Site Review Required - Golf Tee Warehouse

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

I have just launched my V9 site as an upgrade from the tired looking V7 site and would appreciate a site review please.
Feel free to be as brutal as you like (I hereby confirm that I Darren Guppy will not be offended, get upset, complain or sue you for any comments made).

Website: http://www.golfteewarehouse.co.uk

Built using V9.0.4 Business with the following add-ons from Norman: Collapso, Choice Validation and Multiple Product Images
The design has taken 12 months from start to finish and probably should have got a designer in at the start as saves 11 months.
When I started I knew nothing about CSS and only html basics.

I would be particularly interested in any SEO improvements or other suggestions how I can improve the site.

Planned future extras include:
PostCode Anywhere in checkout
Live Chat
Product Reviews Plug-In

[grantglendinnin]

If Lee doesn't pull a new site out of the bag by the end of the year, I'd say this is a serious contender for SotY

Only 'problem' I seen is the lack of <h3> and <h4> tags - though you seem to have gotten the <h1> and <h2> tags spot on.

A very sleek design with what is a clunky program for code generation - there's still quite a bit of 'white space' in the source code so you may want to look at cutting down on that.

The only niggle I find in the design - which isn't browser-limited - is the last product of the best sellers/new products - the underline is present on the last of the products, and with the box border - it shows two lines, doesn't look quite right - nor as good as the top of the box, I would have a look at removing the <div class="solid_line_blue"> line from the 'Last' field in the List Layout Settings. Not a biggy, just something that would 'complete' the design.

With the program limitations, I'd say you've done a fantastic job adding in the extra features, particularly the presentation.

Will be good to see the Product Reviews Plugin added to the site - I'm off to read some Golf Tips

[Duncan Rounding]

I like it.

The Contact Us page form in Safari has some issues. (Chrome is also borderline). See attached.

[leehack]

Nice site Darren.

The active TLS selected goes white on white in the left menu, looks confusing.

Drop the dark border on the multi images, recolor it to fit in with the scheme.

You need to cross browser check the site, there are various issues. This is a real PITA and why a handover for a designer now takes around half a day in just testing across these platforms. Make sure you check IE6, IE7, IE8, Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera as a minimum.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

Thanks for the reviews I will take a look at the suggestions.

Only 'problem' I seen is the lack of <h3> and <h4> tags

Where would you suggest the <h3> and <h4> tags be used.

the underline is present on the last of the products, and with the box border - it shows two lines, doesn't look quite right - nor as good as the top of the box, I would have a look at removing the <div class="solid_line_blue"> line from the 'Last' field in the List Layout Settings

I will remove the offending line.

The Contact Us page form in Safari has some issues. (Chrome is also borderline). See attached.

Thanks Duncan, I hadn't spotted that one.

The active TLS selected goes white on white in the left menu, looks confusing.

I noticed this problem, which seems to be due to the rollover image not be loaded until the mousehover event occurs. I tried to add the image into the

onload="PreloadImages

section but doesn't seem to work, any suggestions how I can get around this or what I have done wrong.

Drop the dark border on the multi images, recolor it to fit in with the scheme.

I will try out alternatives.

You need to cross browser check the site, there are various issues.

I did some checks using http://browsershots.org/ and made several changes to reduce the major problems in IE6 which were causing the site layout to be trashed, but still had a couple of IE6 layout problems I couldn't solve. I will try and find time for some further cross browser checking this week.

[Mike Hughes]

Excellent site.

I find there's something slightly 'flat' about the look and the two basket summaries are a bit confusing.

The mouse over images on the ballzee twin has a missing image and I'm not sure I like the crosshairs rather than a pointer when doing a mouseover.

Other than that it looks great.

Mike

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

the two basket summaries are a bit confusing.

The mouse over images on the ballzee twin has a missing image and I'm not sure I like the crosshairs rather than a pointer when doing a mouseover.

Thanks Mike, the missing images has now been uploaded, although I am unsure what the problem was with the image, it displayed fine in preview but Actinic uploaded a jpg with "0" size, so I have had to manually FTP the image.

The mini-basket showing basket contents was added after the original basket was designed and I am undecided how best to alter, I will add the basket to the 'To Do' list for future changes.

Regrading the crosshairs, I am not sure I can change this as it is part of Normans Multi-Image add-on, I will check it out and see if there is a way it can be changed.

[Duncan Rounding]

...Regrading the crosshairs, I am not sure I can change this as it is part of Normans Multi-Image add-on, I will check it out and see if there is a way it can be changed.

This can be changed.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

I have changed the 'crosshairs' to 'pointer' by changing the two instances of 'cursor:crosshair' to 'cursor:Pointer' in Normans code

[Mike Hughes]

I like that much better.

Mike

[consciouspnm]

Slight spelling mistake in your price match T & C's

"The two products must be idenitcal or similar enough to qualify as decided by ourselves."

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

Slight spelling mistake in your price match T & C's

"The two products must be idenitcal or similar enough to qualify as decided by ourselves."

Thanks Nicky,

I have corrected that error. I have run the site through Mole Ends spellchecker, but I missed that one.

[leehack]

I noticed this problem, which seems to be due to the rollover image not be loaded until the mousehover event occurs. I tried to add the image into the

onload="PreloadImages

section but doesn't seem to work, any suggestions how I can get around this or what I have done wrong.

I'm on about the colour on the next level down from the TLS, they don't use images by the looks of it, but are white on white. To remove the jerk while it loads the new image, you merge both images into one and use background positioning instead. Both images are loaded at the same time in effect using that way.

Using browsershots is not really a good way of testing things, if you are going to fill in for a designer then you got to be more thorough than that. It takes about half hour to have all of those browsers loaded on your system, so you can surf the site and test various areas, screenshots are just pony in comparison. Current stats show somewhere around 15-20% of users are on IE6, so fixing 'some' issues is again not a great idea.

Don't let the quality of your work at the last hurdle slip, you've got something really nice going on and it'd be a shame to not ice the cake.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

I'm on about the colour on the next level down from the TLS, they don't use images by the looks of it, but are white on white.

I don't see the white on white in Firefox, IE7 or IE8. What browser are you seeing the white on white, as I see red lettering on white background

To remove the jerk while it loads the new image, you merge both images into one and use background positioning instead. Both images are loaded at the same time in effect using that way.

I have used that method on several elements on the site, so will take a look at incorporating that suggestion into the left navigation menu.


Lee how would you recommend testing IE6 if you have IE7 installed.
I have IE7 and FF3 on my main machine and have IE8 on a separate machine.
I have downloaded a free program called IE tester which seems to work OK and can now see that items I though were fixed in IE6 are still broken. Further investigation is now top of the list.
I must admit I have neglected Safari and will download a copy later today.

[rmorrow]

You can get stand-alone copies of IE just for this purpose. There are a few places to look e.g. http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE