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Site updated from last time, need review please! :) 17

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JoJoH

JoJoH

Programmer
Jan 29, 2003
356
US
Hi all,

I've put my site up for review a little while ago and I got alot of constructive critism/comments from my fellow tek-tips-ker :), I've made alot of changes to my site, but I know there are definitely more things I could improve on, please give me your honest advice, thanks to you all in advance!

1) Site overall design

2) User Friendly-ness

3) Speed

4) How I could increase sales(I thought of adding more pictures and description, the picture part is fine but for description wise it takes up too much time to write...advice please) - The reason I asked this was because in my traffic report it showed that I have almost 2000 visitors a day but I don't have as much sales as I've expected!! Please advice.

5) Improvements I could make for increasing rankings in search engine visibility for compatitive keywords.


Thank you!

JoJoH

 
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1) Nice, clean, fast - I like.

2) Good, everything laid out plainly, multiple ways of getting to the information you're after. My only issues would be that

- to get to the search page, I had to first visit the site map. I'd suggest that, If not putting a search box right on the front page (or better, every page) then at least have a direct link.

- The "contact us" form has mandatory fields, but there is no indication that they are mandatory until after the user attempts to send a blank form.

- This probably stems from the fact that I looked at your site on my laptop, but the grey-on-grey seemed a little too muted.

3) No complaints from me on a DSL line - anyone who can afford a $600.00 pair of shoes can afford a decent internet connection ;-)

4) A picture's worth a thousand words as they say... Perhaps use alt tags on the pictures to give a description of the product. - see point 5

5) Need alt tags on ALL your images Not only for search engines, but also general accessibility.
- Also noticed on the Home page, a lot of text forming part of the images itself. That won't do you any favours as search engines can't see it.

 
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site look is good -- Navigation is clean and simple. Speed is fast.

how to imcrease your rankings -- add alt tags to all images -- i dont know if this helps but what if you put an invisible DIV up top with a leading paragraph that you want the search engines to read.

How to increase sales? -- who knows if ppl like your prices you could get 20 visitors and 20 sales -- but there are many theories out there the only one i would stick by is PERSISITANCE and SOMEHOW get more visitors -- I really Hope though that you are not planning on making this site as your primary mode of function -- As have been proven in the past the online store model just yet isnt a feasible source of real income by itself. Couple it with a mail catalog or brick and mortar store and then you can look at making real money.

I say this only because many people think that no overhead means greater profit -- not necessarily true -- here is why:

1) Many consumers still rely on touch, smell, taste, and sound when pruchasing. A website cannot deliver on any of these.
2) How can you price something competitively enough and take into account shipping+handling and how soon do the consumers need items.
3) The beauty of the internet allows consumers to reasearch a price of a product through hundreds if not thousands of sites at one click.
4) Quantity of traffic hardly can translate into quality of traffic. Where in a dept. store they have numbers as to percentage of people that purchase -- remember those people have seen, touched and done what not to their items before purchasing. Website percentages a to erratic to predict (except for maybe amazon).

How then can you increase sales through your website. I think it is possible to make a modest living through a site such as yours without killing yourself over many micro-management sort of issues. If you do come up with a solution how to make more money through internet sales please post your reply in the form of a book as it will make you money if your method works.

Other than that good luck and keep trying to increase traffic because that IS the only way 99% of retail websites can make money.

<signature>
sometime you just gotta say &quot;WHAT THE @#*% !!&quot;
</signature>
 
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Thanks for the reply dwarfthrower, deecee!

dwarfthrower: Thanks for the comments! [smile] Well regarding the search page, the reason why I didn't put it in the home page or a more visible area was because, well, it wasn't all that useful...[lookaround] The search functionality is extremely limited because I am currently using an Access database, any ideas on how I could build a better search page that would search better? For example my case currently is if I have this record in my database: &quot;Red leather boots&quot; If someone searches for &quot;leather boots&quot;, that record will come up, but if they search for &quot;red boots&quot; that record will not come up... Any ideas how I could build a search functionality that would search all rounded-ly? Please advice :)


deecee: Thanks for the comments! [smile] For the phrase:

&quot;Couple it with a mail catalog or brick and mortar store and then you can look at making real money.&quot;

Could you please give me some idea on how to start on creating/sending a mail catalog? Where do I get all the email addresses to mail to? Please advice :)

Thanks in advance


JoJoH

 
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That's a pretty nice site. Good job!

-----
The death of dogma is the birth of reason.
 
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when i said mail catalog i meant and actual mailing (you know in those little envelope things) -- like victoria's Secret or champs sports. You would have to have print layout experience so you are looking at quark xpress or adobe indesign to layout your pages then you have to find a printer then you can purchase mailing lists -- check out -- just one site that sells mailing lists. then you have to stuff the many envelopes and mail them out. This can easily run into the few thousands :(

Your other option is to start collecting emails from people who go to your sites (maybe even asking them for their address and why you want it) then creating a html email and sending it out. Same thing -- -- you can buy email lists from them too. Make sure you have a demographic set up as im sure you are targeting a specific group(s) of people to sell too.

You might want to go out and buy some books on making ecommerce work or starting a small business. They cover many things that most people dont think about their first time through.

<signature>
sometime you just gotta say &quot;WHAT THE @#*% !!&quot;
</signature>
 
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For your search it sounds like you're doing...
Code: 
SELECT * FROM products WHERE description LIKE &quot;leather boots&quot;
or
SELECT * FROM products WHERE description = &quot;%leather boots%&quot;

the simple fix is to break up search phrases on spaces, and append the parts with an AND, basically...

SELECT * FROM products WHERE description=&quot;%leather%&quot; AND description=&quot;%boots%&quot;
or maybe it's LIKE, I'm sorry I forget at the moment the exact syntax you want... but that's the general idea.

-Rob
 
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JoJoH, I like it.
Nice, clean, fast, and sharp. Just one thing, the background looks way to plain, simple white is kinda dull and boring. Try having some kind of a bg image or some color.

I have this little thing, Advanced Delusionary Schizophrenia with Involuntary Narcissistic Rage.
It's no big deal really...
 
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Thanks Skiflyer, GUJUm0del for the replies!

Skiflyer: Thank you for your comments! [smile] Excellent suggestion, will read up on it and implement it, thanks again!

GUJUm0del: Thank you for your comments! [smile]Could you give me your point of view as to where I could place colored elements or what color?

Thank you once again!

JoJoH

 
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JoJoH, here's a good link that displays all known web colors: You can also create a gradiant color scheme with PhotoShop that can blend one color into another, that would also look nice.

I have this little thing, Advanced Delusionary Schizophrenia with Involuntary Narcissistic Rage.
It's no big deal really...
 
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Big improvement from the last design -- same nice clean, crisp look, but much better from an search engine's perspective (also loads faster, I think). One comment, although you've done a lot, there are still lots of images on your site that you don't have alt tags for. Doing that seems to be one of the final steps. Have you validated your code yet?

Rick

-----------------------------------------------------------
RISTMO Designs
Arab Church
Reference Guides
 
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Thanks GUJUm0del, thanks Rick for the replies!

GUJUm0del: Thanks for the info! :)

Rick:Thanks for your comments! :) Ha, no, I haven't validate my code yet(I forgot): p, thanks for the reminder!
And yes, alt tag for images too! Thanks again for your help!

JoJoH

 
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Hi all,

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

Thanks in advance!


JoJoH

 
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Just my observations.

Ok, no easy way to say this but your background coding is totally screwed.

Move the following into your head tag.

<link href=&quot;../CSS/Jade.css&quot; rel=&quot;stylesheet&quot; type=&quot;text/css&quot;>

And then you need to remove the extra html page that appears within the current page. When I view source, I see 2 doctypes, 2 of the following:

<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>

Personally, if I was interested in the products, I wouldn't purchase from your site for 1 reason. You have no contact details.

If I was looking to buy these products, I have no way to phone you, e-mail you or contact you by any means other than a contact form. This does not portray to me the image of a professional company that I would hand this type of money to.

If you are serious about making money from this site, get your customers to trust you. Don't hide behind a contact form, list clearly a telephone number and full address.

Hope this helps

Wullie


The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change.
The leader adjusts the sails. - John Maxwell
 
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I like the white background - very clean and designery. Personally, I don't like the way that when you mouse-over one of the menu options it goes grey - i.e. the option you're interested in becomes less prominent than the other options. Try turning it the same green as your logo.

As far as getting more business goes, maybe see if you can find some merchandise at the cheaper end of the price spectrum. Maybe people who buy something from you for $50 will be so impressed by your service that they go on to buy something for $500. They might not dive straight in with that $500 purchase from an unknown company.

How anyone could spend $300 on a pair of shoes without trying them on I don't know, but then I don't know how anyone could spend $300 on a pair of shoes. A mystery to most of us with a Y chromosome I guess!

-- Chris Hunt
 
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Wullie:Thanks for your comments! [smile] Yes, they are indeed screwed! Thanks for letting me know!(I went and changed them right away just now)As for the contact info, I understand what you are saying, I went to one of your sites for reference, and I saw what you did, and I have one question in mind: how did you post your email address out there on the web without getting spammed by millions of junk mails? Please advice. Thanks again Wullie!

Chris: Thanks for your comments! [smile] Yes I agreed with what you said about the mouse over, I will make some changes on that. As for the $$ amount of the merchandise, believe me, our prices are already ALOT lower than others out there who sell items that are at this high caliber, in fact, our price are already 30%-35% off retail price! As for the tactic you mentioned above, I will definitly check it out! Thanks again for your help Chris!

JoJoH

 
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JoJoH,

I get only a few spam mails per day through my business addresses but this is really only because I have great spam filters in place on my servers.

If you are worried about the e-mail, leave that out and just list a phone and physical address, you can get away with the contact form without an e-mail.

Hope this helps

Wullie


The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change.
The leader adjusts the sails. - John Maxwell
 
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