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website needs fresh eyes!

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Old 29-08-10
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Default website needs fresh eyes!

Hi Everyone,

I would love to get fresh eyes to take a look at my site.

my site is

www.linogirl.com.au


I am currently reworking my business cards and plan to tweek my site next. It would be very helpful to have opinions on what needs reworking.

I hand form and illustrate porcelain objects. I also extend my illustrations into limited edition prints and gift cards.

My target market is people who respect bespoke items and have turned their backs on mass market items. Think Northcote and Fitzroy communities and the like.

cheers!

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Old 29-08-10
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Default Re: website needs fresh eyes!

Hi MissJulie,
Just saw your note on Bridie's thread - good on you for being so gutsy too!

I'll kick things off by saying that I think your work and its whimsy are lovely. I found myself smiling happily at many of your pieces, and will be sending your web address to a couple of friends.

Personally, I'd like a lot less space between each of the images of the products for sale (to minimise the need to scroll), and I'd prioritise those that are in stock now over those items that are sold out, so that if I only scroll past a few and don't make it to the bottom of the page, the items I can actually buy are the first ones I see.

I'd also include the price details of the items that are sold out, along with a note saying something like "Next limited edition pieces in this series will be available in November, click here to place your order now."

I'm sure others will pop in to add their $0.02 as well.

All the best,
Jayne

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Old 29-08-10
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Default Re: website needs fresh eyes!

Hi Julie,

I think Jayne is right on the ball. Your designs are beautiful and whimsical as Jayne said, for me besides the space the thing that lets the site down the most is the use of these varying size centered boxes.

Having a centered box for each piece with almost too much white space at the sides, and each one a different width just looks messy for me.

I actually usually like white space overall and think a lot of sites don't use it enough, in your case there is too much and it's not well thought out white space. In fact because there is so much either side of the center part, it makes the menu at the left look lost, alone and missplaced - almost like my eye really doesn't want to go to it at all.

So when I finish looking at the front page which has some lovely images but doesn't really let me know what you do easily, my eye then really doesn't know where to go and definately doesn't want to go to the menu. The fact there is such as big grey box above then light grey text also doesn't make it stand out at all.

On the menu itself, you have strange use of capitalisation - ie brooches with no capital B, but Pendants with a P. Not sure if there is a logic behind this, but it just looks like a lack of attention to detail to me.

On your product pages, there are way too many "sold" items above those actually for sale. I suggest they should be moved to a seperate section or perhaps down the bottom, as a gallary of your past work. If you are looking to sell pieces online, no point putting items people can't buy in more prominent positions than those that are available.

Also on these pages your fonts are inconsistent and are most centered which is bad for everything except headings. What would work better is a defined heading/name for each one a little larger, then a series of left justified dot points, then finally a price that is a little larger. The prices don't stand out at all, only the SOLD's do. Obviously this isn't just about price, but it's just hard to read.

You also need more calls to action. From what i've worked out each of these is a unique one of a kind piece, so that in itself is your call to action - unlike a lot of the artificial and fradulent "buy now or miss out forever" type things usually seen online, it appears as if this is actually the case, and should form your call to action. This doesn't mean you need to be pushy, just make it clear where it's the case. Also there isn't a clear order button below each product so I have to look around to learn how to order. I know you mention an order form at the top, and it's ok if you don't want to go to a full ecommerce system yet, but you do need to at least have a link to your order form below each item.

Back to the white space, if I go to the vessels page for example, it has a massive amount of extra white space at the bottom which is really odd.

SEO wise your site breaks most of the rules, with things like title tags not properly written, same description on every page etc. While search engine traffic may not be your main goal, it's very well worth getting these basics right to at least give yourself a chance at ranking.

Overall, I think your site probably needs a complete rebuild rather than a bit of tweeking. As I said I think your work is amazing, and with a site that really shows it off while retaining the clean, fresh, innocent, whimsical, minimalist look will really help you to succeed online. If you are interested i'd love to put forward my services as a designer, or there are a number of other good website designers on here who you could speak to as well.

Best wishes with your site and i'd love to hear your thoughts on my feedback.
Matt

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Old 29-08-10
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Default Re: website needs fresh eyes!

Hi Miss Julie,

Just want to let you know I love your prints and cards! I bookmark it right now!

I do agree with the spaces between the pictures. Make them closer.

Good luck with everything!

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Old 29-08-10
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Default Re: website needs fresh eyes!

Thank you Melissa and Jayne for all the nice comments about my work!

Such good advice. Thank you for taking the time to let me know your thoughts...

Thank you especially marketing web for your words of wisdom... I have now seen my site with fresh eyes and I tend to agree with all of the comments. Especially all of the SOLD works. I tend to sell things very quickly. It often leaves me with little in the way of available stock so i agree a gallery would be a huge benefit.

I hate the buy now buttons etc but I have now realized that I could put something for people to click on to direct them to the forms page itself. It doesn't have to be a full blown shopping cart shop thing. I hope this is what you meant.

Also with the SEO comments can you please give me some further advice on how to do this??? Please!!!

Thank you for offering your services... I am going to change over to wordpress I think as the templates that I have to work with now are quiet limited.


I may call on your services though. I have had a look at your site

Cheers

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Old 30-08-10
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Default Re: website needs fresh eyes!

Hi Miss Julie.

Re the SEO, one place you could start is my latest blog post re title and description tags, which are one of the most basic elements of SEO. Search Engine Optimisation isn't difficult in one sense, but in another sense there is a LOT to learn, and it can be very time consuming. If you are willing to invest a lot of time into it you will gain some good new skills. If not, probably best to engage a specialist if high search engine rankings are important to you (they may not be).

Re Wordpress... Wordpress is great, I'm using it more and more myself, however I'm not sure if it's the best solution for you. It's definitely not an e-commerce platform, and the logical base structures of posts and pages etc may not be your best bet when what you are mainly doing is selling product. A really really basic ecommerce software (simple one without all the frills) may be a much better and easier to use in your case.

If you would like to discuss further please email me matthew@marketingweb.com.au . I really genuinely like your art, so i'd love to work with you if you were interested, and i'm sure we could achieve quite a lot together.

Matt

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Old 30-08-10
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Default Re: website needs fresh eyes!

Hi, Missjulie

your cards, porcelain and other items look really nice, I like them, but to be honest the current web site is completely unprofessionally designed, dull and just in such a dissonance with your beautiful products.
My advice would be to redo your web site completely from scratch, you just need to find a good web designer. You probably may take out of box e-commerce/shopping cart software, but for such business like yours good design is especially important, current one just ruin a great impression from your products.

So I agree with Matt, IMO you should definitely consider the complete redesign.

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Old 31-08-10
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Default Re: website needs fresh eyes!

Hi, your work is beautiful! I think you could do one small thing so your website does it more justice - the info is very spread out vertically so I needed to scroll down to see the important info, could you get more into the top part of the page?

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Old 31-08-10
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Default Re: website needs fresh eyes!

Thank you Altima and Leisa for having a look a my site and adding your thoughts.

I have decided to redo my website from scratch. I had initially thought that I may use word press but decided against it as I don't know enough about HTML and don't have the time to learn. the longer I work on my site the less time I have to make. (two children one 2.5 and at home24/7...)

Anyway I have two options;

Get a website designer involved, but the downside is I need to update my site myself and often and don't have html code brain at all....

Or go with a high end template site such as squarespace easy to use and you can do some nice work with it???squarespace and either having a shop linked to it bigcartel
or use a formprocessor.

appreciate any further comments.

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Old 31-08-10
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Default Re: website needs fresh eyes!

Hi Julie, I can recommend a content management system. They design your site banner, layout etc. (you can supply graphic elements if you like), then you just login in to add/update your pages/content as you need to. If you like this idea I can ask Meaghan to contact you and run you through it, I'll just need your direct email (she prefers to contact you personally instead of going through other people). Regards, Leisa (PM me)

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