Opinions needed (pretty please!)

[Luddite]

Hello all

Sorry to post another 'opinions please' message, but........

My site (link removed) has been up for about 7 months and its basically not really doing the business. We're getting approx 1800 visits per month (not enough), and my conversion to sale rate is embarrassingly low. We've had some feedback where its been implied that customers didn't notice the 'details' button which would have given a bigger image and more details. the feedback has been - 'not enough info' or 'pictures too small' etc etc.

We've had great feedback on the style of the site, but as I said before, its not doing the business. I'd thought about changing the way we show our products to a more standard actinic format, which you can view by looking at the 'Test Page' option on the left menu. (link removed)

However, if I do this, i'll lose some of the feel of the site.

Any suggestions and opinions wold be welcome. Show no mercy!

Thanks - Nick

[eAbsinthe.com]

Having just had a quick look, I'd say that you are missing out on putting all the text in the original listing, and leaving the 'details' option clearly just for a larger pic.

There doesn't seem to be enough text in the details popup to justify not just using it.

Your site is beautiful by the way.

One other comment: if your lowest p+p bracket was lower, I’d probably just have bought a mug off you

[webyourbusiness]

I just tried to add the bubblo coasters to my cart - the price comes up ZERO...

and the shipping of 10 GBP on a 6.50 set of coasters is too steep... that can certainly affect your conversion rate adversely.... try slashing your S+H once you work out why I got a zero priced item in my cart.

regards

Greg

[Mike Hughes]

I tend to agree about the insufficient information stuff. Here's one example:

Seed Light by Black & Blum

This simple yet elegant shade will cover any bulky energy saving or standard light bulb. The shade is accompanied by a matching ceiling rose and both items come flat packed in a protective envelope.

This looks quite nice to me but:

1. What power light bulb can it safely take ?
2. What does the 'matching' ceiling rose look like?
3. What kind of fitting does the ceiling rose bulb connector take? is it screw cap, bayonet, mini bayonet?
3. How long is the loop on the ceiling rose?
4. How does the ceiling rose attach to the ceiling, what tools would I need, etc
5. What is it made of?

You have to answer these kind of questions or people just aren't going to buy.

You would also be better going to a detailed product page rather than a small pop-up. You can add a 'buy' button to the pop-up but it's a hassle and you'd be better creating a product page for each item that can take all your product details and be indexed by the search engines. That will convert more vistors and bring in more new ones as the search engines boost your rankings.

Mike

PS. What width have you set your design to. Checking my stats I see that even today, 36% are using 800 x 600 monitors that will mean your site will need scrolling across to see everything. This is another thing that can put people off.

[Jenny]

The test page section looks as if it still on test..
http://www.theperfectpad.co.uk/acatalog/test.html
perhaps looking at the page names may help in future seacrh engine rankings and the page names eg.
http://www.theperfectpad.co.uk/acata...let_Seats.html
fix the width problems and that will make the experience so much better, site feels nice though.
Jenny

[jont]

Having to click for more (any) details is a nightmare in usability - when the window does open the sizes are not always set right so some scrolling is necessary.

Nice use of the design though - looks very elegant and suits the products very well

[BPJSURF]

It seems that you have two issues. The first and foremost is 1800 visitors a month is not enough. I will address this issue as everyone else is advising you on the usability issues of the site.

You have several problems all very easy to remedy. Your site looks decent but no one is finding it.

1. your using way too many useless and general keywords: Contemporary, furniture, accessories, houseware, glassware, kitchenware, gifts, present ideas, home, designer, cool, retro, kitsch, suck, uk, black, blum, norm 69, normann, cable turtle, norwich norfolk east Anglia

fix this problem by using NO MORE THEN FIVE keyword phrases. Use between two and five keywords in each keyword phrases. i.e keyword phrase = contemporary furniture.

2. Use the page titles feature in Actinic to make content specific page titles that synchronize with the page content and keywords

3. Change the Meta description to match the page titles and keywords in each section

4. Add a text sitemap link

5. Add some content to the home page. You need to have at least 300 to 500 words that describe the site and purpose. The text should match the products available and the keyword phrases you choose for the index page.

6. Get a robot.txt file

7. I am going to guess that you have the incorrect keyword phrases in your site. One way to test and find the most valuable keywords is to conduct a pay per click campaign. You can get more information about that on my blog: http://suresolutionsinc.com/blog/index.php .

8. I did not check but if you’re hosting your website outside of the UK, then switch to get it hosted by a UK provider as Google and Yahoo! Will weight your pages more favorably in search engines in the UK search results if your site is located in the UK.

Sort all these issues out. Get your site added to dmoz.org, and yahoo! Directories. Resubmit the site to the search engines. And watch your web site stats every day to figure out what pages are being hit, which keywords are being used to find your site and which engine or directory is sending you the most traffic.

There is about 20 other issue that can be covered to improve your websites performance; some of them have been covered in other posts on this forum.

And I will as always recommend that you consider hiring a professional to get your web site SEO off the ground.

Brian

[Luddite]

Thank you all so much for this fantastic and honest feedback. It looks like I need to get the basics right - let me assure you, £10 postage on a set of £6.50 coasters IS an error on my part! And I agree that some of the products could use some more info. I'm going to look into using a new template for my products and am already working on reducing the width of the site for the 800 x 600 users. Lots to do me thinks.
Again - thanks for your input.
Nick

[webyourbusiness]

8. I did not check but if you’re hosting your website outside of the UK, then switch to get it hosted by a UK provider as Google and Yahoo! Will weight your pages more favorably in search engines in the UK search results if your site is located in the UK.

This is something that a lot of people say - we host a number of UK sites which absolutely DOMINATE their markets - and these are .co.uk domains on Colorado hosted servers!

I'm not sure that the weighting is that major - if any...

[jxm28788]

on my 19" monitor at 1280x1024 the pictures are tiny, and the details button isn't as obvious as it could be. Your test page is much better usibility-wise but doesn't 'look as good'.

Can you get a comprimise between the two? Use your existing format, but include a slightly bigger picture and some descriptive text. Then make the more details button more obvious and include the detailed info someone mentioned above and a decent picture.

There is no indication to the cost in your t&c (other than it will vary depending on weight). Also, I decided on a flat fee, not just for simplicity, but because (in my opinion) if people keep adding stuff to the basket and the delivery cost keeps going up then they are going to stop adding to the basket...

Not sure what "We cannot be held responsible for items that come with pre packed batteries installed or supplied." is supposed to mean in your T&C...?

You mention you use royal mail and a 'national courier' - you may want to name them - I've had more than a few customers asking which one I use - it seems they have had bad experiences with certain couriers in the past and want top avoid them in the future...

You don't mention if you charge delivery on backorders (almost certainly you don't, but it's worth spelling it out to the customer)

You T&C mentions that all deliveries must be signed for - this could be a big sale killer (if they actually read it that is - if this is mentioned in the cart/checkout process for example). On my old lowcarbgoodies site I had an option to upgrade from royal mail parcel (3-4 working days) to next day courier FOR FREE, but they had to tick to say someone would be available to sign for it - not many did... it seems a lot of households are empty during the day, and they either don't live near the depot to collect it or they just couldn't be bothered.

and of course... maybe people just don't like your stuff? It's like those catalogues that come through the door where it's mostly tut but you see one or two items that you want to buy. Unfortunately, people like me aren't going to scroll through your whole site looking for those one or two items - websites just aren't as good as glossy brochures for that type of thing... Maybe you would benefit from targeted ppc ads on specific items? If I was looking for something and clicked straight to that item on your site, then I might have a look round to see if there was anything else to buy while I was there.

Hope that helps

[cdicken]

Hi there

I have taken the liberty of moving this to the 'Any Other Business' forum (with a redirect in the v7 Support topic) in order to try and keep the v7 topic just for Actinic support issues. Hope that's OK.

[jxm28788]

further to my earlier comments, check the number of people that click on your T&C's as this will give you an indication that people are considering buying but want to know more about delivery costs, guarantees, or your returns procedure. Customers tend to be wary of internet sites compared with mail order and so on...

[BPJSURF]

This is something that a lot of people say - we host a number of UK sites which absolutely DOMINATE their markets - and these are .co.uk domains on Colorado hosted servers!

I'm not sure that the weighting is that major - if any...

Reply With Quote



I took some time to look into this issue a bit more because I think that it is often miss represented or miss understood. I thought that I understood the inner workings of domain hosting and search engine behavior, with things changing rapidly it’s worth the time to do some research on this subject.

This is a tid bit about country specific hosting and Search engines from a thread on search engine watch forms.

[SearchEngineWatch.com Forms]They do, and it does make a difference. The difference can be detected by the geographical location of IP numbers.

To rank country-specific, it takes having a local TLD and/or being hosted (preferably both, most likely) within the country itself, which would be evidenced by detecting an IP number local to that particular country.
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/...osting+country

My experience with this issue is similar to the findings in the search engine watch post. Being a US provider of services including hosting, we do not provide hosting for UK or European customers. We always recommend that an ecommerce site host their domain in the country where they plan to obtain the most business.
In working with Actinic Software Company, it’s not uncommon for Chris to contact me and discuss search engine positioning with respect to a specific keyword and have the results in the US differ from that in the UK. This is the primary reason for having a domain .co.uk register hosted and focused on the UK market and a .com domain registered hosted and focused on US market.

Several major search engines take "location'" as an element of page weighting. In a highly competitive keyword it may de difficult to maximize your search engine positioning when you’re in a geographic disadvantage.

Again looking at Actinic.co.uk, they are listed very high on specific keywords in both the UK and US search results. This is because of the considerable effort they have put into this area and these results vary depending on keyword and industry.

When it comes to marketing a customer is best served to eliminate any potential pitfalls or forces of resistance which may hinder the results of a marketing program. In my opinion a small UK ecommerce retailer who is focused on the UK marketplace would help their seo efforts with Google, Yahoo!, AOL and MSN search engines by hosting with a UK provider; I think you would find most of the SEO community agreeing.

On a separate note that is tangent to this issue. "Local Search" is the up and coming technology rant from the big four search engines in the US. I have been doing research on "local Search" and I posted info on my blog if you’re interested: http://suresolutionsinc.com/blog/index.php

Greg has always done a great job for his customers and I am not surprised that he has UK customers with great results on the UK search engines.

Enjoy

Brian

[webyourbusiness]

Several major search engines take "location'" as an element of page weighting. In a highly competitive keyword it may de difficult to maximize your search engine positioning when you’re in a geographic disadvantage.

I would have to say that neither google, nor MSN are penalizing sites hosted without geographic qualifiers made from their HOME PAGE SEARCHES.

If you use google.co.uk - the results ARE different based on a number of factors.

Leaving aside the obvious "results from the UK" option - generic search optimization is GEOGRAPHY dependent, but only to SOME degree - demonstration follows:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...e+Search&meta=

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search

We're #1 for both - subsequent results are DIFFERENT... and those underneath us on a .co.uk search are UK based companies - but honestly, I don't care who comes underneath us, as long as they *ARE* underneath us.

My point being, that our US hosted servers are NOT impacting our ability to score well in a generic search on a UK search engine. Ergo - you CAN do well on a UK search without being hosted in the UK - and those that tell you otherwise are simply incorrect.

However... I would say that for the following search:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...UK%7CcountryGB

Where UK sites were explicitly specified, then we are not found in the results (funny - another Actinic reseller is #1 - lol)... BUT and this is a HUGE "but" - I have NEVER optimized our .co.uk domain AT ALL - and if I so chose, I would bet almost ANY amount of money that I could get top 10 results in a reasonable period of time if I could be bothered.

What I'm actually saying - is that I don't think:

a. hardly anyone qualifies their searches to a particular country UNTIL they don't find a suitable result in the organic unqualifiied searches
b. the UK (or any other ccTLD) is not that big of a deal with the traffic figures we currerntly have to our .com domain.

That is NOT so say that I do not recommend having BOTH domains - the .com and .co.uk if you can - I highly recommend getting as many variants of your domain as you can... but I think it has little to do with obtaining quality traffic and numbers of visitors to the site... PROPER SEO work *IS* the key, and at the moment, country specific searches are not the big deal they are made out to be.

As always, this is my opinion - based on my experiences, and I'm sure everyone has a whole range - mine happen to be based working in BOTH the UK and the US markets.

Again looking at Actinic.co.uk, they are listed very high on specific keywords in both the UK and US search results. This is because of the considerable effort they have put into this area and these results vary depending on keyword and industry.

And because of so many other factors... the number of things that affect those two sites is so far out of whack with the situation that most web site owners encounter - it's just not comparing apples and apples - Actinic's sites shouldn't even be considered in this discussion in my opinion.

When it comes to marketing a customer is best served to eliminate any potential pitfalls or forces of resistance which may hinder the results of a marketing program.

?? And you offer virtual hosting right?

We take it even further - get your own IP - isolate yourself from the rest of the clients on the server - but really - the server location has not much effect on the search engine optimization and how well those efforts bear fruit... at least for our clients... the thing to bear in mind with most US and UK hosts, is that virtually hosted sites are sat on the same IP as a bunch of other sites - who knows how many of those are abusing search engines - do you think you will ever find out?

I even go to the lengths of finding out who (if anyone) had the IPs we are allocated before us - if they are someone I think MIGHT have abused that IP space, I reject it for our clients and get another block of IPs... do I do this for my health? No - my bank balance!!

In my opinion a small UK ecommerce retailer who is focused on the UK marketplace would help their seo efforts with Google, Yahoo!, AOL and MSN search engines by hosting with a UK provider; I think you would find most of the SEO community agreeing.

I don't argue that many people are playing the same tune... many of them are also have few results to show for all their trumpetting - They are fully entitled to their opinions - I'm entitled to mine... I'm also NOT in the business of taking on clients whose business will fail - because negative publicity is NOT good publicity in my eyes, no matter what anyone else says.

We do intend on every client telling people what a good job we did - not how we advised them poorly!

On a separate note that is tangent to this issue. "Local Search" is the up and coming technology rant from the big four search engines in the US. I have been doing research on "local Search" and I posted info on my blog if you’re interested: http://suresolutionsinc.com/blog/index.php

It is definitely tangential - but I think it has some bearing - at least we now consider it when advising smaller companies - they MUST make sure that they have AT LEAST ONE business phone line... even if they are a home based business. I think it may even help to have phone lines from more than one provider!

Why? These "Local searches" are NOT generated from SEO work and server locations! If that were the case; no-one hosted out of state, out of county would get any decent results - it's EVERYTHING to do with your phone listings - most of the local searches are provided by data supplied by local phone books, and supplemented by data found with the pages themselves.

Greg has always done a great job for his customers and I am not surprised that he has UK customers with great results on the UK search engines.

Enjoy

Brian

Why thank you Brian - I'm sure you do too - although you don't work on both sides of the pond, there are probably more businesses per square mile in your neck of the woods than in ours!

We do try to consider all factors when working on a site for SEO - I wouldn't even bother hosting UK sites if I thought it harmed them in the SERPS - it goes against our "make them happy" rules!

I am a very strong proponent of SEO work - both basic and advanced work (less said about the advanced work) - and we have taken clients from nothing to HUGE numbers - funny thing though... one client now dropped our marketing going into their BUSY season:

http://test.webyourbusiness.com/mark...g-dropped.html

this is a company with 75%+ of revenues in the spring/summer - ie, April - September...

Spot the traffic issue...

regards

Greg Hewitt-Long

[Luddite]

I just tried to add the bubblo coasters to my cart - the price comes up ZERO...

and the shipping of 10 GBP on a 6.50 set of coasters is too steep... that can certainly affect your conversion rate adversely.... try slashing your S+H once you work out why I got a zero priced item in my cart.

regards

Greg

Schoolboy error - but sorted now! Thanks for pointing it out.
Correct price is now displayed, which means that the correct postage is displayed ( a not unreasonable £2.99!)

Nick