I Want Criticism

[StephenGallagher]

...Constructive Criticism that is.

I've been putting together a website. 1st off, I want to be up front - the purpose of the site is to sell HiFi & AV Stands and Supports BUT thats not why I'm telling you about it.

I'm not a web expert - just a Shields lad with an idea for a business. I've been working on my site for some time and have asked friends & family what they think. Of course, they all say its great.

I'd like to ask you guys to take a look at it and offer me your constructive criticism before I start to spend cash on advertising the site. I'd be interested in hearing what you like/dislike about it from a customers point of view.

I'd also welcome any idea's as to how best advertise a website. I'd thought about using Google Adwords.

Cheers guys. I appreciate your comments!

http://www.beaconav.co.uk

[jimmywizz]

ok here goes

1 first of all, if your selling goods you MUST have a telephone number on your contact page as people will not order goods from you as it looks like a part time business and your working from home unless your selling from ebay

2 sell some items on ebay and mention your website

3 your page urls tell the search engines nothing ie page1 page2 page3 change them to acme-speakers-for-sale.htm etc

4 your page descriptions tell the search engines nothing, should read suppliers of acme speakers etc

5 most important of all, lol take a page on our main website, not for the visitors we will send (not a lot for your subject) but for the power of the page rank we pass back to you

[jimmywizz]

oops forgot, TAKE THE CLOCK OFF

[jimmywizz]

o and one other think do not listen to the search engine experts who can get you to the number 1 spot for your choosen subject, nobody and i repeat nobody can make a website number one (without cheating that is) in the search engines, it takes lots of hard work and a bit of luck to gain that postion

[StottieCake]

I know nowt about this but on reading the home page I noticed it is overwritten by the new product 30/10/07

"Our dedicated team have many years experience in both Hi-Fi retail and Pro Audio Video manufacture and destribution - just some of the many reasons you know you are in safe hands when you deal with Beacon AV"

So I couldn't read it.

Good luck though

[StephenGallagher]

Fantastic... This is exactly the sort of comments I hoped to get! Keem em coming.

Frustratingly, I am unable to make some of the changes as suggested by JimmyWiz as my site is hosted by MrSite and they only give me access to the main body of each page. Therefore, I cant get at the 'Page Titles' etc.

I might e-mail them to ask if there is a way around this, but expect they will try and sell me the promise of high 'google' rankings... for a fee.

I'd hoped to grow the site organically and climb the Google ladder on merit based upon good content BUT this may take forever, so any tips are appreciated!

Also, I know my site is best viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer. If you view it with other browsers it can look as if the text boxes overlap one another. I tried to counter this with a note at the foot of my homepage to tell visitors which browser my site is best viewed with. I geuss I should try to make this more prominent.

What did you make of the catalogue pages? and the images? Would you say they are good enough.

[padlock man]

"If your looking for an honest British product..."
Should be: "If you're looking......"
=============================================

"discuss whats hot " should be "discuss what's hot..."

==============================================

Might be more, but I'm too tired to look....

[jimmywizz]

steve you images are fine in size but they wont help you in the search engines, you need to bite the bullet NOW and dump the site builder you are using and find another one that give you more control over what you can do, you can copy most of your text and paste it into your new site, if you wait are year or so before you change over (and you will have to if you want to make a go of it) then your work will be lost in the engines, as i say bite the bullet now and do the changes before your start to promote your site, i have learned the hard way with this when it comes to the search engines, make sureon your new site all your products have an alt tag on them, ie when you roll your mouse over the picture it would say "photo of acme sound blaster speakers" this will help you to get in the image searches and can send you a lot of traffic, dont link to any old site going, only link to sites that compliment your website and try to get one way if possible links from other sites in your market, dont join or link to link farms (kiss of death) try to find directory websites that are revelant to your products for links back, the best one is the dmoz project but its very hard to get in it now but give it a go

[StephenGallagher]

Thanks Jimmy! I'm trying to take all this in.

Please take another look at my site. With regards the alt text/description for images. I think I know what you mean and have done what I think I need to (please check the 1st product within the Pyle page). Is this right?

Also, regards page names. It seems MrSite will allow me access to an SEO Tool (For an additional fee). This will let me enter "Meta Page" info to include;
Page Description
Who is the Page Suitable for
How often should search engine visit the page etc etc

So, albeit at a cost, I can get to these things - but didnt realise it. Probably as I've never knew about alt's etc and so never looked.

[andysfootball]

try some of these australian audio visual companies

and just rip some of their ideas off them

harveynorman
clivepeters
wow sight and sound
jb hi fi
the good guys

they'll all have websites

the colour contrasts with the light blue on blue don't do it for me

brighten it up

[sherri]

andy's idea sounds good.. why reinvent the wheel if there are some good ideas here and there you can adapt?

Spelling.
Grammar.

You have to get them 100% correct if you want it to look professional. Get other people to proof read. They will often pick up things your tired eyes pass over. I know it sounds picky but in online ads, professionalism can sometimes be equated with quality. And vice versa.

I can usually pick a spam ebay con email simply by the fact that the grammar might be a bit out or a word is not correct. No professional organisation would have such errors.

If I see errors in an online ad, it makes me think the organisation isn't as big as it is making out.

Also-If it doesn't come up in a search engine, then how will people find it? Maybe align it to the board ads in here somehow.

[jimmywizz]

yep steven, thats spot on with the images, make sure you mention your products key words in the alt tags, also as you mentiond about the option for the meta tags, you need this to help you rank better, mind you its a bit cheeky of them to make you pay for it

[andysfootball]

ok Steven now for the consultancy fees

jimmywizz web design $100

Sherri proof reading $50

andysfootball marketing $75

7 days cash terms

until paid all remains the intellectual property of http://www.sanddancer.co.uk

[jimmywizz]

or a free curry from the usha

[Globalmyths]

In answer to your question----------questions.

You are in good hands with Jimmy.

[StephenGallagher]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all your comments! It is really helpful. I feel so involved it can be difficult to spot the obvious at times.

I've tried to take on board your comments and have already made lots of changes. Site now looks a lot better than before!

BIG thanks to Jimmy! I'll crack on and once I feel the site is ready, will re-post my invitation for criticism

...hope I can get my head around the site looking ok on some browsers and a bit jumbled on others. Think I will try to download FireFox today and have a play around.

[jimmywizz]

steve add your url to your website to your profile page on here, so every time you make a post your linking back to your own website

[curly]

Steve,

test your site in more than one browser, it doesn't work well at all in Firefox!

[StephenGallagher]

Curley,
I know... it looks rather poo with Firefox, but I dont know what I should do about it.

Is it to do with the width of the 'viewing plane' allowed by Firefox? If so, then I'd need to make everything quite narrow.

If this isnt the problem, then I'm stuck. Can you suggest a fix?

Thanks,
Stephen

[Ugly Betty]

Stephen, an old tip about proof-reading...read it backwards.
You're far more likely to catch any typos.