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17-06-2010 5:33pm#1Hi lads. I didn't design this site but I was involved in the content adding and certain other aspects. We've officially gone live but it's not too late to change it so I'd love some comments please. We're also trying to utilise blogs to generate traffic to our site. We're a Suit shop that rents wedding wear for the grooms among and also specialse in menswear etc. So we're trying to find blogs that maybe reltated or linked in some way. Thanks
www.tom-murphy.ie0
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Could you start writing content on the site. People won't link to a site for no reason, you need to give them a reason. Usually the best way is to have something interesting on there. I'd suggest writing a blog, or other content that gives tips on suits & weddings. Things like how to tie a tie correctly, explanation of suit types etc... You're alredy doing that, so build on it.
Also, you should compliment things with an actual advertising budget. Sponser local competitions & events, maybe an adwords campaign etc...
Finally, one thing that really needs to be addressed is the images of the suits. Right now they are a terrible quality, and they look like crap. They're being compressed way too heavily, so you need to get that fixed right away.0 -
Actually, ignore that bit, seems my mobile internet company is compressing all images, before they're sent to my PC!Finally, one thing that really needs to be addressed is the images of the suits. Right now they are a terrible quality, and they look like crap. They're being compressed way too heavily, so you need to get that fixed right away.0 -
Finally, one thing that really needs to be addressed is the images of the suits. Right now they are a terrible quality, and they look like crap. They're being compressed way too heavily, so you need to get that fixed right away.
We are concerned about the images all the same. We're trying to sort that at the moment. The darker suits (black and navy ones) are difficult to make out sometimes
We are trying to get a professional lighting system so that we can rectify that soon.0 -
The homepage is poor:
First of all, you have this huge graphic taking up about half the screen and it does sod all. This is high value webpage real estate, but all it says Spring Summer Suit Collection 2010 which doesn't help me much and has a little link to the shop. Better to put your best sellers, special offers, promos, discounts in that space - just like the kind of stuff you put in your bricks and mortar shop window.
Second you have 'Welcome to Tom Murphy' in a h1 tag, but you're not selling welcomes or Tom Murphys so they've no search term value, you're selling menswear, suit hire, suits etc. and those are the types of keywords you need in headings.
Thirdly, the 'This family business was established .... another recent customer.' spiel is you talking about yourself - bad chat up method, not what you can do for me - good chat up method. Again back to bricks and mortar, do you give that spiel to walk-in customers or do you take a look at them and try to figure out what they might be looking for and ask them how you can assist. Instead you need to address your visitors' needs, provide a solution and get them to act: 'Need a suit for a special occasion, we have the best tuxes and formal wear, check out our latest offers'.
On the shop main page an some others e.g. 'Wedding Suits' the product names aren't headings, they should be h2 or h3 at least.
The individual shop pages have a 'jqzoom5 thickbox' zoom rollover effect which doesn't work very well. E.g. the 'Black/White Stripe Tie' looks awful. The view box is too small and I can only see part of the product. The effect when product is clicked is better. Try to use orange buttons for the Add to Shopping Bag call to action.
The image effects on the 'Designer Wedding Suits' page is jerky and doesn't look great - too many images and possibly a bad script. The images link to an enlarged image, not a shopping or more info page and the clickable area for closing the image is anti-intuitive. No pricing info.
Blog has 2 small entires. Commit more to your blog.
Dunno what faded denims are doing on the about us page image.0 -
Thanks for the input Tricky D. I agree and disagree with some of your points. I'll try explain
The large Graphic is due to be changed to a slide show which will cover our 3 main product areas, which are:
a) Suit Collection (current image)
b) Suit Hire
c) Designer/Made to measure Suits
These are the 3 areas that generate the largest retail values per transactionso that is why we allocated the large space. We should try make the link more obvious though
We will be changing the 'Welcome' h1 header and enlarging the 'Wedding Suits' headers too. Thanks for bringing that to our attention. We'll go with something like 'Tom Murphy Formal and Menswear - Specialist in Men's suits and suit hire'. Men's suits and suit hire are the 2 of the many key terms we've been trying to push more for the sake of SEO hits.
"The family business was established......" and the talk about recent customers. Where was this content? I thought the only area we personalise is the About Us section
Do you feel all the images aren't great? We feel the zoom box was a good function for judging some of the products .We use a poweful zoom so that we could try highlight the texture of the suits and shirts. I understand that the ties suffered because of this though. We got those images from a PDF file and they haven't turned out well in the zoom function.
We are trying to fix the image galleries, such as the 'Wedding Suits', at the moment. The reason we don't have a link for it is because you can't purchase these over the internet. We will link the price list though
We have more Blogs to post. We are aiming to get one a week. We are going to post them soon. I didn't realise people would have considered them too small though. I will commit more to it though, thanks.
I understand your point on the denim jeans but the picture is what we are focusing on. We are trying to put text on/near it with out disrupting the text of the About us. It is the Heinekin Cup Trophy Munster won the year we tailored their suits for them0 -
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Good. That content would be much better. You can use it for promos and offers too. The graphic does take up over half the vertial space on my screen which is an awful lot. You could try to get this reduced while retaining the impact.Thanks for the input Tricky D. I agree and disagree with some of your points. I'll try explain
The large Graphic is due to be changed to a slide show which will cover our 3 main product areas, which are:
a) Suit Collection (current image)
b) Suit Hire
c) Designer/Made to measure Suits
These are the 3 areas that generate the largest retail values per transactionso that is why we allocated the large space. We should try make the link more obvious though
It was on the homepage but appears to have changed.We will be changing the 'Welcome' h1 header and enlarging the 'Wedding Suits' headers too. Thanks for bringing that to our attention. We'll go with something like 'Tom Murphy Formal and Menswear - Specialist in Men's suits and suit hire'. Men's suits and suit hire are the 2 of the many key terms we've been trying to push more for the sake of SEO hits.
"The family business was established......" and the talk about recent customers. Where was this content? I thought the only area we personalise is the About Us section
You're using a zoom and a lightbox effect. Not too sure about using both. I'd prefer just the lightbox where users can see both the texture and the whole product. Your type of products is always going to cause some problems, with poor contrast of some highlights and shadows due to the materials.Do you feel all the images aren't great? We feel the zoom box was a good function for judging some of the products .We use a poweful zoom so that we could try highlight the texture of the suits and shirts. I understand that the ties suffered because of this though. We got those images from a PDF file and they haven't turned out well in the zoom function.We are trying to fix the image galleries, such as the 'Wedding Suits', at the moment. The reason we don't have a link for it is because you can't purchase these over the internet. We will link the price list though
We have more Blogs to post. We are aiming to get one a week. We are going to post them soon. I didn't realise people would have considered them too small though. I will commit more to it though, thanks.
I understand your point on the denim jeans but the picture is what we are focusing on. We are trying to put text on/near it with out disrupting the text of the About us. It is the Heinekin Cup Trophy Munster won the year we tailored their suits for them
You did their suits, it's the Heineken Cup. Wouldn't have known that. There's some good marketing material. You should have something to say that you did their suits and get some pics for display.0 -
Sorry, I don't know how to multi quote on this yet. Still new
We haven't discussed reducing the size of the homepage graphic, however you have definitely given food for thought. Especially if others start saying it
About the homepage changing. That was happening to us aswell on other browsers. The content you saw was that from the old site but had been transferred to the new site. I thought that had been redtified by now. I must contact the developer again
I'm not familiar with the zoom and the lightbox function. I've only experienced the finished product so again I'll discuss this with the developer
The Heineken cup picture is a nice feature we feel. As I said, we're just trying to figure out how to allign the text correctly. We are still new to Wordpress
Thanks again for all your input. We've already begun working on some of them. I will repost the link soon hopefully and would really appreciate you would review it again to see if the changes have made the site better0
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