8 replies to this topic

[Arctrust]

Hello Guys:

Thank you in advance of taking the time out to review and critique our site www.BoardroomTies.com

A few items of notable mention....

The site was launched in March 2003

We target the KW "neckties"

We achieved a rank of 8 on G (purely accidental) within 3months of launch

We currently rank 1 for "silk neckties" but that is not a widely utilized KW combination.

We got wiped out completely after 11/16 and now we rank about 270

We do OK on inbound links ( this is a constant process for us and we plan to continue link building )

We have a Yahoo store which currently limits the number of buttons to 25 and as such we are in a re-design process to remove that limitation so we an expand content.

If there is any further information I can offer - please let me know...

Again, thank you so very much for taking the time out to review our site - it is truly very much appreciated!!

ARC

[csjavi]

A few notes after a quick glance.

The index page is about 400 KB. That's way too much. People with slower connections won't even see your front page before going to another site. Using an external style sheet, removing some of the images and optimizing the rest will help. Using text links instead of image links in the list of manufacturers is better for several reasons.

The animated gif ( ) link is to the same image on americanexpress.com, not to their front page. The same thing with some other image links.

There a several ties that are sold out. Is there a point in displaying these on the site?

"Free Dress Socks", "Free Gift Boxes", "Free Shipping", "Browse Our Values" look like links but aren't.

[spidbot]

just a few thoughts on the home page - you have lots of logos (do you really need them all?), some click through to pages in your site (fine!) some just open up an image file (like Froogle and Dealtime - not fine) and some open up new sites (epublic eye). Words can also be worth a thousand pictures.

you need to be consistent - otherwise you confuse the user. Worst still if you do click on an image (like Froogle) and then close it, your site is lost

All links to other sites should open in new windows, so the user can return to your site easily

Hope this helps

James

:upsidedown:

[spidbot]

If you want your "Monthly special" to attract more response I suggest you move the button up or give it more prominence elsewhere at the moment it is lost in button land....

Also the monthly special closes on December 20th - 2003 or 2004?

Liked the lateral thinking on the career section (well I would wouldn't I), but why get traffic to your site and send it away? - as I said above all links should open as new windows - you don't want to send people to monster and have them stay there (not everyone wants to use the "back" button)

Perhaps I should add a dressing for interview section to my site!

James

[Arctrust]

Hey Guys:

Great feedback!!!

Keep it all coming!!! after all.... our customers dont complain... they just go elsewhere when they dont like what we have...

Any suggestions on KW density to rank higher???

We target the keyword "neckties"

Thank you!!

ARC

[spidbot]

Just think you should have more relevant words/phrases on your pages and less images (particularly your home page) as search engine robots read words

Also your page titles could do with having a key word or phrase - "Hugo Boss Ties" rather than just "Hugo Boss" for example

We do not have neckties in NZ and we didn't have them in the UK - we had 'ties', so when you move to international markets you will have to think all over again

I would search for "silk ties" for example rather than "silk neckties"

Also if you have any ideas on my site (posted under this same forum) that would be good

[Matt B]

I'll second the size of the homepage, on a dial-up it took me about 4 minutes for the page to completely load. No one has patience for that. Even on broadband the homepage almost took more than I usually have patience for . . .

You need to optimize those images right away. As that load time is a killer. The first way to do that is to make the size of the jpg the actual size needed in the page. If the HTML size of the pic is 100 x 100, then make the jpg 100 x 100. Cramming a 300 x 300 picture into a 100x100 space, you are wasting load time.

For example, the pic of the coliseum is 415 x 82 on the page, but the actual size of the pic is 842 x 217. You are throwing in a bunch of useless data, as the user has to download the actual image at the larger size, then the browser has to recalculate the size of the image to fit the HTML dimensions, which also takes up processor time on a user's computer. The same image shows 54 inches by 14 inches in Photoshop. You did re-size it to 15 ppi, but 72 is standard.

My initial reaction was dissapointment that most of my wait resulted in pictures of the coliseum and a mall, rather than pictures of ties. Ties are the reason I am going to the site. As a potential buyer I want to see the stunning ties, not the inside of a mall. I'm shopping online because I want to avoid the mall. Don't display the ties at the bottom of the homepage, where I have to scroll, put them right up front, where I can see some of them and say "WOW."

Another thing I would change is actually getting the images into your site, rather than linking to other websites, yahoo stores, and the like.
That may cause you serious problems if you don't have permission to link your images from other people's sites. Not only that, but if another site changes their image, you have no control over it and you end up with a broken image link. Get permission to use the images, optimize them, and keep them in a directory on your own site.

I hope I wasn't too harsh, but you are hitting a few things that are causing you problems not only from a user standpoint, but also a legal standpoint.

Best of luck - I'll be checking in as I'm always on the look out for some nice, unique ties.

[Arctrust]

Matt:

Thank you !!!

Your insight with the pictures and resizing was very, very helpful.

I did not know any of what you just went to the trouble to explain....

ARC

[Matt B]

No problem at all!

Just post or PM me if you have any additional questions, I'll be glad to help.