Please review my website

[simon7]

Would appreciate some advice on our site, www.glow-artist.com please be honest, if its crap tell me its crap, if its good tell me how to improve it. all advice welcome as i haven't got a clue about websites, getting people to the website is my biggest problem, please tell me how to do it. simon

[dynabid.org]

hi simon

Site looks great apart from the black text you ve got i would change it to something brighter as its hard to read apart from that well done and good luck

[TWD-Tony]

It looks a "mis match" of different styles, the logo looks out of place against the top menu and then the side menus are a totally different style / format again (they are also very hard to read).

My advice would be to decide which of these confilicting styles you like and then redo the other parts of the site to match...

The site also looks quite squashed, the top menu section is wider than the rest of the content - spread the middle of the site out to match the width of the top section.

To give you a good idea - the font colour and style you have used for the links at the very bottom of the site is very clear and bright, I would suggest using this as a template for the rest of the site.

[fisicx]

Well.... Not exactly crap but it could be better. A lot better.

I don't know how you built the site but it seems to be a collection of different scripts all bundled together in a most haphazard order. And because of this I really am not sure where to start.

Your logo seems to be plonked next to the main navigation. There is no flow or consistent styling.

I can't read the black/blue on purple. What is the point of the latest news? It doesn't benefit the visitor so get rid of it.

The images on new products aren't linked to the product pages.

Um, your tagline 'cosmic ceilings gfor kids' doesn't match your product range which includes a colouring picture of a horses head for £20! I can get a colouring in book down poundstretchers. What is so special about yours?

What is that strange 'toolbox' that appears occasionally?

I looked at your only glow in the dark thing but all I could see was a black rectangle with some blue blobs on it. Certainly not enough to convince me to spend £155 to get one. In any case, how big is it? How do I fix it to the ceiling? How is it delivered?

I registered a spoof name and tested your checkout - slow, long winded and not well configured. And I need a paypal account. At this point I gave up.

Most of your footer links lead to empty pages. With no T&C or returns policy why should I trust you?

I don't know where you got your ecommerce pacakge (hope it was free) but it needs a lot of work to make it effective and even more work to stand a chance of you being found via a search engine.

I'm not always a miserable bugger, just pointing out the obvious.

You might like to read this article for a fw more ideas: http://www.sav.co.uk/articles/successful-online-sales

Hope this helps,

Graham

[simon7]

Hi Graham and thank you for your input
Thats exactly what i want to hear, i haven't a clue about websites and this is the first attemp, it wasnt free but it was pretty cheap off e-bay, from a company called 'dial a host'. i'm still trying to get my head around what i can and cant change on the site, i agree that it doesnt look right, especially my logo thats just plonked at the top,it took me an hour or so to find out how to even put my logo on there.I have to say that every time i ask the company a question they get back to me very quickly.The problem is my knowledge of web building, i know i have to work on the content, that bit i know how to do,
keep the comments coming, i really appreciate your help
simon

[fisicx]

Planning, planning, planning.

There is an excellent FREE product called zencart that will do everything you want and more. It has a zillion plugsins to enable you to fully configure the site they way you want. And if you get stuck, one of the moderators here is a recognised world expert in all things zen...

But unless you begin by planning what you want to do you will come unstuck. You need to decide what you want the site to acheive, who your potential customers will be and how you are going to convince them to buy. This is the bit most people forget, they get carried away with the whole 'let's build a site' idea they forget the reason for doing so. They keep adding all sorts of features and twiddly bits that they forget the whole reason for building the site in the first place.

You sell a very limited range of posters and pictures. There is no common theme and no incentive to buy apart from the discount which in your case is irrelevant unless somebody actually wants the product in the first place. so you need to put together a plan. Look at your product range, decide how best to display them, how to describe them, how to create interest, how to close the deal, how to deal with problems.

Then start researching, there are hundreds of books and articles you can read, not self promoting but this is my list of resources. I probably spend an hour a day just reading and experimenting. Some things work and some things don't, that's they way of the web.

Remove everything from the site that doesn't sell. The latest news, toolbox, best seller and newsletter can all go while you concentrate on your copy, the quality of the images, the checkout process and so on.

Better still, bin the whole thing and start again. There are much better ecommerce packages available.

[dynabid.org]

We use zencart on one of our other sites and it is really good everything is on there for you and it is nt that difficult to use here is a faq on zencart for you to have a look at http://tutorials.zen-cart.com/

[peterjhale]

It's a good start if this is your first attempt. But as Graham has said you will need to improve. Perhaps this is a good way to learn as the company get back to your with your questions and you can learn as you go along...if you want to learn.

I guess with products like zencart is there are lots of designers and coders who develop stuff for it so you can just slot it in which may also be a quicker way to your end goal.

[simon7]

Can i use zen cart on my site or do i have to start again, no idea what to do, the company i got this site off suggested pagebreeze, any comments on them.
Feel like i'm banging my head against the wall today. simon

[fisicx]

Start again.

It really is the simplest option. You are not going to get many visitors with the current site so you haven't lost anything.

Setting up the zencart itself is a doddle. Changing the theme takes a little longer but there are loads of tutorials on how to do it. It''s the same with all the plug-ins, whatever it is you want to do, someone will have written a plug-in to do it.

But as I've already suggested, do some planning before you start. Think carefully about what it is you want to do. Concentrate on your niche (glowing stuff) or canvas prints or whatever. Offering an odd range of products with no common theme is going to get you knowhere. But if you specialise and become an expert on a particular type of poster or product then you could go viral.

I really like the idea of the glow in the dark galaxy - why not work on a range of similar products, it seems to be unique so make that your niche. If you want to sell personalize footy pictures then set up a different shop to to just that.

Planning again.

Which if you do correctly could mean you don't even need an online store. If you sell bespoke designs then what you really need is a showcase website not a store.