Site Check

[rookers]

Hi there.
We've just had a site upgrade and I wondered if any one had a few spare minutes to spare would it be possible to take a look and feed-back.

Although visually the site is miles better than our previous one, I am puzzled that sales immediately crashed after it went live.

Many thanks in advance. Please feel free to place test orders using the "Pay by cheque" option and the name Mr Test and they will not be processed.

The site is here: www.mowermagic.co.uk

bye!

[Rich Brady]

I like the look of the site a lot.

The only thing I notice after maybe 1/2 mins was that after I manually filled in the name and address fields I was prompted to enter all the details again after I chose the method of payment. That may frustrate some people.

Your page ranks are god, so I'm assuming all your pages titles have remained the same or you have set redirects up?

[rookers]

Hi there - thanks for that. Yes all the page names etc are the same.
I was interested that you said it asked for the address details twice - I have not been able to replicate that other than ticking the box for shipping to a different address. Can we confirm what is happening ?

Cheers!

[Rich Brady]

Hmmm, neither can I now!!!

Maybe I was having a senior moment.

Have you got GA installed, what is that telling you?

[rookers]

My GA is not working at the moment - I need to apply the "_gat" fix which I will do asap.

[Rich Brady]

Could this be a seasonal drop?

[rookers]

It is possible - trade normally turns over to shedders / leaf blowers / chainsaws etc - I think we may just be in an intermediate period.

Hey - thanks for checking the site over !! I appreciate it!

[Duncan Rounding]

I would suggest shortening the desciptions in the Best Sellers or even removing the description field altogether. Scrolling down the vertical columns is not very nice. Similar to what you've done for the New Products in the sidebar perhaps.

[rookers]

Yes I agree, they do look aweful. Thanks for that.

Has anyone had any issues of the site crashing or not working / compatibility issues ?

[Ho Ho Bird]

Non for me. Everything seems to work fine. I like the design. I hope you find the reason for the downturn.

(Its odd, although we are allegedly nearing the end of the down-turn, I'm getting more enquiries than ever from people trying to sell me their clocks when my site is primarily designed to sell my clocks to them. Far more 'we need the cash' enquiries than at any previous time).

[bamboo]

I've just used the wayback machine to see what your site used to look like and I agree your new site does look visually easier on the eye but it doesn't look like a mower shop!
The stars in your new logo make it look like a magicians store which is emphasised in the prospects incredibly short attention span by the black page background.

You also don't have a mower above the fold on the homepage which is madness given the name of your company!
The old site had a robot mower underneath the logo. Bin the stars and get a mower on the page ideally near the top left which is where people look first.

Finally you need to take a tip from Google. Their homepage is almost devoid of content for a reason they want people to use their search box. The results page by contrast...

You have way too much distraction on your new homepage. Your old one was much better in this respect. Your homepage's sole purpose in life is to get the prospect to click through to where they are wanting to go as quickly as possible. This fact is often lost when slick design that 'looks good' to the site owner comes to the fore.

Your customers are telling you that they don't like the new design because they are not buying, at least you are listening. Many companies don't!

Regards
Derek

PS one small but vital thing.
Your old homepage title tag was "Save money with Mower Magic" the new one is "Mower Magic Garden Machinery Superstore".

Whilst the former could be improved it is at least telling the customer that they will get a benefit from the store. The new one is meaningless rubbish to be frank that doesn't give the prospect any reason to click through.

Your prospects will see this difference in the Google organic search. Change it back and you might see a lift.

PPS
I've clicked through a few pages now and they are all too full of the same "we accept credit card info" in the right hand side bar. Try replacing it with a picture of a closed padlock with the words "secure online ordering" and these should be tested against other combinations which say the same thing. A simple graphic of the cards accepted needs to be tested as well.

I've also just had another look at your new logo. It has the tagline 'number one for garden machinery'.
How do you expect your prospects to believe such a statement and what on earth does it add to their experience on the site?
You have no proof that your company is number one on any page anywhere and even if you did most prospects would never see it.

Your old tagline of 'bringing power to your garden' is much better as although it to can be improved it at least tells the prospect instantly what your site is about and that they are in the right place if they are looking for a garden power tool. Please test changing it back.

Why is the date on the site?
This again is tiny but it interrupts the prospects visual journey through the page whilst they figure out what they have to do next. They are very impatient people and if it isn't clear in seconds what the page is wanting them to do as you have found out they are off PDQ.

The buy button is the exact same colour and shape as the navigation buttons. A big mistake. The buy button has to stand out.

The top tips and info on the section pages is there I am guessing to 'help with seo'. This may be the case but it just distracts the buyer as they head towards the purchase.

Test losing the tips etc.

You have a huge catalogue and yet your search box is just part of the page. Try gettingit front and centre on every section page and tell people it's the fastest way to find what they are looking for directly underneath the box.

Pretty stock pictures are fine for browsers looking to see how much your mowers are compared to other sites but people looking for spares or a direct replacement for a mower that has just died would appreciate the direct search function and these are the ones with card in hand!

Lose the 'print this page' and 'e-mail to a friend' on the product pages. You want then to BUY what is on the product page not 'think about buying'. these two pointless links are giving people an excuse not to buy and guess what a lot of people will take that excuse and move on.

One final thing. Try an exit pop to ask the prospect in one line why they left the site. Don't ask then why they didn't buy but ask them why they clicked away.
Don't be tempted to collect dropped customers info you just want an answer as to why they left the site on the page they did.

[meden]

Only had time for a quick glance but I like the site a lot. The only things I could see were the underscore in About_Us in the Information menu and the X-Grade Bargains cell at the top left on thew homepage is shorter than all the others so looks unbalanced to me - though that could be deliberate to draw the eye I suppose.

[animal dreams]

There is something very odd within your <head> tags.

<link type="text/css" href="opacity.css" rel="stylesheet"> links to a complete html page!

Maybe this is affecting the search results.

[rookers]

Many thanks for all your comments! I take them all on board - some will be easy to implement, some more difficult, but I take them all on board. I appreciate the time you have all taken to review my site.

Many thanks again.

[PatchworkRabbit]

I like the look of it. Very professional.

Just one quick thing though, from the perspective of someone who knows nothing about mowers but will probably buy a new one soon:

On first opening your site, I figured I'd look for a Flymo hover mower. I don't know what model as I'm a girl that works in IT, not a man that pretends drills are machine guns.

I saw "lawnmowers" in the sidebar but just searched on flymo instead. I got a list of flymo parts and thousands of page links with no mowers on the first page. No good.

So, I went to the lawnmower section and there are no options for "hover mower". Ok, a flymo is an electric mower, but the electric mower picture has one with wheels. I don't want wheels.

So I searched on Flymo hover and again got a list of parts with the first mower being well below the fold, but, at least I know you now do hover mowers....

Do you see where I'm going with this? You can have the best looking site in the world, but if I have to spend ages looking for what I want (me: a floaty small mower that will fit in in my 4x4 shed), then I'll give up.