Site Review: Toys*Gifts*FancyDress

[Sally Dickson]

Dear All,

Please take a look at my two new twinned websites:

www.toysandgifts.co.uk
http://www.jeuxetcadeaux.fr

I have been building these sites over several months in my spare time, bringing together all the products from my other shops.

In theory it is easy to cut and paste sections from other shops into a new shop, in practice it is quite time consuming.

I have a lot of problems in trying to sort out the navigation, although I think the Yahoo sections navigation on www.toysandgifts.co.uk is the best solution I have come up with.

With such a large database of products, the issues of uploads from a database come to the fore. One of he reasons that metagtags are so sparse is that, if I try and populate these fields, I have to recreate the sections, or do it section by section.

This is a very competitive sector, nevertheless its hard to decide what our prices should be, some of these products are sold at margins of less than £1 on EBay and Amazon. (It makes one think of all those lucky EBay traders who sell from their bedrooms in their pyjamas - doesn't half make life difficult for everyone else)

I need some help and feedback on:

Page rankings
SEO improvements
Google PPC
and basically building traffic.

It has definietly been a case of: 'If you build it they DON'T come...'

[Mark H]

Sally - I don't know why, but your first link appears correct on the page, but it links to toyandgifts ie no s after toys...

[Sally Dickson]

thanks, I have changed the link it should work now.

SD

[acompton]

Sally,

My gut feeling on the overall design is that the red borders on the product sections is overpowering the more delicately coloured products (e.g. Flower Fairies). I think the obligatory call-centre-girl photo look a little out of place.

A few typos in the T's & C's:

VAT is 15%

With Fancy Dress Costumes, we understand that customers may wish to try them on, however we would ask that th costumes be returned in a perfect condition. We reserve the right to charge upto £10 where a costume has been wore.

The contact address and the returns address are very different. The header email is consistent with the site name.
The email in the T's & C's is a wookieshop.

[robinantill]

Hi Sally,
You states

With such a large database of products, the issues of uploads from a database come to the fore. One of he reasons that metagtags are so sparse is that, if I try and populate these fields, I have to recreate the sections, or do it section by section.

however the MetaTags are very important, particularly Title and Description, for SEO and improvements in listing on Google.

I optimised a site for my friend and you can see further information about what I did in this post
http://community.actinic.com/showthr...1892&page=2#25 He is very happy with what I have done and is quite happy for you to talk to him about what I have done. His name is Martin.

Something like this should work for you and make your life easier. You would not have to create a unique Title and Description as my template would do this for you. I can not guarantee you would be on the 1st page but it would definitely improve your listings. Please let me know if i can help or advise any further.

Robin

[Ho Ho Bird]

First a couple of comments that may impact conversion rather than traffic:

The site looks very plain to me, with no reason to buy from you.....

There is no personality jumping out from the page. I have no idea who I am buying from and they don't seem to be particularly enthusiastic about the goods, so why would I buy from there?

The goods may be of good or poor quality, there is nothing for me to judge on.

Supplied with no compelling reasons to buy from you, I'd tend to buy from ebay with the benefits of easy price comparison, price competitiveness, no need to set-up accounts or give my c.card details to anyone else.

(update) Only by trying the checkout do I see that you accept Paypal.

Things you could do:

- Make your photos larger so I know I'm getting something of quality
- Tell me I'm getting something of quality and why it is better than some of the rubbish on ebay
- Sell me on the fact you have such a large range of items in stock that you supply everything I need on 1 order and save on p&p charges
- Tell me on the homepage that you accept Paypal
- Do an 'about us' page where I can read about your enthusiasm for supplying great quality items
- Show me some testimonials from customers saying what great quality products you sell / speed of service / helpful with problems (ie all the things I'd worry about buying from pyjama man in his bedroom)

Also the design is very very plain. I can see you'll have invested great efforts getting the products uploaded but now it needs some time on the 'look'. It looks worse because it auto stretches to fill my wide screen, leaving big gaps between the products.

As for traffic and SEO, there are many here better qualified to comment, but I suspect there is no substitute for doing ALL the hard graft.

You obviously have a huge range yet I still think the Single Product per Page arguments may apply. The books on my site are my best sellers - I think because I give them a page each whereas my competitors list many titles on the same page. My sector is much less competitive but that just means you'll have to work harder than me.

Hope that helps (Genuinely)

[leehack]

It looks rather poor on my large screen (screenshot attached), it's pointless going fluid layout if the sections inside are a fixed amount across, all it does is spread things out and make them worse. I think the design is poor, looks tired and dated to be honest, i'd be expecting a site like this to be looking for a fresh new look off a designer, not just being launched.

When i see your forum name i immediately think of miffy and a site design that stands out as a brand and an identity in my mind. This site i'm afraid is the worst site i've seen up for review for quite a while. A long trip back to the drawing board for me or better still, get a professional in, the look and more importantly the nav & structure show that whoever designed this, has taken things as far as they can at this stage.

Smart theme, MPP, cgi-nav - it's like a glimpse back 5 years, not where you want to be IMO.

[pinbrook]

I took 2 products are random and searched amazon for them, one product was on amazon at £5 you sell at £10, the other was £48 from you, £35 from amazon.

the first was an amazon seller, the other was amazon itself.

I wouldn't buy from you for that reason, but TBH the design of your site gives me no compelling reason to stay. I like to enjoy visiting a site and enjoy good design - I probably am different from lots of potential customers in this respect - but i do endorse what others have said - its too plain for your market.

[jont]

(screenshot attached)

I hope Matthew Parker is not on the MI5 wanted list

[acompton]

Just noticed a prominent spelling error: Nightwear, not Nightware

OOI: What size is the Paddington Bear gift mug? Child's or adult?

[Sally Dickson]

thanks for all of the above. I know its not the best site in the world, but I was just no sure where to start.

Some of these I know how to change, others I don't, but I am making a list and will get onto it.

S Dickson

[animal dreams]

You asked for some help with SEO and Google Analytics back in May but it seems that you have not found any. If anyone does find you in the natural search listings this is what they are likely to see as your call to action:

Toys*Gifts*FancyDress Toy*Gifts*FancyDress
"Esoteric supplier of Gothic, Horror Fantasy and SF fancy dress costumes. Based in Weybridge and Newbury UK. Customers Services on 0800 389 1937. We hope we can help!"

Cut & paste is a very dangerous approach to building a site unless you meticulously check the content, especially the off-page content. Like others I find the site very unappealling and recommend you find a good designer with SEO knowledge.

[pinbrook]

Toys*Gifts*FancyDress Toy*Gifts*FancyDress

doesn't google see this as one long word? Better to separate each word with a space (and not to duplicate)