Websites - how to look professional cheaply

[Fiona]

My site is a Web eden site.. very easy to set up and very easy to add to...

[geti-titanium]

The common battle between web designers and website marketers is design versus optimisation. Minimalistic websites rarely do well on google for the simple fact that there is nothing on it for google to find - no text equals poor rankings.

It is a fine balancing act to make a website appealing and search engine friendly and unfortunately the two do not go hand in hand.

[CyberPaddy66]

I can't get my dislike of MrSite websites to fade, the way the text and graphics tear as you scroll just puts me right off them I close the window wether I'm interested in the site or not.

I've used everything from Frontpage, through Publisher and coffeecup to Dreamweaver for making websites and Dreamweaver wins it hands down but for an e-commerce site Cubecart is by far the easiest to tweek and make look good (there are free skins and lots of help on the forums) and you can host it almost anywhere but EUKhost is a really good company (better than Fasthosts!) to deal with.

[Di Sandland]

... EUKhost is a really good company (better than Fasthosts!) to deal with.

I can't comment on the hosting stuff, Mr Dragon, other than to say that, after 1&1, Fasthosts are pure pleasure!

[mizgeorge]

I can't get my dislike of MrSite websites to fade, the way the text and graphics tear as you scroll just puts me right off them I close the window wether I'm interested in the site or not.

Sounds more like a problem with your browser (or monitor) than the sites? I've never heard of this happening before, and it certainly doesn't do this for me in either Firefox or Chrome. I've also seen a lot of heavily customised sites that are completely unrecognisable as having been created in Mr Site, so how do you know?

Shame. You're probably missing out on some nice stuff

[CyberPaddy66]

Sounds more like a problem with your browser (or monitor) than the sites?

Happens on any PC I've sat in front of no matter what type of monitor I use either, and you can tell the MrSite sites by the little line of text that is usually at the bottom of the page but basically any that have tearing text or pictures usually are MrSite sites.

Coming from many years as a computer technician and networking engineer who has built and installed hundreds of PC's with different equipment I've yet to find a MrSite site that doesn't cause problems.

I'm not saying that your or any other site looks bad I just can't get on with the site mechanics not the content.

[CyberPaddy66]

I have a very powerful PC, quad core with top of the range nvidia sli geforce gaming cards and I have never seen a single bit of screen tearing viewing any website built with MR Site in both Microsoft IE and Firefox.

Screen tearing is a vertical sync problem caused by either an incorrect refresh rate on your monitor or the side effects of a very substandard graphics card with insufficient video memory.

Worth noting but any site that requires me to tweak my PC before I use it is a big no-no for me

[mizgeorge]

I would just add that the Mr Site text line is easily removed (and often is by people who are bothered by it). I keep mine as I'm perfectly happy for anyone to know that's how I created my site.

[Emerald]

I am glad nobody removed there Mr Site from there site cos then i would never have bought such a reasonably priced shop in a box and i am very happy with it and so is everyone that has viewed it since i opened four weeks ago and as i have been asking peoples opinions that have and no one has mentioned any problems i think its ok. Paddy have at look at mine and Georges and see if it happens to them

[lesley]

Sorry to be a numpty but what exactly does tearing text and graphics look like?

Jo, I have had a lot of problems with my Mr Site but I've mentioned it elsewhere and I do moan about it rather a lot so I won't go into details here.