2 replies to this topic

[scouseflip]

Hi all

I had a review of this site www.justdine.com some time ago and since then quite a bit has happened. I have been able to get some really good positions in Google for a number of the phrases I have been targetting - 1st page in a number of cases, all on the home page, but now I want to go a step better and hope to start getting some better rankings for some of the other pages. I also want to improve my rankings for some of the more general search terms as these are where the really big volume is!

I have also made a number of design changes and created addtional pages so I'm looking for some feedback on these. In particular the View Ranges pages and also the footer which I have used for a lot of internal linking and also linking between other sites belonging to the same company. I am worried that it is starting to look a bit spammy - if I'm honest they are there mainly for the SE's, but I do get some visitiors navigating through these links so I'm undecided about it!

Thanks in advance:

General
Is this site completed or under construction?
Completed... but continually being developed.

How long has the site been up?
Since about Feb this year, but with a major reworking in April/May time when I completely redesigned the site and moved from htm to aspx pages.


SEO
Do you have incoming links?
Yes - webmaster tools recognises about 82. So not many really. I do engage in reciprocal linking but am careful to check who I link to - admittedly was not so careful earlier on.


What keywords are you targeting?
Initially, 'Cane Dining Furniture', 'Conservatory Dining Furniture', 'Rattan Dining Furniture' and 'Wicker Dining Furniture'. Normally in top 10 on Google for these but I want to expand to the more generic terms (as above but without specifying 'dining'). Current positions for these vary but around page 3 on average.


Do you want your code reviewed for errors or improvements?
Yes please - in particular cross browser issues could be a problem as I developed it in IE6


Marketing
Who is your target audience?
Gender - both, but we find that females are often the decision makers in our purchases
Nationality - UK based
Age Range - difficult to be specific but vertain the older customer
Income/Education level - Conservatory owners, so wealthy and oftern well educated
Likes/Dislikes -like to try before they buy!


Why is your site different from sites selling/offering similar info/goods/services? Why will someone want to do business you?
The site itself is not really offering much that other sites do not. I have not been able to develop the articles section as much as I would like. The site is promoting a brand of the main company that specialises in the dining area of conservatory furniture, and the companies proposition is its strength. We buy direct rather than sourcing from the UK so can undercut most of our competitors in terms of the quality we provide compared to the prices we charge. We deliver to the whole of the UK and have showrooms around the country (which is important to our customers - they like to be able to try the furniture before they buy), and none of our competitors can offer this.

I have tried to build the site to be easily navigated, informative and aestetically pleasing.


How important is usability?
Very. A number of competitor sites are messy and confusing so I want this to be a strength of the site.


What is the purpose of the site? (inform, sell, online community, support B&M business, contact info only, etc)
Ultimatly it is to generate brochure requests, although it is also currently trying to promote a new transactional site that is still in testing. Thus you may see links to this site in various places around the site.


Design
Do you want design suggestions?
Always!


Feel free to complete a test brochure request - if you enter HR TEST in the surname field I will be able to distinguish any tests from genuine requests.


Thanks for your time

[oneofthe3lions]

Quite simple and tidy looking generally. I dont like the fact that the footer is so big tho. I would tidy that up, get rid of half of it. You have showsites navigation at the side so I would get rid of the individual links to them individual show sites or a start.

I would put 'view ranges' above the 'brochure' in the the main navigation. I makes sense that they would wish to look at what you have before they request a brochure.

I also dont like the spammy bit regards buying online. It is at the top incorporated into your banner so if you have to repeat it have another call to action at the bottom, not the 2 big spammy lines that exist now.

Is conservatory dining furniture the best target for you? Personally cant see that being a common phrase. conservatory furniture yes, dining furniture yes, but conservatory dining Im not so sure Ive heard that expression very often. Id be more inclined to lean towards the rattan and cane phrases myself.

I would also change 'show sites' to 'showrooms' as again makes more sense to general public.



i.e navigation to me would be much better for a visitor as:

home - about us - view ranges - brochure - offers -purchase online - showrooms - contact

the links and articles could be put together as one page also without problem.



Your titles could still use a bit more variation. Make them more unique.

[scouseflip]

Thanks for your reply...

Point taken re: the footer - I've removed the Showrooms listings as suggested along with the links to the ranges pages - agree it looks better like this.

Not sure about the buy online bit... its not actually in the banner - that is about a brochure request. The buy online site is a seperate site that we are not activly promoting as we are still testing, so I have been trying to drive small volumes of traffic there through this site in order to test it really. I have taken the lines out as you suggested and incorporated an additional bullet point to carry the buy online message. I see your point about the other lines looking spammy as they did carry keywords - but not sure the current link is enough... I'll give it some more thought.

I have changed show sites to showrooms now - fair point again!

As far as keywords go I'm lucky in that I have the benefit of research from our PPC activity on our main brands. I identified 'conservatory dining furniture' and 'cane dining furniture' initially as they are the bigger volume keywords for the product the site is promoting. Quite a few people do search these terms and if they do so, I have a site selling what they are looking for.

Admittedly the volumes are only a fraction of what the more generic terms generate but experince has shown that if someone searches for 'conservatory furnuiture', they are looking sofas and as such are not interested in conservatory dining furniture. As mentioned in the initial post, I do want to expand towards the more geneic terms now to capture the wider audience, but I started with the specific because 1) its more relevent and 2) I could rank higher, quicker (again from experience for another site I targetted at the generic terms, I get a lot more traffic being page 1/2 for these lower volume terms than I would on page 5 of the big volume terms!)

The titles I can work on, but the navigation... not so sure really. I get the point about the logical order being to see the product first, but the purpose of the site is to generate an enquirey so in that sense I'd rather keep the attention focused on the brochure button. I don't think the ranges bit is obscured by the brochure button anyway - if the visitor wants to see the product I feel it is clear enough how they can do so... I'd welcome any other opinions on this.

I have mixed the navigation up a bit - not quite following your suggestion, but thanks for making me think about it.