Approaching zero hour - getting nervous :)

[Cromulent]

Okay I'm approaching my site launch date now and I am starting to get nervous. I'm fairly certain I have done everything that is required from a technical stand point (SSL certificate installation, software configured etc) but I just have a nagging sensation that I may have forgotten something.

So I decided to ask you guys, when you were setting up was there anything that you forgot to do or did wrong before you started that you wished someone had told you about in advance?

[Mister B]

I thought that I had everything covered, as did everybody else who either tested the site or helped with the proofing but we still managed to miss a few small things.

That being said, I'm sure that you'll have all bases covered, but there's bound to be one that will slips through the net.

Would be interesting to see if anybody has made any real howlers.

Mister B

[Jonesy]

I've never seen a site that's been "spot on" from day one. Websites evolve and develop over time, so I'd advise be prepared to monitor stats and get as much feedback as possible over the coming months then plan an update.

[Cromulent]

Thanks guys. I have plans to make sure I keep track of stats by registering with Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer.

My main concern at the moment I guess is payment and making sure everything runs according to plan. I already have all the packaging material and so on but still, until the first order goes through and is completed successfully I think I will be nervous no matter what happens.

Still, exciting times as they say :).

[Steve2507]

Is the site live as in available for others view? You should have it live so that others can test it for you. If you don't do any other marketing whilst you are double checking then you are not going to be losing customers. You could always put a big header on the site saying it is in Beta and please report any faults to blah blah.

[Cromulent]

Is the site live as in available for others view? You should have it live so that others can test it for you. If you don't do any other marketing whilst you are double checking then you are not going to be losing customers. You could always put a big header on the site saying it is in Beta and please report any faults to blah blah.

No its not live yet. My web designer is due to finish within the week and I should have finalised the initial product range by the end of this week. Once those two things are done the site can then be opened on a limited basis. At the moment it is effectively just a shell.

[fisicx]

You list of things you have done are all well and good but they all miss the most important thing:

USER TESTING!

I'm amazed that you haven't been able to test the functionality of the site yet. You should be able to work with the 'shell' to make sure everything works, that the information flow is logical, that the page titles, description, product names and prices all display correctly and (most importantly) the payment process is trouble fre..

Before you go live you need to do some user testing. Both you and the designer know the site well but joe public doesn't. So you need to get some people in to give your their opiniion (don't use family or friends).

Don't even think about going live until you know the site works. Expect to make a number of minor changes in the first few days and once you go live you are going to be constantly tweaking. After a few months you might even need some major changes as you identify choke points, major exit pages or cart abandonment.

[Steve2507]

You list of things you have done are all well and good but they all miss the most important thing:

USER TESTING!

I'm amazed that you haven't been able to test the functionality of the site yet. You should be able to work with the 'shell' to make sure everything works, that the information flow is logical, that the page titles, description, product names and prices all display correctly and (most importantly) the payment process is trouble fre..

Before you go live you need to do some user testing. Both you and the designer know the site well but joe public doesn't. So you need to get some people in to give your their opiniion (don't use family or friends).

Don't even think about going live until you know the site works. Expect to make a number of minor changes in the first few days and once you go live you are going to be constantly tweaking. After a few months you might even need some major changes as you identify choke points, major exit pages or cart abandonment.That's my point exactly your designer should have the shell online for it to be tested. I'd happily go through it. There are so many things you could have missed it would be impossible to list them all on a forum. But then again you may not have missed any.

Put the site up and lets have a look.

[Cromulent]

That's my point exactly your designer should have the shell online for it to be tested. I'd happily go through it. There are so many things you could have missed it would be impossible to list them all on a forum. But then again you may not have missed any.

Put the site up and lets have a look.

Okay will do, the site should be ready by the end of the week (design wise). I'll stick a link up then.

[fisicx]

Okay will do, the site should be ready by the end of the week (design wise). I'll stick a link up then.

The site should already be ready. Forget how it looks, that's not important and in any case is the last thing you should be testing.

Before the layout/graphics are added, you need to functionaly test the site. The developer should have provided you with a working model all through development so you could see things were progressing. It's no good at the 11th hour suddenly realising that you need a new tab for technical description or a related product feature after the project has been delivered.

[Cromulent]

The site should already be ready. Forget how it looks, that's not important and in any case is the last thing you should be testing.

Before the layout/graphics are added, you need to functionaly test the site. The developer should have provided you with a working model all through development so you could see things were progressing. It's no good at the 11th hour suddenly realising that you need a new tab for technical description or a related product feature after the project has been delivered.

It is just Magento. The designer is just doing a template for it not designing a whole new system. If it was bespoke I would agree with you but as it is just Magento with a different layout and colour scheme I don't think it is such an issue.

[luckyg]

Test the site in all browsers?? and screen resolutions to optimize for largest resoluton population?

[SteveGibson]

So I decided to ask you guys, when you were setting up was there anything that you forgot to do or did wrong before you started that you wished someone had told you about in advance?

As the others said, "test, test, test".

I was asked to run PPC ads for a new site a couple of weeks ago and found over a dozen usability problems.

(I used to be a computer programmer, so I did a lot of testing back in the 1990s)

Each of these problems would have either caused problems for customers or lost sales for my client.

The other thing you need in place before you start is tracking.

You need a good analytics package (e.g. Google Analytics). You need to set up goals and goal funnels if you're going to have online goal conversion. You also need ecommerce tracking if you're an ecommerce site.

And, I'd also recommend you use something like clicktale to record visitors mouse movements on the site. That'll give you some insights into how well your site is working.

Finally, you should be asking yourself questions about the site: is the text easy to read? Is the copy persuasive? Are the pictures relevant? Do they look good? How does your site design look in comparison to your competitors? etc.

Hope this helps,

Steve

[fisicx]

It is just Magento. The designer is just doing a template for it not designing a whole new system. If it was bespoke I would agree with you but as it is just Magento with a different layout and colour scheme I don't think it is such an issue.

Yes it is! Even with magneto there are so many things you can configue and loads of extensions. How do you know which bits work and which don't until you test.

Have you tested images on the left versus images on right? Are you displaying the product categores as a list or as a grid. Are the product titles above or below the image?

How do you know the best payment gateway until you test?

Have you tired different category/product listings? Have you tested drop-down against flyout sub-categories?

How are you displaying the full sized images, popup, lightbox, new page. Which method do your users prefer?

The template is not important.

[Cromulent]

Yes it is! Even with magneto there are so many things you can configue and loads of extensions. How do you know which bits work and which don't until you test.

Have you tested images on the left versus images on right? Are you displaying the product categores as a list or as a grid. Are the product titles above or below the image?

How do you know the best payment gateway until you test?

Have you tired different category/product listings? Have you tested drop-down against flyout sub-categories?

How are you displaying the full sized images, popup, lightbox, new page. Which method do your users prefer?

The template is not important.

Ah those things I would consider a layout issue and not necessarily a functionality issue. Misunderstanding there.

Yes, there will be adequate testing time but as I said until I get the final back I can't get it under way.

All the backend stuff is configured though, payment, shipping, categories, transactional e-mails, user accounts, security, backup scripts, upgrade procedure etc etc have all been dealt with.

Thanks for your advice though it has been most helpful. I'll certainly pay more attention to testing now than I would have done otherwise.

[FireFleur]

Test, test, test.

And if you have developed it, get someone else to test it as well :)

Websites are very evolutionary, it will just keep changing and evolving all the time. The buy line is something to test fairly often, as is any contact mechanism.

Oh, and take what others say with a pinch of salt, they are often wrong, and well everyone wants to be a critic, far more fun criticising other people's sites then actually doing the work :)

[Cromulent]

Test, test, test.

And if you have developed it, get someone else to test it as well :)

Websites are very evolutionary, it will just keep changing and evolving all the time. The buy line is something to test fairly often, as is any contact mechanism.

Oh, and take what others say with a pinch of salt, they are often wrong, and well everyone wants to be a critic, far more fun criticising other people's sites then actually doing the work :)

Okay thanks. I'll post a link to the site on Friday or Saturday and be prepared for a beat down :).

[Steve2507]

Okay thanks. I'll post a link to the site on Friday or Saturday and be prepared for a beat down :).Don't treat the comments as a beat down. I don't think I've seen any site comments on here that haven't been truthful.

[dean023]

just thought I post a good luck message!

[Cromulent]

Right I know I promised to do this ages ago but it took longer than expected to fix the problems I found. Hopefully no major ones crop up with the comments :). So here is the site: Just Extreme Metal (http://www.justextrememetal.com/).

[Lucan Unlordly]

Just an observation.....you've got no 'Kylie' on there?:p:D;)

[downsouth]

seems a very 'niche' site (I hate that word by the way), personally i'd be looking to display the products in a better manner, I like many will probably say theres to much scrolling down the page.

Maybe 3-4 products per row, 3-4 rows

Have you thought about the SEO aspect??

[Cromulent]

seems a very 'niche' site (I hate that word by the way), personally i'd be looking to display the products in a better manner, I like many will probably say theres to much scrolling down the page.

Maybe 3-4 products per row, 3-4 rows

I did consider it, but the site is quite narrow to accomodate people with small monitors and those on Macs who have big monitors but like to keep their browser window small (like me :)).

Have you thought about the SEO aspect??

It seems to have been indexed pretty quickly in Google and is in a not too bad position for a key keyword even with only 2 or so external links to the site. When I am ready to launch it properly and get more links to it I think it could do quite nicely.

Just an observation.....you've got no 'Kylie' on there?:p:D;)

No Kylie I'm afraid :). She missed out on the extreme metal scene by a few years :p.

Thanks for the responses so far :).

[Cromulent]

Hah, just checked my search engine positions and I have the following (without doing a thing):

MSN: Page 4
Yahoo: Page 1 (wahoo!)
Google: Page 19 (doh)

[fisicx]

Not a great fan of this genre (I'm of the Deep Purple/Yes/Pink Floyd era) but even if I were I don't think I'd really be that impressed. The whole site looks bland and formulaic and didn't really inspire. In any case, you aren't selling anything I can't get on Amazon so what's your USP? You don't have in-depth reviews, audio clips, galleries - nothing on the site that is going to make you stand out from the crowd.

The left hand navigation is very weak - 'my account' is hardly a useful link.

Page titles could be a lot better and the search link doesn't seem to work (for me).

Couldn't get the checkout to work either until I filled in the stupid 'quote' form. When the quote arrived the formatting was all over the shop and no matter what I did, I still couldn't get to the checkout.

How much user testing have you done?

And you have the slowest server connection in the world (probably because it's in Bucharest)

I'd take the site offline ASAP until you are sure everything works.

[Rags]

Hah, just checked my search engine positions and I have the following (without doing a thing):

MSN: Page 4
Yahoo: Page 1 (wahoo!)
Google: Page 19 (doh)

Which keyword(s) do these results refer to?

[Cromulent]

Not a great fan of this genre (I'm of the Deep Purple/Yes/Pink Floyd era) but even if I were I don't think I'd really be that impressed. The whole site looks bland and formulaic and didn't really inspire. In any case, you aren't selling anything I can't get on Amazon so what's your USP? You don't have in-depth reviews, audio clips, galleries - nothing on the site that is going to make you stand out from the crowd.

Prices are better than Amazon. Anyway the product catalog has not been completed. Still working on that.

The left hand navigation is very weak - 'my account' is hardly a useful link.

True, but most sites tend to use that formula so anything that stops people from needing to think is good for me.

Page titles could be a lot better and the search link doesn't seem to work (for me).

What could be improved with the titles?

Search works fine, you just need to type a search term in a click search.

Couldn't get the checkout to work either until I filled in the stupid 'quote' form. When the quote arrived the formatting was all over the shop and no matter what I did, I still couldn't get to the checkout.

Which browser are you using? Just add a product to the cart and click "Proceed to Checkout". No need to fill in the quote thing at all.

How much user testing have you done?

I've spent the last week or so testing. If you have any more specifics that are broken for you please let me know (and specify which browser / OS yoy are using).

And you have the slowest server connection in the world (probably because it's in Bucharest)

I'd take the site offline ASAP until you are sure everything works.

It does. I've tested everything (repeatedly). The server is in London. The problem seems to be that Magento has this issue with just about every server you can get without spending vast amounts of money on it.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Cromulent]

Oh as for the audio clips, that opens up a whole can of worms needing a Performing Rights Society and MCPS license. Plus potentially even a license from the record labels themselves.

[fisicx]

Prices are better than Amazon. Anyway the product catalog has not been completed. Still working on that.

Price isn't everything. trust is far bigger influence.

True, but most sites tend to use that formula so anything that stops people from needing to think is good for me.

No they don't. Amazon doesn't nor do many of the other mainstream sites

What could be improved with the titles?

Price, tepehone number, USP

Search works fine, you just need to type a search term in a click search.

Only just realised that the grey box to the left is the search box - usability failure there.

Which browser are you using? Just add a product to the cart and click "Proceed to Checkout". No need to fill in the quote thing at all.

Firefox - and I couldn't get it to work in IE either. Something is wrong somewhere because the whole thing seems very flaky.

I've spent the last week or so testing. If you have any more specifics that are broken for you please let me know (and specify which browser / OS yoy are using).

USER testing - that means getting coomplete strangers to test the usability and accessibility on different platforms.

It does. I've tested everything (repeatedly). The server is in London. The problem seems to be that Magento has this issue with just about every server you can get without spending vast amounts of money on it.

The server is in Romania: http://whois.domaintools.com/justextrememetal.com. Your host is telling you porky pies.

Thanks for the feedback.

You are going to struggle to compete, you may be cheaper but the chances of a decent Google ranking are pretty low. The SEO on the site is really pants and the designer didn't test it in Firefox, Opera, Chrome or a PDA.

[Cromulent]

You are going to struggle to compete, you may be cheaper but the chances of a decent Google ranking are pretty low. The SEO on the site is really pants and the designer didn't test it in Firefox, Opera, Chrome or a PDA.

Tested in all those browsers and it works fine. I have no idea what you are doing. As for the SEO you need to be more specific.

Price isn't everything. trust is far bigger influence.

Very true, which is why I paid special attention to making sure my contact details were fully available (phone, fax, address, multiple e-mail contacts).


No they don't. Amazon doesn't nor do many of the other mainstream sites

Check again. Amazon most certainly do. Except they call it "Your Account" rather than "My Account". Play.com also use "My Account", I'm sure I could find any number of successful ecommerce sites that use it too but I don't have the time.

Price, tepehone number, USP

Adding the telephone number and unique selling point dilutes the keyword density of the titles. Price is a good idea though.

Only just realised that the grey box to the left is the search box - usability failure there.

Fair point.


Firefox - and I couldn't get it to work in IE either. Something is wrong somewhere because the whole thing seems very flaky.

Works perfectly for me in Firefox 3, Firefox 3.1 beta 2, Opera 9.6 something, Safari 3.2.1 and Internet Explorer 7 (latest version).

USER testing - that means getting coomplete strangers to test the usability and accessibility on different platforms.

Hence this post.


The server is in Romania: http://whois.domaintools.com/justextrememetal.com. Your host is telling you porky pies.

Interesting. Thanks for the feedback.

[fisicx]

Tested in all those browsers and it works fine. I have no idea what you are doing. As for the SEO you need to be more specific.

I don't know either but I can't get to the checkout. And If I can't it means other won't be able to either.

Check again. Amazon most certainly do. Except they call it "Your Account" rather than "My Account". Play.com also use "My Account", I'm sure I could find any number of successful ecommerce sites that use it too but I don't have the time.

But they don't put it in a category called useful links - that was my point.

Adding the telephone number and unique selling point dilutes the keyword density of the titles. Price is a good idea though.

Who told you that? The page title is vital for getting visitors to click, If the page title is enticing (free something or next day delivery) then the chances of a click increase. All you have is the album name so there is loads of room for a bit of marketing.

Works perfectly for me in Firefox 3, Firefox 3.1 beta 2, Opera 9.6 something, Safari 3.2.1 and Internet Explorer 7 (latest version).

Then how come in my FF the album title drops below the image on the category pages? The lines on 'Add to Wishlist' on the product pages are all over the pace as well, look at the page in IE then FF.


And I've just noticed your breadcrumbs don't work. On the death metal page I see Home / CD / Death Metal but when I click on a product I see Home / Album Title. what happened to CD / Death Metal?

Are you planning to expand later? Even if you are then the 'CD' category is pretty poinless at the moment. and Grindcore is empty. It's always a good idea to leave empty categories off the site until you have some products.

Managed to get the checkout to work on my iphone so it could simply be a connection issue - all other ecommenrce sites seem to be OK though. I cleared out my cookies and temp files and really tried but to no avail, every time I land back on the homepage.

Don't rely on this forum for your user testing - we are not your target customers.

As to the SEO. Here's a simple example - the H1 should introduce the page. There should be only one of them. You have at least 5.

[Cromulent]

And I've just noticed your breadcrumbs don't work. On the death metal page I see Home / CD / Death Metal but when I click on a product I see Home / Album Title. what happened to CD / Death Metal?

That is because you went through the home page rather than the categories. I agree it is not ideal, but Magento has a very odd system and I am trying to work out the best way to 301 redirect those URL's to the correct URL.

Are you planning to expand later? Even if you are then the 'CD' category is pretty poinless at the moment. and Grindcore is empty. It's always a good idea to leave empty categories off the site until you have some products.

As I said I am still adding products. The site is not live yet, I'm just leaving it up to get indexed by the search engines. Once I have added all the products then I will start promoting it to my chosen target group.

Managed to get the checkout to work on my iphone so it could simply be a connection issue - all other ecommenrce sites seem to be OK though. I cleared out my cookies and temp files and really tried but to no avail, every time I land back on the homepage.

Very strange. It works absolutely perfectly in every browser I can get my hands on for me.

Don't rely on this forum for your user testing - we are not your target customers.

Very true but for a quick and dirty run down of the site it is useful. Thanks to your feedback I have already got some new items on my to do list which is very helpful.

As to the SEO. Here's a simple example - the H1 should introduce the page. There should be only one of them. You have at least 5.

Good catch.

I don't know either but I can't get to the checkout. And If I can't it means other won't be able to either.

Seems very strange that everything works perfectly for me on every browser I use but does not for you. Are you sure it is not a local issue?

But they don't put it in a category called useful links - that was my point.

Accepted, but I am yet to be convinced that renaming it or removing it is a better solution.

Who told you that? The page title is vital for getting visitors to click, If the page title is enticing (free something or next day delivery) then the chances of a click increase. All you have is the album name so there is loads of room for a bit of marketing.

Advertising in the title looks somewhat tacky if you ask me. I certainly agree adding the price is a good move, but if someone is searching Google for the name of the album and your page title matches it, then obviously they are more likely to click that rather than some page with a "Huge discounts on loads of CDs blah blah oh by the way the album is called: blah". I know it is a hugely exaggerated example but in things like this simplicity is often the best method.

Plus the fact that Amazon often don't stock most of the items on my site and you have a bit of an advantage.

[SteveGibson]

There are lots of things wrong with the site.

And, some of them are so basic, I'm wondering if the designer has a functioning brain.

For example, this page:

http://www.justextrememetal.com/spektr-et-fugit-interea-fugit-irreparabile-tempus.html

doesn't even have a price on it. (unless I've gone blind)

In all my years, I've never seen that mistake on an ecommerce site.

Another problem: the cart http://www.justextrememetal.com/checkout/cart/, doesn't have the proceed button on the first fold. It looks like the only two actions are to "continue shopping" or "update shopping cart".

And, these things are just 2 of the many usability/conversion problems.

Finally - and this is entirely subjective - I really don't like your design. I understand what market you're going for and why you went for the "black" theme, but IMO the colour scheme looks awful with all those shades of grey.

Steve

[Cromulent]

There are lots of things wrong with the site.

And, some of them are so basic, I'm wondering if the designer has a functioning brain.

For example, this page:

http://www.justextrememetal.com/spektr-et-fugit-interea-fugit-irreparabile-tempus.html

doesn't even have a price on it. (unless I've gone blind)

In all my years, I've never seen that mistake on an ecommerce site.

Blimey. Good catch, just goes to show that you can look at something for ages and still miss simple things.

Another problem: the cart http://www.justextrememetal.com/checkout/cart/, doesn't have the proceed button on the first fold. It looks like the only two actions are to "continue shopping" or "update shopping cart".

And, these things are just 2 of the many usability/conversion problems.

Hmm, not sure what the best approach for this is really.

Finally - and this is entirely subjective - I really don't like your design. I understand what market you're going for and why you went for the "black" theme, but IMO the colour scheme looks awful with all those shades of grey.

Steve

Fair comment. I understand that it is not to everyone's taste, but when you look at some of the competition such as www.blackmetal.com (http://www.blackmetal.com) I think it wins in usability.

Oh and just about everything is black, gray and white in this market. Hard to avoid it really.

[fisicx]

Hmm, not sure what the best approach for this is really.

Simple, get rid of the quote thing and just have a single P&P price which is calculated when you get to checkout.

The problem is that you are familiar with the site, know all it's little quirks and nuances. The first time visitor doesn't so you really need to make it a simple as possible for them.

Anything that gets in the way of a conversion needs to be identifed and expunged. Which is why you need to so some user testing.

As to the page titles - it might seen tacky to you but if it brings in the paying customer then that waht you need to do, all im suggesting is something like:

Album from Band only Price with Next Day delivery.

[Cromulent]

Well thank you all for your comments and feedback it has been incredibly useful. I have managed to get a decent list of things that need to be fixed in order to get the site in a usable state.

Some things I completely missed, other things I kinda knew about but didn't appreciate as I was so used to it. So overall very helpful indeed :). Now comes the fun part of dealing with web designers...