomplishment.  I think we have a winner here! 


That's the critique from HTML Doggie!


----------



## Guest (Jun 1, 2008)

Oh I found one thing you should fix. You have your TITLE tags in your HEAD section set to "Home Page." You should change the contents of your TITLE tag to "Luxury Lane Soap" so that when somebody bookmarks your site it will automatically say "Luxury Lane Soap" on the bookmark rather than having it show up "Home Page" and not knowing whose home page it is.


----------



## Lane (Jun 1, 2008)

*Squeal* That link is awesome! I swear I sat and read the entire page. Most of the errors in the coding are from me borrowing code from yahoo sitebuilder. If you View Source, it looks like a horrific scary mess, but it all works.   My husband is in school for ... well something computers... I have no clue the technical term, but he is multiple certified and THE top of his class. Multiple times he would sit and watch me and shake his head as I put together my pages....

I told him, you could build me the greatest site in the world, but unless I do it MYSELF it is not going to be ME. I strive in my business for it to NOT be a business, but a workable outlet for self expression...I can't express myself if someone else is doing the work... Now the dishes and laundry...that's another story...  

Yup, Flat Rate $5.00 no matter the size. I've kicked myself one or two times because of that... I had a customer order 15 soaps last week, Cost me $9.00 to ship, so I paid the extra $4.00. And then I though about it... I just had a $70.00 order.....and I gladly paid the extra shipping.

Shipping use to be $8.00. But I changed it to encourage smaller "Try Me" orders. I even went through EVERY order made two weeks before the change and refunded the shipping difference. 

Changing Title Tags Now!


----------



## Guest (Jun 1, 2008)

Lane said:
			
		

> *Squeal*


There's that girly noise again!   

HTML validation is a good thing. I wasn't quite sure how much you were using a generator and how much you got into the raw HTML, and evidently you're into it more than I thought. Go ahead and fix all those tags, it should be easy. One I saw a lot of is that <BR SOFT> tag which of course there is no such thing (as far as I know), just 
.

You should add a DOCTYPE tag too. It's the first thing at the top of your document. Read the following link:

http://www.w3.org/QA/2002/04/valid-dtd-list.html

I suggest you would be best off using this one:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">

Just cut 'n paste it into the top of your page and then revalidate and see if the errors go up or down. If they go down then your code is compatible with the 4.01 Transitional standard, not as difficult to achieve as the 4.01 Strict that I'm using on my own site.

Hey, for some fun, go visit my site (see my profile) and view source on my site. One thing you'd never know if I didn't tell you, actually there is NO HTML at all on my site, although it looks like there is. All my pages are written in PHP and they generate the HTML you see on the fly, dynamically generated.... Oops!   My nerdy half is showing.  

I always view source when I'm critiquing sites. I'm glad that you're taking an interest in every aspect of your business. I couldn't agree with you more about doing it yourself, because any other way and you'd always be dependent on somebody else. The only way you can achieve your greatest success is to have total control of every aspect of your business.

That's a good idea on the flat rate shipping, exactly for the reason you stated, being concerned about being out $4 on a 15 soap order, but realizing that the profit you made on the extra bars was probably far more than $4. I'll bet that your flat rate shipping decided that customer to order more stuff from you than would have been ordered otherwise.

I'm really happy to have been able to help you. I've been designing websites for about a dozen years and this is one area I'm fully qualified in. You've been so helpful in guiding my newbie soapmaking efforts and it feels good to be able to help you in return.


----------



## IanT (Jun 1, 2008)

I have GOT to learn HTML!! great site!! cant be nearly as helpful as LH but I think it looks great!


----------



## Guest (Jun 1, 2008)

IanT said:
			
		

> I have GOT to learn HTML!! great site!! cant be nearly as helpful as LH but I think it looks great!


Ian, you'll be happy to know that the WWWorld Wide Web was written by people who speak fluent HTML, and that of the topics documented on the Internet HTML is one of the very best covered topics. There is no end to documentation and tutorials and every sort of aid for those who want to learn or write HTML.

This is your mother site: World Wide Web Consortium

I draw your attention to the column at left, W3C A to Z. Read it and you will be a total expert on HTML and web pages.

And get yourself a website. I've got several domains myself and you know only one of them, my cooking site. Learn to make websites and you will have a very helpful merchandising tool.


----------



## IanT (Jun 1, 2008)

awwww sweeeeet lol thank you!! Im going to spend some time on there and see what I can come up with, Id love to start working on a web site !! Ive taken courses dealing with Html and .ftp but I forgot like everything so I will spend quite a bit of time onthat site!! 

edit: hey and what is the diff between xml and html?


----------



## Guest (Jun 1, 2008)

I don't grok XML. I don't know.

There's nothing like experience and taking classes isn't it. Get yourself a web host and put up your own website, then start experimenting. You don't even need to tell people what the site is. Just do it.

I've got my sites hosted at 1and1.com but I'm thinking of switching later this year, maybe to bluehost. You can start at 1and1 for $4/month, less than $50 a year including one free domain. If you're interested let me warn you that 1and1's customer support is totally useless and brain dead.

I'll tell you more later.


----------



## Lane (Jun 2, 2008)

IanT said:
			
		

> I have GOT to learn HTML!!


 Alot of the HTML is code I "barrowed" from other sites... You can "View Source" web pages and once you look at enough pages, you kinda pick up what each chain of code means. I have a huge WordPad file of all of the code I've pulled from other sites just to play around with and see what it does... I can put together basic pages, but if you "view source" my page, it is a horrible mess with a lot of extra, unneeded code. I have a problem deleting what I don't need and I just write code on top of it.   My site took THREE years to develop because me brain simply DOES NOT understand computer jive...

Yahoo Sitebuilder is a good format to test and develop HTML, but a lot of it is point, click and drag... so towards the end, I got pretty lazy with my codes...

Yahoo hosts my site, I believe...   

I do however know how to string code from server to server, just from reading a chapter in network connections, and if I _wanted _to I could pretty much host my site for free off ANY server...But seeing as how that is very illegal and not worth getting into trouble for... I'll happily pay my $11.95 a month.


----------



## Lane (Jun 2, 2008)

Lovehound said:
			
		

> The color on black background is not my favorite schema but you've used it very well, well enough to cause me to reconsider my preferences.


 Having a black background is much better for your eyes because it isn't so bright.  When your letters are white, you can focus your eyes with much less strain. And it makes editing your web site photos MUCH easier  :wink:


----------



## Guest (Jun 2, 2008)

Lane said:
			
		

> Yahoo hosts my site, I believe...


You silly! Of course Yahoo is your host. Jeez, I know more about your site than you do! 

Tell me that you don't know that your domain is registered in Oz.


----------



## zajanatural (Jun 30, 2008)

Looks nice. You can use www.online-html-edotor.com to do easy html and copy and paste. 

The thing I would change is your natural glycerin bars section. Instead of having pictures of the molds, I would make the actual soap with the mold, in 1-2 colors each (using colors that you would use for a particular fragrance so you can melt them back down later adn add the scent once you get an order) and post that instead of the stock pictures. Also I don't know the legality of putting the mold maker's picture on your site, but a few have gotten in trouble for it.


----------

