riopcs Posted January 1, 2007 Share Posted January 1, 2007 I'm open for all the pro's & con's ! Constructive criticism welcome!! FYI this is my first site i am fuly launching live! after 6 months.. i am sure work needs to be done, i just need help figuring out what to tweak it that much more! Rio Computers THANKS! :D Riopc.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason32835 Posted January 3, 2007 Share Posted January 3, 2007 You have a good start, you can tell that you have done a lot to modify the template, and I know that can be a challenge. That being said, you have a few issues: Your site is loading very slowly, I think you need a thumbnail contribution. Also, your images don't "enlarge" any when you click on them. So maybe just get rid of that feature. You MUST have SSL if you want anyone to purchase anything from your site. Get rid of the currency drop down if you are only going to use USD. Most people don't care when a product was added to your catalog. I would suggest getting rid of that. "Congradulations to Ian M.!" Spelling errors will kill your customer trust factor. Since you already have an "800" number, I would show it on your main page, perhaps even above or below your logo. Personally, I think your background looks very home spun. I would think solid black or dark grey would look very nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Victor Wise Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 Hi Jeremy, Your site looks nice. With the exception of a few points, I think it is one of the better oscommerce sites I have seen lately. The biggest recommendation I could make would be to follow all of Jason Herman’s advice. Especially regarding the SSL. On a slight tangent, I see that you already added your telephone number to the template “Call toll free: 1-877-555-5555”. At the risk of sounding crazy, I would recommend you moving the phone number right underneath the logo like Jason recommended. Also, there is really no need to put ‘call toll free’. Just have the number beneath your logo. Or you could have a small motto such as ‘where computers come from 1-877-555-5555”. You may be asking what the point is in moving your phone number over an inch? How can it benefit you? The reason I suggest this is not to make the phone number easier to find, but to reinforce customer trust in your website. You would be surprise how many sales lack of trust costs the typical website. Especially high cost items such as you are selling. Even if people aren’t looking for your phone number, they will notice it when it is underneath the logo. This will make them trust your business more and will increase the chances of a sale. They will still order online, but with piece of mind that if they really wanted to talk to someone they could. On another note, I would recommend getting bigger buttons. The rule of thumb is that you should be able to see the button clearly when looking at your monitor from the other side of the room. In regards to the background, I think you might gain a little by switching colors. Your white background reminds me of using msword, excel, or other non-fun activities (just my humble opinion). Perhaps a very light blue background could improve the look of things. Also, color psychology tells us that blue is associated with trust. One thing I particularly like about your website is the full descriptions you have for each product. On an advanced marketing note, I would recommend making some of your copy promote the benefits of your products, instead of just the features. Take the HP LaserJet 1022 you are selling for $242 http://www.riopc.com/laserjet-1022-p-434.html This page does a great job promoting the printer. However, how are people going to find this product on the net? Typing in ‘photo printer’ in google and arriving at your page is one way (by the way, about 109,000 people typed in ‘photo printer’ last month). However, what about the 1.9 million people that typed in ‘photo printing’ last month? Sure, many of them are looking for a service, but some clever marketing could really draw some of those searches to your site and even sell a few printers. For example, imagine someone types in ‘photo printer’ on google. They see an adword ad that reads ‘easy photo printing / print out digital photo’s yourself quickly and cheaply / from your home using a photo printer.’ After clicking on this ad, they come to a landing page with a headline that reads: ‘Easy photo printing from home’ “Are you looking to print out some digital photos? Tired of the hassle of ordering prints online? Our photo printers make printing out photos easy Save money and time by printing out your own photos. No need for scissors, all of our printers come with 8X10 photo paper making printing your own photos easy. You can even print professional quality large portraits (up to 15 inches) with no noticeable difference in quality” This type of advertising strategy could help you break into what is already an over saturated market. It would also help your SEO efforts. Just make sure you familiarize your self with google’s June 2006 algorithm update before attempting any of this stuff. Good luck! Best Regards, Victor Wise Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tastar Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 Congratulations is misspelled on the home page. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason32835 Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 Hi Jeremy, Your site looks nice. With the exception of a few points, I think it is one of the better oscommerce sites I have seen lately. The biggest recommendation I could make would be to follow all of Jason Herman’s advice. Especially regarding the SSL. On a slight tangent, I see that you already added your telephone number to the template “Call toll free: 1-877-555-5555”. At the risk of sounding crazy, I would recommend you moving the phone number right underneath the logo like Jason recommended. Also, there is really no need to put ‘call toll free’. Just have the number beneath your logo. Or you could have a small motto such as ‘where computers come from 1-877-555-5555”. You may be asking what the point is in moving your phone number over an inch? How can it benefit you? The reason I suggest this is not to make the phone number easier to find, but to reinforce customer trust in your website. You would be surprise how many sales lack of trust costs the typical website. Especially high cost items such as you are selling. Even if people aren’t looking for your phone number, they will notice it when it is underneath the logo. This will make them trust your business more and will increase the chances of a sale. They will still order online, but with piece of mind that if they really wanted to talk to someone they could. On another note, I would recommend getting bigger buttons. The rule of thumb is that you should be able to see the button clearly when looking at your monitor from the other side of the room. In regards to the background, I think you might gain a little by switching colors. Your white background reminds me of using msword, excel, or other non-fun activities (just my humble opinion). Perhaps a very light blue background could improve the look of things. Also, color psychology tells us that blue is associated with trust. One thing I particularly like about your website is the full descriptions you have for each product. On an advanced marketing note, I would recommend making some of your copy promote the benefits of your products, instead of just the features. Take the HP LaserJet 1022 you are selling for $242 http://www.riopc.com/laserjet-1022-p-434.html This page does a great job promoting the printer. However, how are people going to find this product on the net? Typing in ‘photo printer’ in google and arriving at your page is one way (by the way, about 109,000 people typed in ‘photo printer’ last month). However, what about the 1.9 million people that typed in ‘photo printing’ last month? Sure, many of them are looking for a service, but some clever marketing could really draw some of those searches to your site and even sell a few printers. For example, imagine someone types in ‘photo printer’ on google. They see an adword ad that reads ‘easy photo printing / print out digital photo’s yourself quickly and cheaply / from your home using a photo printer.’ After clicking on this ad, they come to a landing page with a headline that reads: ‘Easy photo printing from home’ “Are you looking to print out some digital photos? Tired of the hassle of ordering prints online? Our photo printers make printing out photos easy Save money and time by printing out your own photos. No need for scissors, all of our printers come with 8X10 photo paper making printing your own photos easy. You can even print professional quality large portraits (up to 15 inches) with no noticeable difference in quality” This type of advertising strategy could help you break into what is already an over saturated market. It would also help your SEO efforts. Just make sure you familiarize your self with google’s June 2006 algorithm update before attempting any of this stuff. Good luck! Nice feed back Victor.. I'd love it if you would give me a little of that keen eye ball ;) http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=242191 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gabrielk Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 Hope your site's not open for business, 'cause I'm getting a syntax error. :( I really recommend either 1) putting up a placeholder index page if you're site's not yet live (because trust me, people will visit it and search engines will find it, even if you never put a link up--spiders often track new domain registrations); or 2) creating a subdomain on your account and setting up a second osC database and doing all your development work there, then applying the changes to your live site during off-peak hours. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
riopcs Posted January 4, 2007 Author Share Posted January 4, 2007 Hope your site's not open for business, 'cause I'm getting a syntax error. :( I really recommend either 1) putting up a placeholder index page if you're site's not yet live (because trust me, people will visit it and search engines will find it, even if you never put a link up--spiders often track new domain registrations); or 2) creating a subdomain on your account and setting up a second osC database and doing all your development work there, then applying the changes to your live site during off-peak hours. Unfortunatly Gabriel you stumble upon my site while i am trying to implement OTF thumbnails. i have a CRE loaded template, and the HTML output file is just a hair different than that of the stock file. if you see that, please refresh it, as it is that way for only minor seconds. once maybe twice this morning. i have given up until i get a little coding help from forums, However thank you for the advice, every one adding is making this invaluable!!! Keep it coming guys!!! Thanks again!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
riopcs Posted January 6, 2007 Author Share Posted January 6, 2007 Hey Everyone- If you Havent done so already please take a look at my site, and add your thoughts here, any input you may have is excellent!!! Thanks for your input in advance! Jeremy Riopc.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TENCENTS Posted January 7, 2007 Share Posted January 7, 2007 I reckon you done a great job on the template (if it is a template). It looks very custom to me, like you've taken a bunch of good ideas (and coding) and combined them into a very good looking site, and you've basically left no stone unturned in the run-of-the-mill stuff; like the login and checkout which is where most sites (including mine) 'hum vanilla'. A bit on the slow side, but there's a lot of graphical stuff to justify that... if you haven't installed a thumbnailer mod like GD-Thumbs or ImageMagic you should (...of the two I think GD-Thumbs is the fastest but ImageMagic can do lots of cool stuff). It might not do much for the speed of your 'template' but it'll make your product graphics look perfect and easily resizable (on the fly). If you want to speed up your template/gui then maybe look at something like the Page-Cache contribution (by Chemo). In fact if you read his OSC Optimization posts you'll find a lot of good ideas about fine-tuning even heavily modded sites. :thumbsup: Never underestimate the power of stupid people, especially in groups. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
riopcs Posted January 8, 2007 Author Share Posted January 8, 2007 I reckon you done a great job on the template (if it is a template). It looks very custom to me, like you've taken a bunch of good ideas (and coding) and combined them into a very good looking site, and you've basically left no stone unturned in the run-of-the-mill stuff; like the login and checkout which is where most sites (including mine) 'hum vanilla'. A bit on the slow side, but there's a lot of graphical stuff to justify that... if you haven't installed a thumbnailer mod like GD-Thumbs or ImageMagic you should (...of the two I think GD-Thumbs is the fastest but ImageMagic can do lots of cool stuff). It might not do much for the speed of your 'template' but it'll make your product graphics look perfect and easily resizable (on the fly). If you want to speed up your template/gui then maybe look at something like the Page-Cache contribution (by Chemo). In fact if you read his OSC Optimization posts you'll find a lot of good ideas about fine-tuning even heavily modded sites. :thumbsup: TenCents - Thank you for the compliments, I Really Appreciate it. To Bring all who read this post uptodate - on the image cache contribute idea - I have set up image magic, i am just not sure if it is fully working, i am trying to get my template images to load quick as well, the thumb nails are pre optimized in Photoshop to be 4k and less, as well as my template images. if anyone has an idea to get that to load faster that would be AWSOME!!! i have done DB Optimizations, etc, i am just unsure how to make the mainpage load faster at first, once it is loaded it is relativly quick, appox 1-2 seconds. Any insight on that as well as any other needed mods, please dont hold back!!! Thanks again to all and keep it coming!!!! Jeremy Riopc.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jason32835 Posted January 8, 2007 Share Posted January 8, 2007 Jeremy, Here is the site I have used to help me determine what is slowing down my site. http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/ TenCents - Thank you for the compliments, I Really Appreciate it. To Bring all who read this post uptodate - on the image cache contribute idea - I have set up image magic, i am just not sure if it is fully working, i am trying to get my template images to load quick as well, the thumb nails are pre optimized in Photoshop to be 4k and less, as well as my template images. if anyone has an idea to get that to load faster that would be AWSOME!!! i have done DB Optimizations, etc, i am just unsure how to make the mainpage load faster at first, once it is loaded it is relativly quick, appox 1-2 seconds. Any insight on that as well as any other needed mods, please dont hold back!!! Thanks again to all and keep it coming!!!! Jeremy Riopc.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
riopcs Posted January 9, 2007 Author Share Posted January 9, 2007 Jeremy, Here is the site I have used to help me determine what is slowing down my site. http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/ Thanks forthat site!! i was able to cut some of my problems down with the loading! found my background had 626k that was un needed... so its gone, should help everyones overall load time - reported 500+ seconds on a 14.4k modem with background and ~139sec with a 14.4 after no background! anyother ideas are always welcome!!! Thanks in advance!! Jeremy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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