southern.scents Posted July 7, 2007 Share Posted July 7, 2007 My web host is adding new features which is wonderful but, it makes me feel that my website could be better so, I go back in and work on it some more. Please, ignore the pictures, they are fillers and or crap. Just look at the layout, grammar, and any other problems. The menu being on the right has cause some questioning but we have tested and the only way that the menu wont show up is if you have like a 8 inch screen or if you make your browser really small. We added a code that resizes everything as the browser gets smaller, to a certain point. Thanks for the ongoing help.www.southern-scents.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnfrost Posted July 8, 2007 Share Posted July 8, 2007 On your Search-Live Help page......if you insist on having a search functionality, you should probably either eliminate the "search the web" option, or at least have it default to search your own website. No sense driving traffic away from your site. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ring of Fire Posted July 8, 2007 Share Posted July 8, 2007 On the interesting links, you have a candle base link. Again, you are driving customers elsewhere. Plus it has pop ups up the wazoo, wonder why my pop up blocker doesn't work for that, hmmm. Your colors are very pretty and pleasing to the eye. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnfrost Posted July 8, 2007 Share Posted July 8, 2007 Are you using 2 different hosts? I wonder, because on your home page, there is a link for bravenet, and on all of the rest of the pages, there is a link for WebHero. I'm not real sure what that's all about, and your customers shouldn't even be given the opportunity to think about it. Also, on your interesting links page, you've got a link to something called top100.biz? Curiosity got the better of me and I clicked on it. I have no idea why that link is there. It has nothing to do with your business or candle/soap making at all. I would get rid of all of that stuff. I know that with free hosting, sometimes that's not an option. If that happens to be the situation you are in, I think I would just pony up the few dollars a month for ad-free hosting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southern.scents Posted July 8, 2007 Author Share Posted July 8, 2007 Webhero is my host. Bravent just offers tools that are very helpful. I will delete the link page all together. I was gonna leave it there but everyone is right, it needs to go.The top 100 biz is an advertising thing. Its supposed to send customers to my site, does not work. My hosting is not free. Its costing me big time, lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jane42 Posted July 8, 2007 Share Posted July 8, 2007 Just had a few minutes to pop into your site. So far, this is what I see that may need changing:HAND SANITIZER "Why not try our new handsanitizer"LOTION STICK "It's great for really dry sking because is contains Shea Butter, Cocoa Butter, Vitamin E, and Beeswax." BATH SALTS "Bath Salts is the way to go" (should that be "are"?)I do like the wording...makes me want to "ADD TO CART"! lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeavenScentU Posted July 8, 2007 Share Posted July 8, 2007 I like your website! It looks very nice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southern.scents Posted July 8, 2007 Author Share Posted July 8, 2007 Just had a few minutes to pop into your site. So far, this is what I see that may need changing:HAND SANITIZER "Why not try our new handsanitizer"LOTION STICK "It's great for really dry sking because is contains Shea Butter, Cocoa Butter, Vitamin E, and Beeswax." BATH SALTS "Bath Salts is the way to go" (should that be "are"?)I do like the wording...makes me want to "ADD TO CART"! lolThanks for the help, love the way you showed exactly where the mistakes are. I hope all this work makes everyone want to:ADD TO CART:laugh2: Im glad that it made you want to:yay: . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Late Night Posted July 8, 2007 Share Posted July 8, 2007 Your site keeps getting better. I don't mind the menu bar on the right BUT some of the words are so long that they are covered by the fancy "A" font thingy at the end. It makes it difficult to read some of them. Keep up the good work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southern.scents Posted July 8, 2007 Author Share Posted July 8, 2007 Ill work on making the buttons larger or the words shorter. Im actually to the point where i am considering purchasing a banner spot on here. Anyone interested in creating a banner. I thought about beck studios but i thought i would shop around before i set my sights on them. Does anyone think my menu should be reordered. Im not sure but its a quick fix if someone thinks so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnfrost Posted July 8, 2007 Share Posted July 8, 2007 You may also want to consider consolidating some of your links on the right. You've got 21 of them! That can be a little overwhelming for your typical internet user, who probably isn't going to take the time to read them all. For example, you've got a link for "email" and one for "contact us". That's a little redundant, and one of those could easily be eliminated without really losing anything.Your links for soap, hand sanitizer, lip balm, shampoo, lotion, lotion stick, and bath salts, could easily be consolidated into one link for bath & body. That would go a long way towards cleaning up your link list. Maybe you could design it so that once they click on bath & body, there is a different list of links showing soap, hand sanitizer, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southern.scents Posted July 8, 2007 Author Share Posted July 8, 2007 You may also want to consider consolidating some of your links on the right. You've got 21 of them! That can be a little overwhelming for your typical internet user, who probably isn't going to take the time to read them all. For example, you've got a link for "email" and one for "contact us". That's a little redundant, and one of those could easily be eliminated without really losing anything.Your links for soap, hand sanitizer, lip balm, shampoo, lotion, lotion stick, and bath salts, could easily be consolidated into one link for bath & body. That would go a long way towards cleaning up your link list. Maybe you could design it so that once they click on bath & body, there is a different list of links showing soap, hand sanitizer, etc.Well, the email button is programed in and I cant take it out but it is theoutlook express kind. I dont use outlook express and I know I hate it when i want to email someone and thats the only option thats give so Im gonna keep the contact form. I thought about doing the bath and body thing but I want people to be able to see exactly what I have when they get to my site. Most are not gonna wanna look through all of the menu's. If i just have to get rid of some of the buttons, i will get rid of the survey and search button. Thats not a whole lot thats gone but it gets me under twenty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tereasa Posted July 8, 2007 Share Posted July 8, 2007 I almost missed your company name because it's about 1/6 the size of the flower next to it. The wording of 'Our 8 oz handmade soy candles are the best gift that anyone could recieve' doesn't sit well with me. I'm thinking if I were to pick the best gift it wouldn't be a candle... perhaps a vacation to Cancun.... complete with my own cabana boy... but, I digress. $6.00 stands alone, and you don't need to word 'dollars' in the sentence. If I were a consumer visiting your site, I'd rather have the option of seeing products than joining a mailing list on the home page. I won't join a list unless I've tried the products and found them worthy of joining. I could nit pick a lot of your wordings... for example 'They are also colored vibrantly' should be 'they are vibrantly colored.' I don't like the long, long list of links. Perhaps group things into bath/body. One link takes me to several products instead of a link for each product. I don't like to click links. Gives all those spy-cookies too much to track... even though spy sweeper does seem to enjoy quarantining them. Anyway, I haven't checked out some of your other requests for feedback, so I have no comparison of your previous efforts. I think that this site could use come polishing... it just doesn't appeal to me as a consumer. No offense intended... and you can take my opinion with a grain of salt... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jane42 Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 I thought about doing the bath and body thing but I want people to be able to see exactly what I have when they get to my site.I am in no way an expert - I don't even HAVE a website yet!! - but I am a shopper, and I think if you consolidated some or all of the bath and body items, I may be tempted to browse through them all rather than popping into the SOAP section and make a purchase, never even seeing what other wonderful things you are selling. Maybe have a Bath and Body, then within that have a separate listing of each item for them to click on...is that possible??Just a thought.....but, again, I am no expert! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ring of Fire Posted July 9, 2007 Share Posted July 9, 2007 I tried your search feature and typed in lotion stick, which is one of your products and this is what I got. I think that is a link that can be removed.Your search was restricted to "www.southern-scents.com". For more matches, try searching all sources instead. We did not find results for: lotion stick. Try the suggestions below or type a new query above. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southern.scents Posted July 9, 2007 Author Share Posted July 9, 2007 I tried your search feature and typed in lotion stick, which is one of your products and this is what I got. I think that is a link that can be removed.Your search was restricted to "www.southern-scents.com". For more matches, try searching all sources instead. We did not find results for: lotion stick. Try the suggestions below or type a new query above.Thanks for testing it. I never actually even tried to use it. Its gone,lol. Even when I searched for candle it screwed up. I look into consolidating B&B. I thought that it showed all the products I had all at once. Lots of you guys told me the less clicks the better, so I was kinda going for this. I was also doing it this way becuase of the search engines. The more pages the better is what three SEOs told me. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jane42 Posted July 10, 2007 Share Posted July 10, 2007 I look into consolidating B&B. I thought that it showed all the products I had all at once. Lots of you guys told me the less clicks the better, so I was kinda going for this. I was also doing it this way becuase of the search engines. The more pages the better is what three SEOs told me. ThanksOh, I think I understand what you are saying...that makes good sense too! Jeepers, my business partner wants me to get going on a website...I am thinking I am not ready....:tiptoe: lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cnfrost Posted July 10, 2007 Share Posted July 10, 2007 I think SEO is something you probably needn't worry too much about. I don't really know how all those search algorithms work, but if you google "candles" you can see that even Yankme only comes up fifth in the search results. A better bet would be to rely less on search engines and more on active marketing. If you really want more pages, you should look into doing a separate page for each product. For example, instead of having one generic page for your candles with a drop-down list of fragrances, you could have a separate page for each fragrance with it's own respective photo. You have what? 8 or 10 different fragrance choices for your candles? That's 8 or 10 new pages you get to add. Do that to each of your product categories, and now you've got somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 extra pages for the spiders to crawl.As for the B&B consolidation.....you wouldn't be losing any pages. You can still have a page dedicated to each category. They just wouldn't all be listed on your homepage, mixed in with everything else. They could click on B&B, and it would bring up a B&B homepage that would have links to each B&B category. You'd actually be picking up an extra page (the B&B home), and adding a certain amount of organization and flow to your site. As for reducing the number of clicks....while excessive clicking is generally considered bad, a certain amount is necessary. After all, that's probably how your potential customer got to your site in the first place. Personally, if I were a potential customer, I would trade a click for superior organization. In the end, it's not about the number of clicks, but the amount of time spent looking for something. If it takes too long for someone to find what they are looking for, they will simply give up and leave. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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