I assume the most important page is the homepage since this is where people first see and they are most likely to bounce back. I am designing my own page. Minus the flash banner, I did all the codes and graphics. I have made about 4 or 5 versions of my hompage including custom HTML pages. I want it to be visual as possible but...i dont know. What advice do you all have? It's a bit stressfull for me because I have looked at hundreds of clothing sites for inspriation while trying to be creative but I am still not at all happy with my results. I have about a 30% bounce rate after the first 2 pages.

Please take a look at my site :
www.flyasiclothing.com

The first thing I would do is optimize your graphics. They are huge (in file size)! You could use something simple (and free), like Picasa from Google.

Once into the site, things are pretty misaligned, especially in Firefox. That may be why you're losing people.

What SC says. And personally, I wouldn't use that portal page, either. Bring them in directly to your home page. Let them see products right off.

I do think your flash image is pretty cool. Not sure what it's adding. And when you start thinking Search Engine Optimization (and you will!!), flash adds nothing. Still, pretty cool graphic.

Ditto on these comments, plus I would add some description on your products. I know its a TShirt but what is the TShirt made out of, as well, I would make it clear, your return policy, phone number, company info, etc. . .

I like your banner on the top, maybe get rid of the buttons on the sections on the left side and make some new graphics with the same font as in the menu in the banner.

The visitor is going to need to trust you, give them some more info, many visitors, especially PPC have probably never heard of your company. We have been in business for 14 years, and people still are hearing about our company for the first time.

I'm not sure what it is (flash or something....I've seen it happen more often in the past year or so) but on every page in your site I have to click twice (click here to activate and use this...) on the top banner image to be able to click on a link. This might be driving people away since every new page has that.

I'm a bit perplexed at the lower left image, but then again I'm old and don't understand what's 'in'.

Your footer text color is too close to the background color and while this may not drive people away, it may start them wondering.

Just my 2 cents

This is because of a new "Feature" in Internet Explorer 7 that disabled flash objects until clicked on. It's lame.

well all you need is the special flash code that disables that =)

Which is???

Wait...a MAC!

HAHAHAHA... no... a special file that is placed, called AC_RunActiveContent.js

I use Dreamweaver 8.0.2 and it automatically places the file in a SCRIPTS directory

True, the flash links have t be clicked twice to have them work. I would change that if I could. Also the intro page does not make justice to the inner and more professional looking pages.

I have dreamweaver as well is there anyway I can manually add AC_RunActiveContent.js in myself?

It should be noted that the .js workaround does not work all of the time. There is no known 100% solution that I am aware of. MS really should have been more considerate.

Ok this is very helpful so far. Now that you say it, i realize the intro page does need to go. At first the intro page was a better designed page than the rest of my site. However, I upgraded the other sections daily while keeping the intro page almost untouched. So I will:

1) add more info all around
2) change the color of my bottom links
3) get rid of the intro page
4) test out the alignment on several computer and browsers
5) resize my image files

I am still open to suggestions.

One more - make your life easier and use www.browsershots.org to test your site.

Nice find. Trying it now.

my page is ALWAYS misaligned in firefox...any ideas why?

I think, I have solved many of my design problems. Thanks guys. Of course I will always have tweaking and fine tuning to do