kardlady

[Dianne Schlegel]

Will you take a look see and evaluate my website? My URL is Handmade Greeting Cards -Thanks for your time.

[candypam]

Dianne,
I have looked at this before, and this 2nd look still my eyes seem to be gravitating to the sides of the website instead of focusing on your products. You have some really neat cards, but the checkerboard side I feel mask them from standing out. I feel the sides need toned down,. I have a big wide screen monitor and when this loads up, I try to keep focused in the middle to look and read the cards, but the side design pulls my eyes to the left and right, almost making me dizzy. Please don't take that wrong.. but you have some nice things.. let them be noticed not the borders.

[aragon_202_]

Hello there Dianne,

Just took a look at your site and its nice, as are the cards and items. By the looks of the site to me it seems your after an “older quality/luxury” kind of look to go with your cards / items. But similar to candypam my eyes are drawn heavily by the background and it does have a dazing affect that easily took me away from the centre of the site itself.

I may have a nice solution though. Iv found that old flower patterns on wall papers can be used very affectively, iv got an example of a word press site and also an example of an image (located in the google search) you may be able to get permission to use if not there is always istockphoto.com, that could solve the problem i think

[cactus_donnat]

Hello Dianne-

Thanks for coming by!

You have some really great cards!! I am impressed!

A few things--

Your homepage is VERY text-heavy. When I am shopping online, I like to see what the site is selling right away. You have no call-to-action items on your homepage. I'd features some best sellers, or cards that go along with the upcoming holidays or events- for example, June is all about Dads & Grads.
; )
On your homepage, you are telling people read reviews and click on links-- the job of the homepage is to get people to the items they are looking for, as well as capturing that intial attention-- you have less than 10 seconds to grab someone's interest- and a big block of text doesn't do it for me. Again- you have GREAT prodcuts. Show them off where they matter!!

I think overall most of your section and item pages are laid out nice- you keep the important information above the fold. I do notice that you do not have a click-to-enlarge- something that really helps convert, especially in your line, where people may want to see the details of your items.

I noticed that your pages take a while to load- the background loads first, then the nav fills up and then the body fills up with text and images, but I can't read the text, and then the white background comes in... it's a little distracting when that happens with every new item I click on. I am not a programmer, so maybe someone else from SC would have some feedback as to why that happens.

There are a few suggestions that I may have- but most important, please add some items to your homepage. Make your vistors know from the get-go what your handmade greeting cards look like!

Best of luck!
Donna

[Charmlady]

Hi Diane,

A few things (sorry if this is duplicate to what others say)---

1. Background images on sides is very distracting, not sure what I should be looking at.
2. Would like to see some images of cards on home page, or even "specials" so I can actually see what you have without clicking around.
3. Font on nav bar is hard to read - make it more readable - maybe even in a print style.
4. Did you mean to mis spell cards on nav bar to kards?
5. Visitors online, you may want to remove this - it makes it appear as your site is BRAND NEW (it showed 2)
6. On your links page - you may want to reorganize by topic -- I know link building is really for SEO, but occasionally users will look at it and its hard to find a particular type of link.
7. Add phone number to top of home page, and every page (maybe in your banner). Also on your contact us page -- provide an email address of how to contact you (in case your form doesn't work).
8. On your about us page - it appears as if you are hiding - there is no mailing address, no email address or phone number. Also on the title "about us" on that same page, there is really no info!

[cactus_donnat]

Great suggestions, Charm Lady! Great to see you at Boot Camp!

[Dianne Schlegel]

Thank you for your info - I've made a few changes on my website at Handmade Greeting Cards by Kalico Kards - will you visit again and see if it's an improvement? kardlady

[Dianne Schlegel]

Thank you for the info - and apologies for the delayed reply. I've been making lots of changes on my site at Handmade Greeting Cards by Kalico Kards and ask you to revisit and evaluate again. Let me know if it's am improvement or not. Thank you - kardlady

[Dianne Schlegel]

Thank you for your review - I have made quite a few changes to my site using what I've learned from ebiz responses. I know I'm not a professional - but my heart is in what I do and I'm doing what I can with what I've got for now. I do appreciate the advice I've been given. Two and a half years ago, I didn't even know how to turn on a computer. Everything thing I've learned, I've learned from experience and a lot of them were frustrating, and disappointing. kardlady

[Charmlady]

Diane--

Big Improvement - great to see you took everyone's advice here - much more eye pleasing and the layout is much nicer, text on left nav is easier to read.

You are on the right track here - but a few more tweaks I would suggest, if I may....

On your home page - I would still reorganize it a bit -- You want images or products above the fold --the image of your cards should maybe go on your about us page, and not on home page and put some nice image at the top of possibly a child giving a mom a card or husband giving wife card or something. If you dont have images, check out istockphoto.com and you can buy the image to use for not much money and they have great photos. Move your text about your cards/free shipping down lower. Also the text on your home page does not need to be that large. Put your specials up there and get rid of the banners at the bottom - they go on the links page anyway. The "from the artist" should be a link, not on the home page. This will make your page not so long.

The text on your overall site does not need to be so large - so make it a bit smaller, and also maybe add a picture of you on your about us page. You want people to identify with YOU and who you are - having a photo there is a great way to do this.

On your item page: "best practice" is to have your order button near the top of your item page next to your image. Its great that your images are much larger and easier to see, but you don't want people scrolling down to order -- you want to make it as easy as possible to order from you.

I would also add a credit card/paypal logo somewhere on your site - so people know right away what payment methods you chose. I notice its on your home page at the bottom, but not on other pages (like item pages)

On your blog - you need to do a spell check - you have a typo in the first sentence. Also text should be smaller - does not need to be so large, and is it really a blog? It looks IDENTICAL to your site, with some text on it instead of products? You want your blog to follow the look and feel to your site, but the idea of a blog is to talk about new products, whats happening within your company, etc -- I didn't see any of that on your blog. I would suggest categories - like "Artist info", "New Products", "Events" etc... Check out my blog and you will see what I mean. We have pages at the top users can click on then we also have categories on topics. Also, I would make your clickable links using straight html- just that - make the words clickable - and people will know what to do - you don't have to put "click here to view".

I would move your search the site to the top of your left nav instead of at the bottom, if I am looking for something, I don't want to look all over for your search box. Also the "Shoppers Online" makes you look BRAND NEW and I would remove this -

SEO- I would make your keywords more targeted to what you sell - example dont just use the word birthday - because this is so generic - use the word birthday card and add more keywords - you only have 4 keywords! Make your description, a bit longer as well - its very generic.

Hope this helps!