Wedding website design - appeal to men or women? HELP

[Bridal Discount Book Aust]

Hello everyone,

Boy I wish I'd found this forum 9 months ago - it would have made my hundreds of hours of research so much easier!

I'm after your opinions both male & female. While I thought I'd researched my market target thoroughly (brides), I wonder if I've taken the design of my website a little to far in attracting women in this area?? I have tried to incorporate the groom as much as possible but was also wary that my research came back highly favouring women as the main planners in a wedding scenario.

The reason being is I've recently received a response to a survey I have for members on the site.

He (a groom) whom also claims to be a web techi submitted the following opinion:

"suggest that you use gender generic terms, its not only brides that use the site, im actually the groom ;-)"

To do with site looking good & navigation etc:

"The two columns under the large wide header looks disjointed and hard to read, Id suggest a narrower menu on the left and make the 'content' wider to make it easier on the eyes, admittedly im a bit of a web techie..."

If I may - I'd like to get the broader opinion on the two issues above as it's been concerning me a bit & I wonder if I should address them more?

Here is my website http://www.bridaldiscountbook.com.au

Thank you in advance for your time

Jeanette

[craiglongmuir.com]

i almost like it!
i think the general look is good, but it is let down by the actual structure of the page and how the lements fit together...seems a little dissorganised to me, but on the right track

[Ainsley]

Oh I went on your site earlier today to have a look... And I loved the header and the feel of the site!

I think the whole gender issue should be put to rest because it is called a "brides book"-- naturally implying a female. And as someone recently married, guys rarely enjoy doing all the planning and if they did, they would be used to girly stuff. Weddings are girly full stop!!

And i agree with the web techie's criticism. As someone who works in web design, a clean and simple homepage is the way to go. I think a lot of the info should be found through links and menus and the homepage really catch their eye. In my opinion, the colours and header do this, the long scroll down to see all the info on the homepage is confusing!

While our site is very different stylistically, check out our homepage compared with the other pages:

www.digeratisolutions.com.au

[angela123]

I agree with Ainsley, weddings are women's business!
Men just need to turn up

[Bridal Discount Book Aust]

HAHA well thanks for the positives on the "womens business" side of things - I can see what you mean now & will look into cleaning up the front page and making more box like links & tags to certain things
I like what you've done Ainsley

I do tend to want to give as much info as I possibly can, but that's only good if someone's prepared to read it

Excellent your advice has been priceless!!

Thanks so much!

[MatthewKeath]

Hi Jeanette,

Congrats on starting your own site. I have a few points I would like to make regarding the design. (In no particular order)

• While the pink swirls are pretty, I don't think it works on this site. I find they overwhelm the rest of the content, as well as the nice pictures in the banner. I find my eyes consistently drawn to them. (which is not where you want people to be looking)
• The top navigation and your are too subtle. You can hardly read them, or your attractive logo gets lost.
• I had to click on the map to realise what it's purpose is. There is nothing to suggest why you should click the map or what will happen if you do.
• The call to action are not clear. With a site like this I think the reason for the site has to seen the instant somebody lands on the page and I feel the message / purpose is lost in the text and buttons.
• I am not a fan of having the Facebook feed on the site. I think a button link to the page and use of the like button / share button is a better way to go.
• The text is quite small, and as the color is grey, it can be a little too hard to read. Also the link color is hard on the eye.

Thanks for letting me review your site.

Matt

[Bridal Discount Book Aust]

Fantastic! Thank you for your valuable advice Matt! I will certainly get onto my web designer to see if he can adjust a few of these things.

Some are more permanently set without having to pay more $$ to change them but I can certainly get some of those things altered.

Appreciate you taking the time to look and help me out!

Jeanette

[Bridal Discount Book Aust]

Originally Posted by MatthewKeath

Hi Jeanette,

Congrats on starting your own site. I have a few points I would like to make regarding the design. (In no particular order)

• While the pink swirls are pretty, I don't think it works on this site. I find they overwhelm the rest of the content, as well as the nice pictures in the banner. I find my eyes consistently drawn to them. (which is not where you want people to be looking)
• The top navigation and your are too subtle. You can hardly read them, or your attractive logo gets lost.
• I had to click on the map to realise what it's purpose is. There is nothing to suggest why you should click the map or what will happen if you do.
• The call to action are not clear. With a site like this I think the reason for the site has to seen the instant somebody lands on the page and I feel the message / purpose is lost in the text and buttons.
• I am not a fan of having the Facebook feed on the site. I think a button link to the page and use of the like button / share button is a better way to go.
• The text is quite small, and as the color is grey, it can be a little too hard to read. Also the link color is hard on the eye.

Thanks for letting me review your site.

Matt

I've addressed what I can (I'm not a programmer unfortunately) so hopefully what I've done already is along the right track!

Thanks again

Jeanette

[CondorCreative]

Hi Jeanette.... I looked at your site yesterday but didn't want to be rude & say anything bad about it, but since you have asked I will give you my input

The header is really nice & the navigation menu is good..... no problems there

However... the problems stem from the rest of the page content. Most of the pages seem to have a lot of ongoing content that seems to go forever & not really have any flow to it for lack of a better word - things just seem to be a bit "all over the place".

The navigation menu seen on many of the pages to the left also seems to be partially broken/out of place..... with the bottom half of it with a big space to the left of it/not lined up with the other options above it.

One other thing I notice with your pages, which kind of goes hand in hand with what I have said above is, that the pages just have "too much going on".... when users browse a site it's best to make it as easy for them to navigate through the site as possible..... there is just far too much different things for them to cover on each page.... users are likely to get confused/annoyed & just leave.

Anyway.... I hope my comments haven't been too harsh & they are of some help to you!

Brett

[Vossy]

Jeanette

Strategy is as much about what you do as what you don't do. I've always found it more effective to move forward in marketing like a sharp wedge rather than a flat block. This means you will be more effective if you define your target market and go for it.

What does the demographics of the people who like your facebook page look like? When I looked I saw all female - so your target market is female - just forget about the odd fringe comment in a survey!

I agree with the comments from the others about call to action and the confusion on the pages they need to be more clearly aligned with what you want the reader to do and there is just too much going on on the home page - which really should just be a landing / routing page.

There are some obvious sensible changes and some that are more based on personal opinion. For example I personally find the mix of the font colours and the links background makes it hard to read the copy.

However, before you change that design element, I strongly recommend you get a base line tracking of your conversion funnel if you don't have that already. Number of visitors, pages viewed, phone calls made, email registrations to eventual sales. Then make changes and see if they help or hinder the progress.

You will find that some of the comments from users are just not borne out in the facts when you measure the effect of the changes.