Gorgeous layout and colours! I'm very impressed with the initial design. I'm glad to see you're taking w3.org criteria into account, as well as CSS. One thing you want to keep an eye out for is the special needs child called Explorer -- that doesn't like to comply with w3.org standards. My husband and I have had issues with Explorer when it comes to programming, especially in CSS and Javascript.
Before anyone asks, hubby's a web programmer and I learn by osmosis. If one is curious,
Here is his site. Just a warning: he does do pin-up art so if you're easily offended by beautiful, scantily-clad women, you've been warned. (No, I'm not there.
)
Content is good, actually. It's good to have a lot of text, actually, for search engines to find you.
The first and largest thing I'm noticing is the header. I'm running 1440 x 900 resolution, and the header takes up over half the page, even in Google Chrome. If I were to view this on current industry standard - 1024x768 - it would take up nearly most of the screen. Further, there are many people who are still using 800x600 -- I've just converted the boss's monitor at work to 1024x768 from 800x600 just before Christmas, just so he could view without side-scrolling. It doesn't look like you would have any problem with side-scrolling, though.
The "Strong" tag is becoming obsolete due to CSS.
Also, you might want to consider using a javascript tag for your email -- one of the problems with some spam spiders is that it looks for the <a href="mailto://.."> line in a web page, then sends the spam out that way.
This is the script we use for our site:
<script language="javascript"><!--
var first = "shop";
var second = "@";
var third = "theframemakers.com";
var fourth = "Email Us";
document.write('<a href=\"mailto:' + first + second + third + '\?Subject=From theframemakers.com&body=BODY">');
document.write(fourth + '</a>');
//--></script>
It's a simple script that confuses the spambots so you don't get spam.
Out of curiosity, are you using Dreamweaver? It's definitely not FrontPage, and for that I give you a big round of applause.
Susan, my husband is very competitively priced for web design, if you're interested.
As for our shop's website, Bill's getting a great deal: he's got this crazy tech kid on staff. (
C'est moi!)