New Site

[Toon]

I've posted in here before but I've just made a new site and would like your feedback.

www.saveuk.co.uk

Also new forum at www.saveuk.co.uk/forum

 

[broadband-engine]

Hi

The first impression I get is - that there is no consistancy to the site. This is in terms of design and navigation, for example when clicking on links in the menu it is a mixture of siteuk.co.uk and netnamin.co.uk links and the two sites look completely different and don't seem to offer mutual linking back and forth between each other.

Within the site www.siteuk.co.uk looks different to http://www.siteuk.co.uk/about.htm - the colours are different.

the FREE Net Access link doesn't work and
your forum link produces an error 404

Sorry if that sounds harsh, just being honest. I would suggest making the two sites interact better with each other and standardise the design throughout.

Phil

 

[Ozzy]

Hi Toon,
I agree with Phil. As you are using a standard menu structure I would put the two different domains into one, or at least make them resembe each other.
I would also follow this through onto the forum (something I am guilty of not doing yet ) and have that reflecting the website colour scheme and layout too.

 

[kyber]

Well you asked ...

This really does need some work.

At least one of the links does not work for me (free net access) - not just me I see.
Are you allowed to say "Premier web services .." rather than "Probably ..." like a certain larger does?
Pages are inconsistent in style/color scheme and look like seriously naff front page stuff.
Your background image on About us is too narrow so repeats in the middle of the screen on wider screens (place it with css-p and tell it not to repeat).
On the same page, you need to change link colours as visited links are red on my browser which is really hard to see on blue.
What is SiteUK? It is not at all clear. The CompuSolve site looks very different as others have said.

Frankly, the site is very content free and not laid out at all well. I am unsure why you have asked us to look at it at this stage.

On the CompuSolve site, the nice menu at the top does not seem to make anything change other than the title in the white stripe. Looks better than the SiteUK site though.

I note that CompuSolve uses old style markup (no CSS) but SiteUK does use CSS - not sure it is well used though given the different colour schemes in use. (By the way, avoid specific point sizes in fonts if possible and use ems. I think you could use inheritence rather more than you do as well and make things simpler for yourself.)

You have used ssi on CompuSolve but not on SiteUK. Out of interest, why the change?

Am I looking at the right SiteUK site? I note it says at the bottom: " Copyright © Compusolve International 1996-1998" so it is 6 years out of date which explains a few things.

I could not get the forum to come up. Got an object not found error.

There really is not very much content on the site to comment on. I look forward to a greatly developed future version.

Stuart

 

[Toon]

Oops. I've stupidly put the wrong url in and wasted your time. I was confused what you were talking about but now I understand you were commenting on the wrong site. I have changed the url now and apologise for the inconvenience.

Comments suggested on the right site this time at www.saveuk.co.uk and www.saveuk.co.uk/forum

Just double checking I've put the rightone down this time..... yep definately supposed to be saveuk not siteuk! :blush:

 

[MikeH]

Just a small point. You may want to consider the following quote from your home page.

your a businessman looking for a new briefcase or a housewife looking for a new duster

Perhaps you could state a 'business person' or a 'cleaner' I'm sure that you would not be offending too many people but better safe... :wink:

Mike.

 

[SillyJokes]

More fundamentally does the web need another shopping directory?

 

[broadband-engine]

Now that is more like it!

Only comment is that it does not have a link back to the homepage on the other pages. I think people like to be able to go back there, and it is in my opinion the best place to advertise new merchants and offers etc... so a link back is essential I think.

I notice there is a bias to affiliatewindow merchants, can I suggest my favourite networks (in order of preference)- you may want to include them:

www.affiliatefuture.co.uk - they get 5 stars... I like them alot.
There range of merchants is really extensive and their reporting is simple.


www.ukaffiliates.com - again 5 stars again. Reporting is good and sales seem to be generally validated quickly.

www.tradedoubler.co.uk - another good quality site with many 'High Street' and well known online merchants. I should use these more.

www.affiliatewindow.co.uk - for some reason I get little confirmed commissions through them.

Alternative affiliate networks are:

www.buy.at - very good, with some excellent merchants.

www.omguk.com - again very good and now offer a directory feed that I am currently starting to experiment with.

Hope that helps

Phil

p.s. in my browser there is a minor formatting problem with a small image that forms an internal corner - it is slightly out

 

[Toon]

Thanks ukshopsnet. The site has only just been finished and I've put all links in from Affiliate Window to start me off. I've already joined Affiliate Future and Trade Doubler and will be looking through their site for some good links. Never heard of buy.at and omguk so will visit those sites when I get the chance.

What about the forum? Some people have commented that they don't like the colour scheme but had no positive comments about it. I've left subsilver installed so people can change to that if they prefer.

 

[broadband-engine]

Hi

I am not sure about the forum at all - personally I don't think people will use it, even though in principal it is a good idea. Offers tend only to be around for a short period - a month if lucky... so there is a risk it could become out-of-date quickly and potentially for you there would be alot of clearing up of old stuff to make the new offers visible to users. Users will become dispondant if they pursue an offer that had already expired 2 months ago.

To make it work you would need a motivated group of registered users (and lots of them) who would keep the forum up-to-date.

Most of the affiliate networks display which merchants have offers, and this may be a good alternative. You can post these offers into the relevant category pages and/or onto your home page. I personally think that would work best.

An idea to make this easy would be to create an borderless iframe in every page, that if left blank would not be seen. Create a file called /offer.htm and set up a scrolling marquee of offers and links. Add the links as you find them on the affiliate networks and remove them when expired. Simply add a short description i.e. Debenhams 20% off all clothing... MORE offer ends 30th Sept : Next offer, blah, blah, blah... MORE offer ends 12th October : etc, etc, etc... - adding the expiry date of the offer will prompt you to remove it when done with.

This way you can make one change in one file (offers.htm) and display throughout the site.

All the best

Phil

p.s. www.omguk.com - specialise in financial products mainly that pay £££s per lead/sale... really excellent network to sign up to. Also, they offer a directory service that is actually espotting results - so very extensive - that pays per click and is a great money spinner... the simplest way to implement this into a site quickly is into an iframe.

p.p.s. another good network is www.smart-quotes.net - they will co-brand you a credit card / loan / insurance comparison engine in the exact style of your site for free - see HERE for credit card link on my site as an example - their rates are really good. Also see what they did for me at www.quote-engine.com