We've launched a new site - you thoughts please.

[webit]

Folks.

First thoughts on a new shopping site we’ve launched please. What separates it from other shopping sites is regional targeting and features. We have a lot of plans for it but at this stage I’m just interested in your views on the site, prices and would you use it.

We have a redesign to do as well as fixing titles, keywords and source and some of the forum descriptions.

Don’t sign up yet as we’re going to be offering a range of free membership deals to forum members to populate to service.

Thanks
David

http://www.theshoppersbible.com

[c2webdesign]

First impressions:

- Colours make me feel little depressed. Now not in the mood for shopping!

- Logo certainly does not go. Doesn't look right, as if hanging in mid air - same for advert banner.

- Text nice, good size, easy to read, professional enough font.

- Liked the idea of the sop window but not very well implemented. Again just does not look right.

- Lots of categories make it intriguing. The brackets should really be used if you have lots of items. By having 0 or a few advertising this on the home page just gives a negative impression.

- You've stuck to two colours which is great, but not sure if the colours compliment each other.

- Ad is unobtrusive and placed well for visitors to avoid. If you want to earn commission though I would place more appropriately - looks like it is just there to fill space.

- Search is well implemented with lots of options helping visitors find what they need - nice touch!

Hope this helps,

Dean
C2 Web Design
Web: http://www.c2webdesign.co.uk

Web Design | Online Marketing | Search Engine Optimisation

[hairsoup]

what are you using for your search function?

[webit]

First impressions:

- Colours make me feel little depressed. Now not in the mood for shopping!

- Logo certainly does not go. Doesn't look right, as if hanging in mid air - same for advert banner.

- Text nice, good size, easy to read, professional enough font.

- Liked the idea of the sop window but not very well implemented. Again just does not look right.

- Lots of categories make it intriguing. The brackets should really be used if you have lots of items. By having 0 or a few advertising this on the home page just gives a negative impression.

- You've stuck to two colours which is great, but not sure if the colours compliment each other.

- Ad is unobtrusive and placed well for visitors to avoid. If you want to earn commission though I would place more appropriately - looks like it is just there to fill space.

- Search is well implemented with lots of options helping visitors find what they need - nice touch!

Hope this helps,

Dean
C2 Web Design
Web: http://www.c2webdesign.co.uk

Web Design | Online Marketing | Search Engine Optimisation

Hi. Design will be changes v.soon. This is a default design and whilst not too offensive IMO will be different .

The Ad raises to just below the stats box once logged in so will be viewable 'above the fold' of the page.

Good point about the cat. count. I'll switch this off [we're not really live yet until we get it populated]

Can you expand on the Shop Window comment please.

Hairsoup:
what are you using for your search function?

I'ts built in (prob using a text mySQL index) I have built others from scratch such as the one on webit.net which is a free text search engine.

Thanks
DC

[hairsoup]

full text searching doesnt really have all the bells and whistles you need on a shopping search engine. try open source solutions like swish-e or ht://Dig

[webit]

Just a guess about the ful text search (note that I'm not talking about wildcard searches)

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/fulltext-search.html

with webit.net we break the word frequency down and assign a weighting as the search key which works well.

What about the rest of the site?

[Coding Monkey]

You don't need to use Full text searching in MySQL for searches. There are other far more elegant ways, especially when blended with PHP's own functions.

[webit]

Just a guess - the search was an out of the box solution and fits the bill for our needs.

At the moment it works well so it's not on our snag list.

Anyway!! - back to discussing the site :)

[webit]

Any more for any more ... please ...

[autolycus]

The phrase "Shoppers Bible" really ought to have an apostrophe. Either Shopper's Bible if the bible is for just one shopper or, more likely, Shoppers' Bible if it is for all shoppers everywhere.

Dave.

[CG Effect]

Your logo should domonate the top of the site its hard to tell if your called Shoppers Bible or Euro office. site seems a little over complcated.

[webit]

Yep - the logo/design will be fixed v.soon.

What do you mean by over complicated?

[CG Effect]

To much on one page too many things to click on.

[webit]

From another thread we have running on the design. What are yours and others thoughts?

A redesign is very high on this list with blocks such as 'Site Stats' and 'Recent Ads' being moved to text links to free up some page 'real estate' and so that the site will lose the 'boxy-ness' and revert to a much 'cleaner' look maybe more like webit.net.

The logo and branding will be much stronger as this both identifies the site as well as describing what the site is about (i.e. theShoppersBible = a site for shoppers) which was a problem we have with webit.net in as much as the url doesn't say what the site does, hence a further paragraph explaining.

Adwords will go from the main pages of the site but will remain in the forums and will be replace over time by standard advert blocks.

The right direction?