Guidance need for my Website

Valdez

Can you guys help me. does the site look good? www.valdezignprint.com

It was a template. I already spent over 100 euros on Google adswords, but haven't got any sales.

some things you can help me with
1.you think the prices to high?
2.is the site easy to navigate through?
3.does the site look professional?
4. would you shop here?

what you guys think I should change that will better it? As I really need some input/Guidance.

all comments are welcome. thanks

worc

Selling online requires trust - you may know that you're not going to fleece someone who pays for your service but you're average punter can be very wary.

I'd suggest some or all of the below
- A picture of the people behind the business (trust)
- Address of the business, direct phone line, email address at the bottom of every page (trust)
- Testimonials on landing page or on the left navigation all the time - you've been set up since 2008 you gotta have some people who'd give you a short blurb about how you came through for them and service was excellent (trust)
- I'd lose the words "cheap" on your about us page. People see "cheap" and their first thought can be "sh1t" - especially when dealing with a business they've never dealt with before. Let them decide you're cheap by showing you're prices clearly.
- I'd also lose the word "little" on the about us too - I'm not sure why I think this but little to me sounds like you won't manage the workload or won't necessarily do things up to the standard (I think that's from experience of trying out one or two "little" places and not being happy with the service).
- Put up some examples of your work so people can see some finished products and think "ah yeah that's exactly what I'm after". Without real examples people are probably left wondering how they print jobs will come out.
- Have shipping details on a seperate page - you've got in buried at the bottom of your about us page - don't make people have to go searching for important information, because generally they won't and will just move on to the next site that does.
- What's your policy on returns? People like to know this when buying online.

In terms of prices - I don't know, but have you compared yourself to the main players (e.g. Reads)? Do some market research on competitors, use an excel file to easily compare your prices to theirs. You could even create a graphic showing your prices compared to competitors (just make sure the information is correct on competitors and is dated i.e. prices correct as of 16.9.11).

Create facebook page where you upload your latest specials.

I'd change your tag line to include the word Irish/Ireland because I wasn't sure where you were based - "A New Level in Irish Design and Print" or "A New Level of Design and Print in Ireland". Or even get the .ie domain name to be sure to be sure!

Grey seems to be such a popular colour to make text online lately, but it drives me crazy - I prefer black and change website fonts to black when I can. I find it hard to read your left navigation links - again though that's personal preference.

Your "Booklets" page has a graphic that is breaking out over the left side of the site. You've got a few pages with graphics that are too wide for the page.

AHHHHH! I just went through the checkout process and I have to register an account with you just to buy something...not happy! I'd seriously consider just letting people buy from you without setting up an account - I can't locate it at the minute but I came across stats that showed that was one of the biggest reason people didn't bother purchasing from a company online.

When clicking on any of your products I have to scroll down to the bottom of the page to see your actual offerings because of various information about the process of getting the job - bring the products to the top and put that info at the bottom because you're also repeating yourself within each product page about sending the design to [EMAIL="sales@val....com"]sales@val....com[/EMAIL]

The site is clean and colourful which suits the type of business which I like. I think with some spring (or autumn cleaning now) it'll be bringing in some business soon.

Hope that all didn't sound negative! Best of luck with it.

tricky D

Your special offers product images and many others elsewhere are scaled down versions and don't look good. If you are displaying an image at 175x59 on a page, use an image which is that size, not one that is 880x299.

There doesn't seem to be enough SEO done for keywords/phrases and locality.

You are using the meta description for keyword/phrase stuffing. It's for description so use it to describe what is on each individual page (with keywords as required), but not solely for keywords. Forget about the meta keywords stuff, it's ignored.

As already mentioned your product page layout needs to change, but also you need to redo the type to highlight info like price better.

A lot of your email addresses are notmailtos, they should be.

Also you need to address the potentail issue with files for print being to large to be sent to/from some ISPs. If my ISP has a 10MB cap, how do I send a 50MB file?

I can't find any decent info on supported file formats, resolutions, RGB/CYMK, bleeds and the like.

worc wrote: »

Grey seems to be such a popular colour to make text online lately, but it drives me crazy - I prefer black and change website fonts to black when I can. I find it hard to read your left navigation links - again though that's personal preference.

Why, oh why is this so popular? It instantly alienates over 10% of users. Black on white has been working best for centuries now when reading blocks of text. As a printer you should be aware of this. It's a bad reinvention of the wheel as a square.

Valdez

I want to thank both of you for the insight you have given me. This is exactly what I needed. I'm going to work on making those changes. Some of them I won't know how to change as I'm not a proper web/coder. But I will figure it out.

I'm going to use both if these post as check list and make those changes. I really want to thank both of you for taking the time to give you experience.

When I make those changes I will get back to you guys and see what you think. If you think of anything else please let me know. There's slot of good gems here.

pfurey101

How did you go about researching your keywords/phrases for Adwords? Are you sure you have the right keywords - you may be attracting the wrong visitors if you have the wrong keywords.

pieface_ie

On your "about" page, i would rephrase the first sentence removing the word "cheap". rephrase something like ....company offering large discounts on printing etc.

You should also try tap into the college's. Around summer exam time students print and bind their projects/thesis. Drop into the colleges and put up a poster on the notice boards. If you can offer a good price to students you will get their business.

VMotion

Valdez, you have to resize your images. You can do it even in Paint. Visitor downloads huge images to see them reduced. It adds up significantly to your page load time.
Printing is a quite competitive niche in the market. Try contacting different designers (they will do stationary designs and could drive clients to you). Print some flyers for yourself and go to Enterprise Board of your City/County and offer discounts to startups.

etcetc

who is your software provider for the tee shirt designing? is it a monthly deal or do you have to buy a licence

how did they integrate it into your site

it isnt very clear from the links and tabs that you can actually design your own tee shirt,i clicked on the banner because i knew it was a feature but it is not intutive

the software is flash based you should give customer notice of this

when i used the design tool the prices came back to me in dollars

overall nice feel to the site

some other comments

might be too many products on offer

you need a few more payment options other than paypal

Valdez

I think I going to do away with the t-shirt site. As I pay monthly for it and haven't had one sale. Is there anyone here that can help me fix the site up? And get other forms of payment options installed? And things to get the site noticed.

Trojan

Site is down at the moment - who are you hosted with?

Regards creating trust, you might find this blog post useful.

Valdez

Yeah sites been down since yesterday. I'm with a company called letshost.ie

VMotion

Valdez, you need to lodge a support ticket with your host about your site being unavailable.
It could be a payment issue or anything else.

Is there any business plan behind your operation?
Adwords is not the wisest choice of advertising for your product.
Who is your target customer?

Trojan

VMotion wrote: »

Adwords is not the wisest choice of advertising for your product.

AdWords is usually an important part of any advertising strategy. The way you use it is what's important.

Valdez

I got onto the host and The site is back up.

Valdez

Also just to add, you see atm I am print for a couple of charities about 7 from the UK/Ireland and around 12 for the rest of Europe. but I was thinking to start to outsource to the public or even to designers that need stuff printed at a good price and try to expand/build it up.