How can i improve my website?

doggiestylestore

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Sep 3, 2008
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I have just launched my new ecommerce site www doggiestylestore dot com and would appreciate any feedback you can give me in terms of seo & design etc. It hasn't been fully crawled by Google yet and I want to make sure it is gonna look good when it does.
Thanks in advance.
 

nass

Free Member
Jun 29, 2008
893
155
Surrey
There are quite a few ways you could improve it, your best bet is to hire an SEO to do a report for you. For example, your titles are nearly identical and you don't have all that much content. My hunch would have to be that this is quite a lowcost eCommerce solution so I suspect that your options were limited. I wouldn't have the faintest idea what the competition is like for doggie garments - it maybe that this sort of site has such little competition that it'll get you good search engine results... but on the other hand if its a very competitive then short of adwords I suspect you'll have a hard time surviving just from the organic listings.
 
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i think you will find Google will have crawled your site and indexed already.

Run your site through this tool and this tool for your keywords.

These tools will give you a good idea on the improvements needed.

Titles - Descriptions (different for each page relevant to the item for sale )and keywords in your alt tags with well written page copy is a good starting point.

trust this helps

Nice looking site by the way.
 
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wood1e2

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May 2, 2007
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text on pages is always a good thing...as content is king. You don;t masses of text content, just product explanations, about us...what sets you apart.

Advertise special offers. Use more of your titles, not just one keyword/phrase on each page. Use some variation.

Look at moving your title tag to the top of the head area.

Maybe move your javascript to an external file.

Then look at adding to the menu at the bottom of your pages. Using keyword anchor text to reflect what you wish to be found under with search engines.

Look at other offsite promotion, not just SEO/SEM but competitions/offers/advertising etc etc.
 
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fisicx

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Sep 12, 2006
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Phew!

I've just been knocked out by your products, I never knew stuff like this existed.

Anyway. Here's my advice.

1. Get rid of the horizontal scrolling. on a 1024 screen with a side bar open half the site is off the screen.

2. Get rid of everything that gets in the way of a sale - if you need live chat to sell a dog hoody then there is something wrong with the site. Same with the site news.

3. The most important links are for your products but you have hidden them down the side and put the unimportant stuff in you main navigation.

4. By having both left and right columns you are losing a lot of page space for the products. Think carefully about your visitor's needs and you can problably lose or move everything on the right.

5. More content. In fact any content would be nice. Single line descriptions that almost repeat the page title/product name will just get ignored by google. Ok so it will be difficult to write but 50 words should be your minumum for every products.

6. Lose the links page. Completly irrelevant and does you no favours.

7. More images of real dogs wearing your products.

Hope this helps.
 
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NMHancock

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Apr 24, 2008
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2. Get rid of everything that gets in the way of a sale - if you need live chat to sell a dog hoody then there is something wrong with the site. Same with the site news.


I am not one to comment on advice left by others on this forum, and I read a lot of fisicx's posts and I find them informative and very accurate, however I struggle to understand how the live chat is 'getting in the way of a sale'. If a new small business wants to start to compete with the 'big boys' in any industry they need to look trustworthy. People are scared of ID fraud etc. that they would rather purchase of a site they trust than a site they don't. The live chat helps to increase trust levels on the site.

Live chat is also a useful tool in any industry. I agree it does not have to be as predominate on the page as it is, but I would advise against removing it all together (unless is it becoming difficult to manage)

Neil M Hancock
 
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fisicx

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I am not one to comment on advice left by others on this forum, and I read a lot of fisicx's posts and I find them informative and very accurate, however I struggle to understand how the live chat is 'getting in the way of a sale'. If a new small business wants to start to compete with the 'big boys' in any industry they need to look trustworthy. People are scared of ID fraud etc. that they would rather purchase of a site they trust than a site they don't. The live chat helps to increase trust levels on the site.

Live chat is also a useful tool in any industry. I agree it does not have to be as predominate on the page as it is, but I would advise against removing it all together (unless is it becoming difficult to manage)

Comment away. It's what keeps the forum alive.

The big problem with live chat is that you often don't actually speak with the owner of the business. Even the image says 'speak with our support staff'.

I'd much rather see a prominent telephone number and email and the address on every page. Having the live chat means send the message that there may be a problem. Amazon doesn't have live chat and they do alright. Much better to have a really slick site that works perfectly every time.

BTW, I've never used live chat in my life. Don't need to. If the site doesn't work I just move on to one that does. Mind you it could simply be that I'm a bit crusty.
 
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nass

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Jun 29, 2008
893
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Surrey
Thanks for the advice so far, i've amended all my titles so they are more unique per page. As for content, what exactly am i short of? pages (products or site info)? or actual text on the pages? I am going to run the tools suggested now.
Actual text on the pages, descriptive text which both entices the visitor and gets seen by search engines. Compare, for example, this description with a randomly chosen description of yours. Search engines like text, and if you analyse the unique content on your product pages you'll see that there's only a few words difference between each (in terms of the total). So write more, and write enticing stuff - you're trying to sell it :)

Also, your category pages will end up as your strongest pages over time, and I do notice that you have not used the word "dog" as many times as you could have. For example in this page, this would ultimately rank stronger for dog-related queries if you'd had dog in the product name for each product (ie like if instead of calling it a "Small Jiujitsu Red Belt Costume" you call it a "Small Jiujitsu Red Belt Dog Costume". Adopting that sort of approach sitewide will make your site more "doggie" in Google's eyes and you'd end up ranking higher for doggie stuff)
 
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NMHancock

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Apr 24, 2008
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Newcastle
The big problem with live chat is that you often don't actually speak with the owner of the business. Even the image says 'speak with our support staff'.

Agreed, maybe the image does need to be changed, at least to make people think they are talking to someone other than support staff.

BTW, I've never used live chat in my life. Don't need to. If the site doesn't work I just move on to one that does. Mind you it could simply be that I'm a bit crusty.

But am i right in presuming that having a live chat option would never directly turn your sale away, it would need to be a collection of other variables?

Neil M Hancock
 
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fisicx

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But am i right in presuming that having a live chat option would never directly turn your sale away, it would need to be a collection of other variables?

Exactly. There should be no need for live chat if the site works. I've just done a test of three sites using live chat and all are slow, full of spelling and grammatical errors and it's amazing how many support staff are called James.

Would it be easier to pick up the phone and ask the question directly. It's called personal service:
'Hallo do have the coat in red'
'No but we do have the muff style in red, it's exactly the same but has a fish tied to the collar'
'Thanks can I order one now'
'Certainly, what's your name please....'

Got to be better than live chat.
 
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doggiestylestore

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Sep 3, 2008
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Also, your category pages will end up as your strongest pages over time, and I do notice that you have not used the word "dog" as many times as you could have. For example in this page, this would ultimately rank stronger for dog-related queries if you'd had dog in the product name for each product (ie like if instead of calling it a "Small Jiujitsu Red Belt Costume" you call it a "Small Jiujitsu Red Belt Dog Costume". Adopting that sort of approach sitewide will make your site more "doggie" in Google's eyes and you'd end up ranking higher for doggie stuff)

I've now added dog to all product names, can't believe i hadn't thought of this!
 
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Hiya

As others have mentioned you do need to write some better descriptions. I know it can be hard to come up with some good text...im still struggling with mine:). Have you contacted the suppliers and asked them for their sales gumf they are normally eager to oblige. You can then reword them to make them better.

Oh....and shamless plug...you can also join my forum :D
 
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doggiestylestore

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Sep 3, 2008
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Hiya

As others have mentioned you do need to write some better descriptions. I know it can be hard to come up with some good text...im still struggling with mine:). Have you contacted the suppliers and asked them for their sales gumf they are normally eager to oblige. You can then reword them to make them better.

Oh....and shamless plug...you can also join my forum :D


I will be writing some full descriptions shortly, will need to get my creative head on! Will join your forum when i get a minute.
 
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fisicx

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How do I achieve this?

The first thing to do is to get rid of everything to the right of the logo.

Your banner is 950px wide, that leaves about 10px on a screen resolution of 1024px ( 1024px - 60px for the browser chrome) so there just isn't room for anything else.

This still leaves the problem of someone with a sidebar open. They will always get horizontal scrolling. The problem lies with the template you are using, it relies on tables which means there is no solution.

But do as I've suggested and most visitors will be OK.
 
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doggiestylestore

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Sep 3, 2008
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The first thing to do is to get rid of everything to the right of the logo.

Your banner is 950px wide, that leaves about 10px on a screen resolution of 1024px ( 1024px - 60px for the browser chrome) so there just isn't room for anything else.

This still leaves the problem of someone with a sidebar open. They will always get horizontal scrolling. The problem lies with the template you are using, it relies on tables which means there is no solution.

But do as I've suggested and most visitors will be OK.


Top Links now removed, does this look better to 1024px viewers? I'm on 1280px myself. www.doggiestylestore.com
 
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fisicx

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Top Links now removed, does this look better to 1024px viewers? I'm on 1280px myself. www.doggiestylestore.com

And that's the problem. You need to test the site on different browsers and different resolutions. The site looks much better now although you still have a horizontal scrolling problem at anything less than 1024px.
 
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I think you should have the pictures of the dogs wearing your products right at the top of the page, above the categories and above "fold".
It should be the first thing visitors see as it's far more effective and relevant than the category pictures which just display the clothing alone (I realise that these link through to sales but the doggie images are powerful and confirm that "this is what I want, now let me click the categories to buy").
 
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"Pretty Paws" you appear to hold good positions at the moment for some of your products under different keywords.

Remember, SEO is not a sprint its a marathon and in part, its all about studying your competitors market place and staying right on their tail (no pun intended) or just in front of them.

In my opinion, your inner page descriptions could do with some work, by just changing these can maintain and improve positions.

keep up the good work.
 
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P

PrettyPaws

"Pretty Paws" you appear to hold good positions at the moment for some of your products under different keywords.

Remember, SEO is not a sprint its a marathon and in part, its all about studying your competitors market place and staying right on their tail (no pun intended) or just in front of them.

In my opinion, your inner page descriptions could do with some work, by just changing these can maintain and improve positions.

keep up the good work.

You mean the product pages?
 
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Yes i mean your product page titles and descriptions, titles you have 60 characters including spaces to play with, use them these are probably one of the most important parts of your website.

Rather than hijack this thread start another and see the response you get.

What would you suggest looks good on my Shar-Pei
 
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