Want your opinion

[Brandon Miller]

I'd like your opinions on a website I have created, but first I want to give a little bit of background on it. My son is 2 and he loves the CARS movie. He has several of the CARS diecast. Well there is a ton of these things and it's hard to keep up with what it out there. I decided back at the first of the year to create a website that would be a good reference to all of the 1:55 scale line that was out there to be bought. I even went so far as to add all of the packaging variations and what not. Now when I decided to build this site, I had no knowledge of html or any other website language. I bought a book and took the plunge. I'm currently in the middle of changing all of the pages over to a new style so some pages will look different than others. I officially launched this site on March 3 and since then has had over 100K hits. I've even gotten the attention of Mattel as they contacted me about it and I now speak with a couple of Mattel reps on a regular basis. There is a CARS diecast message board I am a member of and my site has become they're go to place for up to date info and such. Below is the link. Tell me what you think.


http://www.carsdriveingallery.com (http://www.carsdriveingallery.com/)

[novanutcase]

WOW!!! I can't believe that you've never built a website before. EXCELLENT job and VERY thorough! How hard was it to learn? I'm interested in something like this. Are there any books or websites that you suggest I look at to get started?

John

[Brandon Miller]

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/HTML-and-XHTML-Step-by-Step/Faithe-Wempen/e/9780735622630/?itm=8

That's the book I bought. It wasn't extremely tough too learn, just a lot of stuff to remember when writing code. I read that book and a lot of online tutorials.

[WS6]

very good job first time or not. Congrats on catching Mattel's eye in a very good way it sounds.

[shmoov69]

:jawdrop: That about sums it up from my take!

[Tyson A]

Wow after seeing that I'm going to send you a "How to be a millionaire" book. But don't forget who sent it to ya

[Brandon Miller]

Thanks for the comments. If the millionaire book were only that simple.

[thumper777]

Thanks for the comments. If the millionaire book were only that simple.

Very nice job putting it together. If you wouldn't have said anything I wouldn't have guessed it was your first.

I think we all wish the millionaire schemes worked.

[qwik1320]

Great job! Are you set up as an affiliate for the Children's Toy Closet so you get a piece of the action for any purchases your site directs to them? What about a link to Mattel/Hot Wheels? My boss sets up web sites on the side and adds in Affiliate links wherever he can (Amazon is another good one).

[Brandon Miller]

Are you set up as an affiliate for the Children's Toy Closet so you get a piece of the action for any purchases your site directs to them?

Yes


What about a link to Mattel/Hot Wheels?

No they won't allow it.

[jv982]

I think that is one of the best First Websites i have seen. Amazing job!:1st:

I do have a bit of constructive critism for you. Take it or leave it.

For me, when I first click on a website, I want to immediately be able to tell what it is all about. Unless I read your description of the site, I am unable to do that. I can see that the site is for the Movie Cars, but it is not glaringly obvious that the site is for info on diecast cars. Example: In my opinion the very first thing someone should see is a diecast Lighnting Mqueen. Maybe in the foreground of your current picture. That shows new visitors immediately what the site is about. I have found that most people will not read the site if they are not immediately intrigued by the graphics.

You should have the theatre picture be a giant hyperlink to the "categories page". I tried to click on the picture because it says "entrance". You should also have text under the picture in a super large font that says something like "Your source for everything Cars Diecast" and a hyperlink "enter site" incase they don't know to click on the picture.

I think that you should move all of the categories to a second page. This simplifies the home page. Just by a quick glance someone will immediately think, "this is a webpage for cars diecast".

Also, in my opinion, a website should not require much instructions or an explanation. I think that the big paragraph that you have could be easily replaced with i single phrase above the categories button like "Click on the Categories below to view galleries".

Like I said before you have done a great job thus far, and I am not trying to tear your site apart. It is just that the flow of a website is something that is a little more difficult to learn then the technical aspect of it, and these are just my opinions.

[Yelcamino]

That's looks great! Nice work!

[Brandon Miller]

Apparently I'm doing something right. My current provider cannot supply me with any more bandwidth than I currently have. I will have to switch to a new hosting service this week. Guess it's a good time since most people will be with families for the holidays.

[MuscleRodz]

Looks good to me for first time out of the box.