Beefing up a website?

You need a giant, I mean humongous American flag on your site. Preferably an American flag backdrop for the whole site would be pimp.

 

You might want to get rid of that annoying mouse pointer/clock thingy...

Oh, and some states consider this animal abuse...

 

if i were you id start over on the site, the pictures are out of proportion, the tables need rearranging, the color needs to be more pleasing to the eyes and finally the clock script really makes it look like a kid did it. Sorry to be harsh, take it as constructive criticism.

 

try using photoshop

 

The problem is that you are using the templates from frontpage. Those things limit out what you can and can't do and frankly are pretty tacky. Dreamweaver would make no difference since they also use similar template designs.

In order to make a good website, its more than simply building it. You have to construct good images and designs from links and banners. The standard stuff that comes with those programs aren't very good. Also, it helps to know some html. My dad runs a fairly professional site using frontpage but he knows significant html so he'll edit stuff in html through frontpage as well. Sometimes pointing and clicking won't give you your desired results so you have to alter it through coding.

My suggestion is to pick up on some html and some graphics design (ala photoshop)

Sorry if that sounds harsh

 

Rather than spend a lot upgrading to dreamweaver or photoshop you could just pick up a nice frontpage template from pixelmill.com

If you have frontpage 2003 you can use one of their dynamic web templates (dwt) which works like dreamweaver dwts --- it sets up a design page and you can just make changes on that one template and it will update your entire site.

Most of the webguys that I hire look down on frontpage and use dreamweaver / photoshop -- but i update the sites with frontpage since that is quick and easy for me

What you have now will work great for a personal site as well as business sites. I have sites that were done completely in frontpage that bring in 7 figures a year so don't waste money upgrading unless you are planning on being a fulltime web designer.

 

Our website [see the link in my sig if you want] is made through Frontpage. Like geeimsobored and others said as long as you don't use one of the standard templates and you know a tiny bit of html you can have a decent page.

 

I actually like the colors and the navigation menus. I'm not crazy about the "Jimmy & Grace..." banner on the top. You should probably use photoshop to do a better banner.

On a side note, are you sure you want to put your phone number online?

 

Given your limited skills currently, it really just depends on how much time you want to spend learning.

Generally speaking, websites are designed using Photoshop and then the graphics are sliced up and put into HTML code through an editor like Dreamweaver or a text editor if you are adept with Photoshop.

If you want to learn actual design, you should pick up a couple of books on the subject and start learning. If you are mostly interested in having a decent site just for yourself, consider a decent template from an online site and just incorporate that into Frontpage.

Best of luck.