Redesigned site for search engine's visibility - Need Critics! 10

[JoJoH]

Hi all,

I've just completely redesigned my site for the purpose of increasing visibility in search engines. I like the look of my old site better... but my old site is absoltuely not search engine friendly... so here I am with the new site! Please give me some comments/thoughts on my

1) Site overall design
2) User Friendly-ness
3) Speed
4) Improvements I could make for
increasing rankings in search
engine visibility.
5) Any other things you could think of!

http://www.jadeboutique.com

Your comments are highly valued! Tell me the truth!

Thanks in advance!

JoJoH

http://www.jadeboutique.com

 

[cian]

Hi,

1st comment, nice looking site!
Now the criticisms

1. Way too many graphics. Use text where possible, the top links should be text, no reason to use images there.

2. No obvious entry point. It looks like a splash page but I found myself looking for an enter link.

3. Images WAY too big, use thumbnails and allow the visitor to click to enlarge a picture, it will give you quicker page load times.

4. There a lot of empty space on the images, cut the images down to a minimum size. (load times)

5. Side scrolling! The page MUST fit a width of less than 800, recommended about 750px

6. That's an image you have used on the contact page for the paragraph? WHY??

7. Shipping info: maybe expand it a little bit with a short paragrpah.

8. Copyright info?

9. Site map should have a document title

10. everywhere you have an image you should also use alternate text ALT=""

It's a relly nice looking professional site but there are WAY too much images. Search engines like text.

Hope that helps, sorry if I seemed harsh
Don't forget to check your code through some sort of validator (you need a doctype)




- É -

http://www.ssi-developer.net

 

[cian]

one more thing, there's a lot of scrolling after the end of the page, try to take this away if possible.




- É -

http://www.ssi-developer.net

 

[JoJoH]

Thank you É! Thanks for taking your time to review my site, I appreciate your comments! Yes maybe I should change some of the navigation elements from an image to text... The reason why I used image file was because I don't like the way the words look when typed in directly, but like you said, indeed my site needs more text! And I will definitly try to get rid of that side scrolling!(Should have thought about that earlier! Grrr...) Lots of improvments I need to make here, without someone like you to review my site I would never have known! Thank you once again!

JoJoH

http://www.jadeboutique.com

 

[blueark]

It looks like a well designed advert to me. Looks good, but it doesn't seem to read like a web site. More like one of those spam mails.

In terms of layout, the only (small) critisism I have is the fact that there is a well defined grid, but then the 'Best Sellers' text doesn't seem to line up with the image above it. Also, the images underneath seem to be sort of centered, but not quite - they seem to be somewhere between left and center.

I would also suggest keeping the pages a little more consistant. Compare the home page to the About Us page: it's one extreme to the other. Maybe create a template or two, and use them as a starting point.

The products in the product pages are far too overpowering too, as cian pointed out. If they were smaller, you could get a better overview of what's available. Also, the details page doesn't have a 'go back' button. The first impression tends to be that there's nowhere to go but press the purchase button.

Hope that helps!

 

[JoJoH]

Hello blueark,

Thanks for taking your time to review my site! I appreciate your comments! Anyways regarding what you said quote:

"It looks like a well designed advert to me. Looks good, but it doesn't seem to read like a web site. More like one of those spam mails."

I don't really understand... spam mails? What makes it look like spam mails? And what should I do so that it won't look like a spam mail?

Please advice.

Thanks again!

JoJoH

http://www.jadeboutique.com

 

[blueark]

Actually, that was badly written - I was referring to your home page more than any of the others.

I tend to get a lot of unsolicited emails that I just know are trying to sell me something. The appearance of your home page reminds me of these, probably because of the prominance given to the products on sale. I appreciate that it is a commercial site, but if people have arrived at it, presumably they don't need the hard sell. In other words, if your home page was actually an email, or a printed flyer, it would probably work better. Then, when people follow your ad and find your site, I think more prominence should be given to things like navigation, so people can find what interests them.

For me, a good site encourages people to look around, and gives the user a sense of control. Although this site is visually stunning, I feel that there's a sales person lurking over my shoulder and forcing me into a corner. I don't know exactly where the balance lies - after all, you are trying to sell something - but maybe a little more subtlety would be welcome.

Just a thought: maybe the problem lies with recognisable brand names being given more prominance than the Jade Boutique branding. Possibly that's what's making it look like an advertisment. The first thing I see when I open your site is CHANEL.

I'm sure whatever you end up with will look professional, so hopefully my remarks aren't too harsh!

 

[JoJoH]

Thanks bluark for the reply! No, no! Don't worry about being too "harsh", there is no such think as "harsh" when you are giving constructive critism as above . Like what you and cian said about making my navigational elements more obvious, I need to work on that, just not quite sure how... maybe make them a little bigger... but that probably won't look that good... shrinking my pics? Hum... I don't know... Need a little more pondering there.... Anyways, thank you once again for your comments!

JoJoH

http://www.jadeboutique.com

 

[JoJoH]

If any of you have any more comments, please do not hesitate to speak up! I need as many point of view as possible!

Thanks in advance!


JoJoH

http://www.jadeboutique.com

 

[boyfromoz]

If search engines are the issue here...

You've got font tags inside <H?> tags. Big nono with google.
You have no text on the home page or near as none.
You have no links with keyword text in them.
your code is not fully validated.
You haveno inbound links.

etc,
etc,
etc,

I doubt with these issues your site will ever attain a good search engine ranking.

 

[JoJoH]

Thanks Nippi for spending time reviewing my site, I really appreciate it! Anyways, No <H?> tag?! I thought they are good for search engine rankings? Please explain... And how could I get my code validated? Please advice.

Thanks in advance!

JoJoH

http://www.jadeboutique.com

 

[glenmac]

To validate your site go to

http://validator.w3.org/

Hope it helps

 

[JoJoH]

Thank you glenmac!

JoJoH

http://www.jadeboutique.com

 

[ChrisHirst]

the <font> tags inside the <h*> tags are only defining the colour, so shouldn't be a problem, the Google algos are very sophisticated and can tell the difference between a colour change and a spammy technique of changing the font size so it looks like text to the visitor and appears as a heading to the SE. For the navigation links why not use an external style sheet and define the link colours and hover attributes in there, you can also define your <h> tag colors as well. (may also save a few bytes on file size as well)






Chris.

Indifference will be the downfall of mankind, but who cares?

 

[JoJoH]

Thank you Chris! Great suggestions! I will definitely make some changes on that! Thank you once again for your time!


JoJoH

http://www.jadeboutique.com

 

[glenmac]

Thanks for the star!!!!

 

[ChrisHunt]

Like the guys say, way too many graphics - especially where you're just using graphics as text. It's really painful to get around your site on a dial-up modem.

If you don't like the look of standard fonts like Arial and Verdana, you can &quot;embed&quot; a font of your choice into your site using the techniques shown in faq215-1525 . Go for the .eot method - it only works for IE, but it's free and easy to use, just make sure you specify alternative fonts for people who can't use it.

Didn't delve too deep into the purchae pages lest I accidentally ordered a $300 pair of shoes. Do you have a shopping cart system (or are they a bit down-market for designer goods purchasers!)

-- Chris Hunt
Extra Connections Ltd

http://www.extracon.com

The real world's OK for a visit, but you wouldn't want to LIVE there!

 

[JoJoH]

Thanks Chris for your comments! Yes indeed I have too many graphics, I am currently working on changing my navigation from graphics to text links.

Anyways, regarding this statement: &quot;Didn't delve too deep into the purchae pages lest I accidentally ordered a $300 pair of shoes. Do you have a shopping cart system (or are they a bit down-market for designer goods purchasers!)&quot;

Could you please explain a little more what you meant, I know you are sharing something important here yet I don't understand what you are trying to say... please advice!

Thanks in advance

JoJoH

http://www.jadeboutique.com

 

[ChrisHunt]

A lot of e-commerce sites use a &quot;shopping cart&quot; to let you collect the products you want as you browse around, then pay for the whole lot when you finish your visit. I don't see any links to a shopping cart on your product pages, so I wonder if you have (or intend to have) such a system. Perhaps the metaphor of a &quot;shopping cart&quot; doesn't really fit in with a swanky designer store, but a lot of commercial sites seem to find them effective.

-- Chris Hunt
Extra Connections Ltd

http://www.extracon.com

The real world's OK for a visit, but you wouldn't want to LIVE there!

 

[lebisol]

What makes it look like spam mails
...BIG image....BUY ME NOW...CLICK HERE and go to &quot;who knows where&quot;......no rollovers....no ALTs....slice your images and re-use them (eg. navbar has &quot;|&quot; between the links...this all can be text or reusable 0.0001 K of an image.)....crop your image tighter every pixel counts if u want to save space....default page looks more like a &quot;flayer&quot; than a webpage ( I like to read something on the first page so I would rather see SiteMap.asp as the Defualt page).... &quot;Private Policy&quot;....if it is private why is it on the web Privacy Plicy or Terms of Use.....tumb-larger scale approach would be better for the product details...
I like the theme of the site...nice choice of subtle colors of white,grey orange....very easy on the eyes....perhaps a CSS on links would help colors stand out....

I know this is a personal choice but I hate to see LoooooOOoong URLs
eg.

http://www.jadeboutique.com/Prada_gucci_shoes_handbags_catalog/shop_designer_prada_gucci.asp

can be easily tunred into:

http://www.jadeboutique.com/PGSHC/shop_gucci.asp

or something even simmilar....I ofen remember the URLs and don't bother using Search Engines or the &quot;Search This Site&quot; ability and even if I do search...I tend to use Google to search for the URL+content since A LOT of sites do not have the &quot;right&quot; (logical) index/search function.
there...my thoughts...I don't know what to say...this a &quot;ove a cup of coffee or a beer&quot; kind of a conversation......
PLEASE, take no offence at my comments...after all they are based only on a few minutes of observations and I can only estimate the hard word behind it!
All the best!

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