Hello.
I recommend not having a welcome page/splash page with a language selector. Most websites show the default language as the home page with the flag/language icons in the corner for users to select. And for the language labels, you probably would want to have the language names in the language itself instead of all English.
Also, try centering the flag icons.
I like the gradient in the footer, though I recommend trying to have the gradient flow into the background gray, so it would be red to gray.
Try adding some pictures
For better SEO, make sure you have an alt tag to all your images and make good use of H1 (Heading) tags. Your site name should be in an H1 tag. You can use CSS to hide the text from regular visitors:
Code:
.header h1 a {
background: url("logo.png") no-repeat;
display:block;
height:SETHEIGHT;
text-indent:-9999px;
width:SETWIDTH;
}
Using this CSS, add your site title in h1 tags. Change the CSS .header as needed. The text indent -9999px would cause the text to be hidden to regular visitors and show just the logo.
Search engines like Google use heading tags a lot in ranking and your site title should be in H1.