Site nearly done - comments please..

Hi Becky, I'm gentle too.

If you are able to tweak some elements of the site yourself Becky I'd be happy to help you add some search engine optimisation ingredients for free. PM me if you'd like some useful input when you get a sec.

Ray

The site looks good to me. Perhaps when you have the budget get a professional in to tweak it to meet W3C guidelines.

Can I ask if you are actually VAT registered? Your Terms and Conditions state:

Taxable items have 17.5% VAT (sales tax) added.

Click to expand...

If you are VAT registered and you apply the VAT then you will need to state the VAT Reg No in your Terms and Conditions.

Hi Becky,

the site doesn't look too bad! In a strange coincidence, I used to run the Mothercare website for 4 years, so I seem to be in a position to help you out a little

My first impressions on your home page are:
1. The header is too big! Many people have low resolution screens and may not have their browser sized too large. Therefore they won't be able to see that much of your site.
2. With an initial glance at your site, I can't quite work out what you're selling. If customers can't work this out, they'll not stay around to work it out. Have you considered a tagline or short sentence or two to describe what you're selling? "Fantastic new baby gifts" isn't too helpful - what sort of gifts? Clothes, toys, nappies?
3. Your left hand navigation doesn't describe what products you have - this would also help point 2. You could consider having a list of product categories, then customers can see easily what you've got and how they can get to it.
4. An "About Us" page would probably be helpful too - building some trust with customers will help them to convert into sales!
5. I like to emotive pictures on the home page - seeing babies on a babies web site is always a good thing! However, I did do a double take on the pregnant picture - I wasn't 100% sure exactly what I was looking at!
6. A featured product on the home page can be a good way to get people to buy stuff as well, especially if it's discounted! Also helps people understand what sort of products you're selling.

I hope this doesn't come across too critical, just trying to help!
If you'd like to do some reading, check out the ecommerce forum on www.webmasterworld.com - it's full of tips and whatnot!

fastfences said:

On your contact page you're using a 'yahoo' email address. Can't you configure it through your ISP (Internet Service Provider) control panel so that you have, say, [email protected]

Click to expand...

Becky,

More detail on this (if required) can be found on our site at:
http://www.advice4businesses.co.uk/domain_names_email.shtml

HTH,
Dave.

I like the site Backy, it looks good. Only thing is..............and I know this is petty, but the colour scheme reminds me of the cancer research site?

Also, can I suggest putting lots of smaller items into your £25 bundle as I was expecting a nice gift basket with lots of things in, not just two items.

When you said be gentle I decided not to comment but you took back so here I am.

I agree, your bundle at £25 is not so much a bundle as a pair of items. Daisy roots retail at £13.50 when I checked them out so the height chart would have to be pretty special and as height charts are often given away free I don't see the value of it.

Perhaps you wrap them beautifully, in which case you should show what the whole gift will look like.

You need a much bigger add to basket button and put it at the top of the page, not at the bottom whee one has to scroll to find it.

I added two bundles to the basket before I realised the first one had been added to the basket. I clicked the checkout button to go to the basket but when I got there I could not change the quantity or remove anything from the basket.

Looking at it now I realise there is a go to basket button. By clicking the checkout button I jumped this stage and found myself unable to change the basket. To cure this enable to make basket changes in checkout or don't take them to checkout, take them to the basket.

Your images could have useful alt text about what they are showing instead of your image name. This helps people get an odea of what they will see if they click them. The same applies to any links.

I think the images of the baby with the price over the top should be changed for an image of the products you would buy and the price. This is far more helpful in making the right choice of product or simply of click. If you don't do this your customer is forced to make far more clicks to find what they are looking for.

I could not find a home button anywhere. What this means is that I never knew if I was back at the home page. This in turn left me feeling a bit disorientated.

Good luck with your venture. It looks nice.

becky said:

....

the baby pic with the price over means that within each price point I can have a few options.

It also looks less messy than having lots of pics of the items, but I do take your point about the number of clicks, so i'll bear it in mind for the next version of the site which I'll be able to customise a bit more - later in 2006.

The comments on the basket I can't change unfortunately - as I'm on the actinic express template currently. Same with the home page - you have to click on "store" in the top navigation which is really not right, but I can't do anything about it!!

Click to expand...

I'm sorry you are having problems getting actinic to do what you want and I'm afriad I can't help as I have no experience of it.

You have made a great start and i'm sure you can make a success of it as the site develops.

Regarding the images of the baby and the price you described pictures of products as messy and the baby image as easier for you.

When we developed our site it was a Eureka moment when we realised the importance of developing for the people using the site. Instead of making things easier for us or showing off how clever we were with roll over menus and animations we suddenly began to do every thing for the benefit of the visitor, assuming that all visitors were new to the internet.

You simply cannot go wrong in making sure that everything you do will be useful to your visitor, and by assuming that visitor is potentially a barely literate octogenarian with shaky hands. His money is as good as someone who is adept on computers and he will love you if he finds your site easier to use than your competitors. PLUS the adept person will also find the site easy to use and therefore you will convert more of them.

So if your user will find indicative images of the kinds of bundles you offer under each price bracket then it is worth considering creating them.

Coo, look at us back in the day. circa 2000

http://web.archive.org/web/20000301150409/http://www.sillyjokes.co.uk/index.html

Anyhoo, I'm sure you will do well. If we can make it based on a site that looked like that, you will be millionaires in two years.

Hi Becky, I'd jump at Anna's offer, she's very good at effective and compelling copy. If either of you want some free advice regarding the seo aspect of the copy just let me know. Sorry if that sounded pompous, wasn't meant too .

Ray

Hello Becky

I think it's a pleasant, uncluttered website... and congratulations on being brave enough to ask for criticism.

The advice that Silly Jokes gave is spot on. Always look at things from your visitors' point of view.

You've taken the most important step, in that you've got your website up and running. I think that means you know that action is the most important thing. I always go for action rather than perfection... as the person who found an error on my website earlier can no doubt testify...

I corrected it immediately!

So there are some great people on here who will give solid advice.

Now, the people who have given you advice on your colour scheme and suchlike have done a great job. I don't have any thing to add to that.

But here's a bit of very powerful advice... In fact it's one of the most important things you will ever learn.... and it's as relevant to many people on here as you.

It's something you need to know about e-commerce generally. It's something I learned from some of the best internet marketers on the planet, and it's crucial to your success.

I'm sure I'll get howls of protest about this, but here goes...

You see, selling things by the web is exactly the same as selling things by direct mail. (You know, sending catalogues and letters through the post). The most successful internet marketers are either traditional direct mail companies who have transferred their marketing knowledge to the web. Or they are new internet marketers who have learned the traditional direct mail skills and used them on the web.

And here's what all this means for you.

Every successful direct mailer knows that the most lucrative element of the mail order business is what is called the "house list". That is the names and addresses of past customers. Because once someone has bought from you once, they are much more likely to buy from you again. These people are absolute gold for your business.

And it's the same in internet marketing. The most lucrative element is the house list... though in this instance it consists of email addresses. Once you have a good house list of email addresses you can mail your customers again and again with offers.

And this is really important... because the house list is where most of your profits (sometimes 95%) will come from. Not from people visiting your website at random, but by past customers coming back to your website to buy again after being enticed by an email from their favorite baby goods supplier… which is you, of course.

So this is how it relates to your site design...

I may be going blind, but I couldn’t find an email capture form on your site.

And if this is so… you absolutely MUST get an email capture form on your site!

Collect those email addresses for all you’re worth!

In the long term they will bring you a flood of profits. If handled properly, they will become your long term customers and will make your business a roaring success.

So how do you entice people to give you their email address? The simplest way is to offer them a free report which they can download from your site as a PDF file. The report can be something simple like “Ten Top Tips for New Mums”.

Someone on here can probably help you out with doing the email capture form and writing the report.

Then get yourself a dedicated gmail address, because it has a brilliant search facility. To get one, you need to be invited. Send me a PM and I’ll invite you.

Keep the email addresses in there.

Then when you have a few mail addresses (maybe a hundred or so) you can invest in an autoresponder service, and then the game gets really interesting. You can mail your list in bulk – called “working the list” in the business – and offer them new products.

Even better, if you keep track of the age of the children, you can offer relevant products as the child grows up, expanding your range of products to feed a very hungry and captive market. What a wonderful business you’ve got yourself into…

There really is no limit to what you can do.

Once you get to the time of investing in an autoresponder, pm me and I’ll tell you what the best ones are. The market is constantly changing, so it’s no point in me telling you now.

All the best, and congratulations on taking the first steps to success.

Steve
the Free Advice Marketer

PS
Remember… 95% of profits come from the house list… Collect those email addresses!

PPS
Is this the longest post ever? I think I need a rest for a few weeks....

I had a quick look at your site and in my humble opinion it is pleasing to look at and informative. I think when you finish it that you will be happy with the result, which is more than can be said for my attempts!

Please take a look at my website www.tiemma.com and tell me your honest opinion. I think it looks fairly unprofessional compared to yours, which I have to say looks as though it has been detailed by a web designer!

Many thanks!

Hi Becky, the site looks good and the 'bump' picture is def. an improvement on the old one.

I think your logo is lovely, but it seems to be of a lower resolution compared to the rest of the site, it seems a bit more grainy compared to other images (although it could be my eyesight, so ignore me if so )

You also have 'out of stock' displayed on some of your product pages and from a personal point of view, I always find this rather annoying. It gives the impression that you are unorganised or couldn't be bothered to ensure enough stock was available (which I'm sure wasn't the case).

Would it be better to have 'coming soon....' , which would give the impression that you are developing further exciting new products, or at the very least 'apologies, currently out of stock'.
At least this would give the impression that you are working on it...

You could also give people the chance to leave their email address and be notified once the product is in stock (tying in with Mr Steve's epic posting earlier :wink: ) at least that would add to your data base of email addresses.

hope this helps, good luck with everything, you have entered a lucrative market and I'm sure you will do brilliantly.

P.S. Have you thought about adding your web link to Junior Magazines website?, you will get lots of Yummy Mummys finding you on there.