Site review

[4little1s]

Hi,

Been considering a possible site redesign for a while now. Be interested in any comments on what we currently have and any suggestions on improving it.

www.4little1s.com

Thanks

[fleetwood]

A few issues that I would address:

1) Utilities (contact us, feedback etc) are situated where you would expect to find the main navigation bar. You don't have to have a main nav bar as you have a side one, but the utilities bar would be better sited at the top right of the page (would sit nicely in the top blue bar of your header picture)
Its always best to follow layout 'norms' wherever possible.

2) Similarly, I feel your basket should be above the 'live chat'. I would expect to find this either at the top of the right hand bar, or at the right of the header.

3) On your home page, all the sales bumf that follows on after the products - headed 'Baby Nursery Furniture etc' is lost - nobody scrolls this far down a page. Consider replacing that with a link to a new brochure page, and put the sales pitch there.

4) When you click on a product on the home page, in the product page you link to, the right hand sidebar is far too long, making the page unsightly - consider trimming this down.

Sorry that this isn't a full site review, but I hope the above is some help

[Mike Hughes]

The two things I'd definitely fix are:

1. Get rid of links that go via the cgi-bin.
2. Make the product name / title link through, not just the image (on the home page and all the section pages).

Mike

[chris ashdown]

Why on earth do you have links to other sites on your home page, they come to you and you then direct them to Marks and Sparks or others, if you need the links put them anywhere but the home page, you want people searching through your site not leaving from the home page

[Mike Hughes]

Oh dear. Is this the site the puts the adverts on. I'm sure we've discussed this before.

My first thoughts were along the lines of what the hell is Chris talking about? I didn't see any ads. But then I have kaspersky blocking ads which probably explains it.

100% agree with Chris comments.

Mike

[chris ashdown]

Mike
Under the menu on the left, M & S, Littlewoods and Flowers direct

[Mike Hughes]

Nope. Looked again and I still just see white space below the menu on the LHS.

I think this is Kasperky's 'anti-banner' at work. I have nothing against adverts but found a lot of websites are just getting too slow while they wait for all the ads to load on the page.

Mike

Yup. Just confirmed this. Turn off 'anti-banner' and restart browser: the ads are visible. Turn on anti-browser and refresh the page: ads disappear. It's a nice feature and speeds up browsing no end.

[feemish]

Some good points from Fleetwood...

but...

3) On your home page, all the sales bumf that follows on after the products - headed 'Baby Nursery Furniture etc' is lost - nobody scrolls this far down a page. Consider replacing that with a link to a new brochure page, and put the sales pitch there.

People dont scroll that far down the page its true, but the robots do !
I found that having extra descriptive text at the bottom of my homepage was a real bonus for SEO. The text would work well on a brochure page too, but the Home page is the most important after all.

...and adverts to competitors ! surely the revenue you get from those adds isnt worth directing people away from your site?

[chris ashdown]

You could place it on a short timer and make a game of it

Catch the banner

Now you see it, now you dont

Make a fortune on friday afternoons

[Chunkford]

People dont scroll that far down the page its true, but the robots do !
I found that having extra descriptive text at the bottom of my homepage was a real bonus for SEO. The text would work well on a brochure page too, but the Home page is the most important after all.

If your not careful you could be diluting your page relevancy.
It's better to have a page dedicated to a single term than have a page with tons terms fighting against each other.

[feemish]

If your not careful you could be diluting your page relevancy.
It's better to have a page dedicated to a single term than have a page with tons terms fighting against each other.

Well obviously you should study your keyword density for your most important terms for the home page!
Google likes text though ! and a lot of sites dont have enough on their homepages for google to get its teeth into. But its just my opinion at the end of the day... take it or leave it, but I am on page one of google and in the top#5 for my most relevant terms..

[Chunkford]

I'm pleased for you, but the homepage isn't the page you need to rank. You want customers to go direct to what they are looking for, not having to click around the site trying to find what they were searching for on the search engines.

If you had a page dedicated to a phrase, then not only are you giving what the customers want, you are also increasing the chances of higher conversion rates and higher rankings due to better page relevance.

[feemish]

I'm pleased for you, but the homepage isn't the page you need to rank.

your homepage passes on page rank to your catalogue pages... So your homepage is probably the most important page.

[Chunkford]

Maybe, but it doesn't mean it's the most suitable.

[feemish]

Most suitable for what?

The homepage provides the 'umbrella' terms, individual pages should be much more precise. Page rank for your individual pages will mainly come from your home page and flow down. Its no good having immaculately optimised individual pages if your homepage doesnt have good ranking and keyword return. 'Fleetwood' earlier said that all the text at he bottom of 4little1s site was redundant because most people wouldnt read it. My point is that the robots will, and robots love naturally written text... lots of it.. as long as you keep an eye on the density of your umbrella terms. The more natural text the merrier.