Am going for a layout and content change on my site for the next year. Any special suggestions anyone? Help me out in coming up with a better site for 2009.

Cipher,

The first thing I noticed is the font size; way too small. Although, I didn't read every page, as others have mentioned, using complete sentences, grammar, and spelling is a must. Although "u" and other shortened phrases are acceptable in text messages, they are not on a website.

Knowing the reason for the ads, they are OK, but too big. They tend to annoy, rather than attract attention. You have to find the balance between distraction and the right amount of attention.

Just personally, I like the home button to be at the top of the column; it's just where I expect it to be and most are.

It looks like you have already taken some of the advice from previous post. You really do have a great site.

Good Luck,
Ken

dcso580 wrote:

Cipher,

The first thing I noticed is the font size; way too small.

The font : Is it that bad? because the font under the links looked ok to me in IE7 and Mozilla even in IE8. Is it absolutely unreadable? Can you suggest anything on it as it has been pointed out by many others too.

Although, I didn't read every page, as others have mentioned, using complete sentences, grammar, and spelling is a must.Although "u" and other shortened phrases are acceptable in text messages, they are not on a website.
Point taken, I will change the text and include more professional language.

Knowing the reason for the ads, they are OK, but too big. They tend to annoy, rather than attract attention. You have to find the balance between distraction and the right amount of attention.
Can you specifically point out the ads? As I have not included ads in the main content. Can you give me some tips on getting the balance?

Just personally, I like the home button to be at the top of the column; it's just where I expect it to be and most are.
Good point, it will be done.

It looks like you have already taken some of the advice from previous post. You really do have a great site.
Thanks, It is for people like you that I have managed to learn a bit. These reviews has helped me enormously to transform my site, you can read the first commensta dn have an idea of what it was earlier.
Thanks again for your help.

After reading the early comments made by others, I checked out your site.
You must have done some work on the design, although it still seems vaguely familiar to those “parked” pages offered by domain hosting services.

The Grey text was a bit hard to focus on, by someone who requires reading glasses.  The two columns on both sides of the text are a bit distracting, and the column on the left should probably just be links (without additional text explaining about “poems”) - or just a row of links or tabs at the top of the page.

See: http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/index.aspx
This site, (although I dislike the ads and the video takes a while to download on slower systems), they have arranged the site mixing pictures with text, which makes for easier scanning to find topics of interest.
The articles are broken into small “slides” which contains smaller bits of information - easier to digest - but the pop-up ads are annoying - and perhaps the “slides” should have been placed on one page for scrolling (and printing ease).

Although the amount of text on your Articles page was a bit much for someone in a hurry. I, like most people scan the headlines for that one word that catches our eye and teases me to read further.

2009 is here... so, what are your plans?
and
Some lessons learnt from Life … really do not say much about the articles, although I did continue to read on. The content was interesting, but I had my doubts since there seemed to be a lot of personal opinion and implied "expert" on the subject, a bit tough to swallow by a 50 something wife, mother, business owner and family mediator from a 22 year old Engineering graduate.

I am sorry but although the 'Wave Theory' -How god works was an interesting mathematical twist, the other articles seemed like the disjointed thoughts that my 25 year old niece often concocted during a pot and alcohol induced epiphany.

Thanks for the valuable inputs, this has really got me started on the work again. I have chanmged the design and added a menu on top with links as you suggested.
This will be seen in the next update due in early february.
I will work on the font size and if you could suggest some replacement of the links at the left side???
I SAW THE SITE YOU HAVE SUGGESTED AND IT REALLY MAKES SENSE, I will try to include flash objects and create some nice appearance. I just loved the way the scroller works on this site... I had planned something like this but do not have complete knowledge of how to do it.
Thanks for the inputs, looking forward for your guidance and support.