Honest review needed for site

[Rich Brady]

You need to ask yourself if I was a customer what would I want to see?

Most if not all would like to get to the product they are looking for as quick as possible.

Make the search facility more obvious, move the Products and Sections Nav above the Main Pages.

However if I search for "Dewalt drill" I get a list of products so long it's difficult to know which one will suit, so I click on the top, because I assume that must be the most relevant. However I get taken to a driver... Perhaps images would help?

There are no links in the "NEW MAKITA 10.8v TWIN PACK" fragment on your home page, only the image and people might miss that.

[RuralWeb]

ok you had a bargain but its not good for everyone to have the same sale on

There was no sale it was thier regular price - the point I am making is that with a branded product people will always buy based on price. eg I have a client with a site that sells a competive branded product - he normally sells 70+ a day of them. The other day his sales dropped off to about 40 so we had a look about and found a competitor had dropped his price by 60p - not alot but enough to make a big difference to sales.

You are in a competitve market so your prices have to be competitve so I dont understand your comment about its not good for everyone to have a sale on - that may have been true in the days of the high street but on the internet its dog eat dog.

[pinbrook]

thanks George and WebD
Do you guys think the homepage is to busy, was thinking of dropping some of the stuff like news from it to trim some fat, and perhaps not so many colours for the writing,
however i do not want to go to bland, as my section list has been said to be.

go to your favourite tool store, analyse what you like about it. Go to your worst nightmare tool store and do the same.

then decide how your site stacks up.

Do not take any more advice from the numpty who suggested you add camping/tourist keywords to your site - its utter nonsense.

Your page title should be 6-10 keywords, those words should also be present within the body text of the page.

[Rich Brady]

Do not take any more advice from the numpty who suggested you add camping/tourist keywords to your site - its utter nonsense.

PMSL Jo, Numpty is a word not used often enough IMO

[roundman]

So if i add an obvious click here message to the Makita 10.8v i will cater for everyone.
For someone searching Dewalt drill, there are 10's of drills made by Dewalt the search bar could do with images in the finding, perhaps just thumbnails would do, is that possible to do without the design part of the package??
Also am i limited to what i can move (such as section + product nav) ?? with out design
Thanks Firecom for the easy but effective idea

[roundman]

There was no sale it was thier regular price - the point I am making is that with a branded product people will always buy based on price. eg I have a client with a site that sells a competive branded product - he normally sells 70+ a day of them. The other day his sales dropped off to about 40 so we had a look about and found a competitor had dropped his price by 60p - not alot but enough to make a big difference to sales.

You are in a competitve market so your prices have to be competitve so I dont understand your comment about its not good for everyone to have a sale on - that may have been true in the days of the high street but on the internet its dog eat dog.

Its impossible to keep slashing prices on powertools as this is a very low margin line anyway.
Sometimes to take Ł15 off of a drill can mean no profit at all, i understand principles of pricing, and with only doing this myself it can be hard to keep up with every product, as i have nearly 3000 of them, also powertools are not the bread and butter of many tool shops, handtools and consumables are.
And yes the guy who told me about the keywords was a numpty. lol

[RuralWeb]

with only doing this myself it can be hard to keep up with every product

get your site linked to an external spredsheet or use one of moleends tools and its easy

[pinbrook]

For someone searching Dewalt drill, there are 10's of drills made by Dewalt the search bar could do with images in the finding, perhaps just thumbnails would do

your descriptions need to contain keywords so a search will only bring relevant results, TBH an image of a drill is just that, i don't think thumbnails of images of drills will help anyone ascertain the finer differences

to do without the design part of the package??

you said you have catalog, this contains the design part of the package. order mamager is the only edition without design capabiliity

[Rich Brady]

Don't think that adding a "click here" button is going to make everything better, I'm/we're trying to get you to think about how your customers work. They're on your site because they want to buy tools, so make it easy for them.

You have a lot of reading to do I think. Look at other peoples sites and read the other site revise on this forum. Then make a list of what changes you think need making and prioritse them. Then you've need to read the manual, help files, forum and knowledge bas to implement the changes you need to make.

It's not going to happen over night and if you're on your own and don't have the time, then you need to weigh up the cost of a designer against the extra hours and potential stress you're going to put yourself through.

Just chip away at at it slowly. What Version are you using? Do you have Analytics Set Up? This will give you information about how many people are finding your site and by what means. You will also be able to tell where they leave your site and hopefully use this info to start your campaign.

You can add a thumbnail image to your products directly beneath the image field.

[Rich Brady]

TBH an image of a drill is just that, i don't think thumbnails of images of drills will help anyone ascertain the finer differences

No but when there 30 odd lines of text in the search results it will seperate the drills from the drivers. I'm not trying to suggest it's the be all and end all, but it may stop people bailing out at the search results.

[RuralWeb]

As price goes you are cheaper than some on the net having had a quick look round BUT look at this site http://www.ps-tools.com/catalog/maki...on-p-1996.html
They are more expensive than you but I would be more tempted to buy from them TBH - now all of what they have done and more is possible in actinic.

What you need to do is STOP and look at you competitors - see what they are doing and devise a plan. It will cost you money but should pay off in the end.

[roundman]

your descriptions need to contain keywords so a search will only bring relevant results, TBH an image of a drill is just that, i don't think thumbnails of images of drills will help anyone ascertain the finer differences

you said you have catalog, this contains the design part of the package. order mamager is the only edition without design capabiliity

I dont know why i don't have the design part, the main program was loaded onto her computer and then she loaded the designed site and catalog onto mine, i have no way of changing the design, i was going to run an ecoupon promo but couldn't do it as it would of meant snapshots being sent back and forth.

[RuralWeb]

http://www.hobuk.co.uk/acatalog/Limi...HP452RFWX.html here is an actinic website - see the difference.

Check your business settings - your designer will have turned off the design changes button

[roundman]

As price goes you are cheaper than some on the net having had a quick look round BUT look at this site http://www.ps-tools.com/catalog/maki...on-p-1996.html
They are more expensive than you but I would be more tempted to buy from them TBH - now all of what they have done and more is possible in actinic.

What you need to do is STOP and look at you competitors - see what they are doing and devise a plan. It will cost you money but should pay off in the end.

I must admit that it is good site, and easy to navigate, i can see that i have a long way to go, but in the mean time while i go about changing these things, i still want to drive more traffic to my site.

[Rich Brady]

i still want to drive more traffic to my site.

The problem is that many people wouldn't buy from you as the site stands. So sending more people there will only put them off and possibly prevent them visiting you in the future when you've got it right,.