39 replies to this topic

[Datagg]

Right off the top here id like to state that this site contains areas of adult content.

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2 months now out of the gate. Lots of changes and Im wondering what you all think thus far. Trying to get that look to inspire buyers is tough, and im wondering if you think I have done so. Just added an adult section. I did it so its 3 links deep, with a warnign page of sorts. i thought this to be a good idea, to maintain a seperate sections of sorts. Trying to keep away from the pron look, while still having things on site that would possibly be considered as such.

Anyways. Im looking for if you have the time.

1) Overall site appearence ( have i achieved that passion to wanna buy) or am i missing the mark?

2) Trying to get in the all so deep keywords as lingerie etc. Tough task indeed. Am i on the right track SEO wise, or am i missing the mark?

3) The adult section, lower link on left, goes to a warning page of upcoming material. Good idea? or too much over the top?

4) Any other suggestions you may have.

I thank you all in advance for any information you can deliver on this site. As said, its been live for 2 months now. Seeing allot of pages being added to engines ( domain wise ) not in individual phrases or keywords, except for brocade lingerie, but this isnt a popular term, so Ill assume that why I am seeing results on that phrase.

Sorry for any typos, ive been up all night and my typing skills are suffering.

Site is once again http://girlfriendslingerie.com

FYI- This is a Yahoo merchant site. Im using custom HTML on most pages, and surrounding it with store tags, which are generated at Yahoo end. Therefore, im dealing with allot of crap code etc. Ive dealt with this as best as I can. Using the catalog manager ordeal, has assisted me in time wise for adding products, yet also is a bit of a pain in the custom end. A validator code is rejected thru the site builder upload process. If added manualy to site on server end, it messes up the generated outcome of the builder. So from aside from that, i have reached the point of no return of sorts to begin again. Unless of course it is believed by you all that the code just plain sucks and an entire new site needs to be built.

Thank you all for your time.

Bless All

Dan

[tomsk]

Dan

I am new to seo but reading on the forum I think the <META CONTENT="15 days" NAME="revisit-after"> is not any use and should be removed.

I believe you are in a highly competitive market but a market that is growing bigger all the time and a shift in attitude to your industry, but I think the consumer is looking for a sharp well designed shopping experience which I think your site has but then IMO you let yourself down on your links which I think give way to the more seedier side of this industry.

I guess I am trying to say is that your average person who is looking for your products probably may judge your site on some of your links and think there is an element of it being sex driven as opposed to product driven.

Two other point I personally do not like sites that are not central on a page yours on my screen is tight to the left hand side and secondly I would change the first page text colour its a bit to much of the same colour.

[Datagg]

Thank you mr ryan, i shall remove it..

Anyone else. coem on now, i knwo we have some sharp cookies in here. Jill, perhaps your thoughts if you have the time. There may be chocolate involved here...

[Connie]

Dan I can only reply as a user not a SEO. I do have a couple of suggestions from a user perspective.

I would reword the goal of the web site to something like our goal is to provide you with high quality lingerie at affordable prices. Every one who has a shopping site wants repeat business.

Overall your web site is about what I would expect to find if I were looking for lingerie.

Personally I think you should take the link to adult products off. If you want to sell that you should set up an entirely different web site. I know adult products have a place on the web. Thats an entirely different issue. I would not want a young child to find your site and then be able to access the adult novelty products.

Just an old mans opinion.

[Datagg]

Thank you connie. I did try to set up teh adult section kinda off the main path of sorts. I do see what ya mean though. As of now, fund are a bti tight, I just may do a new domain down the road, but as of now I hope that making it 3 links deep into adult section i set it up as best as i could. Thru the warning page etc.

As for the writing on main, I will indeed revisit that. Catchign that emotion for viewers is such a hard path to find.

Thank you for your opinions, i appreciate them .

Dan

[Scottie]

I don't have time to do a site review right now, but I did take a look since I used to be a buyer for a dept store in this genre.

Your bra care tips had me giggling. I'm a terrible person I guess- I don't rotate my bras to allow them to "breathe". I don't know that it's wearing them out faster (and it doesn't really worry me.) Your site isn't selling everyday underwear either, so the articles look kind of fakey to me.

Articles on setting the mood, great dates, bringing sparks back into your marriage, fun "games" would all be appropriate to what you are selling and encourage sales.

The keyword stuffing on the bottom of the page is not a good thing, IMO. You can add a footer that's informative and includes keywords without simply listing them as a laundry list. (oops, laundry... my poor bras!)

You didn't fill out the required questions (I ought to shut this thread down!) and that may be why you aren't getting many responses (although I know for a fact that several male moderators decided they needed to do a site review... )

Are you selling to men or women? It's hard to say. I'm not talking about who the products are for, but who's buying them. Women buying for themselves or the men in their life, men buying as gifts? Right now, there is no real "voice" for the site, it doesn't appeal to either.

I think the adult content gimmick will backfire as well. Unless you just like people using your bandwidth to look at pictures. If you created the site to sell, focus on selling and not becoming a freebie adult site.

[Datagg]

Thank you for your words Scottie. And thanks for not killing the thread. I admit I skimed on the questions, lack of sleep, etc, no excuse and im sorry.

The site is for Men & Women , im trying to create an atmosphere that both can relate to. Yet it is a tough write up to do it. The adult section, I may in time get anotehr Domain name for it, but as of now, in my opinion there is a callig nfor these type of products also. Tryign to stay on the classy side as much as I can, I added the adult section of the main path if you will, plainly showing that adult content is ahead. I dont see to many other sights, offering at least in a respectfull manner as i tried to do, to lay these pages behind a cloak of warnings what is ahead. As far as the keywords at bottom, ive heard many mixed views on this, are you sayign in an SEO stand point that this is a no no, or just personal preference. I certainly dont want to hurt ranking that I hoep wil grow, so if that is the case Ill remove them.

Again I appologize for not including the questions up front that I should have.

[Scottie]

You can still do it.

But I'd advise you to decide ahead of time who you are selling to, or you end up selling to no one. If you don't know your market, you need to get to know it in order to succeed.

Who makes the bulk of lingerie purchases? Men? Women? How old are they? Married? Single? What's their income level?

Without targeting your audience, it's just another affiliate site. Or a free adult site that happens to offer lingerie.

Here's why- with the adult content, you'd better be going after male shoppers. Many female ones won't appreciate that. If you are targeting male shoppers, does looking at naked pictures make them want to buy a new outfit for their inflatable girlfriend? (Sorry, J/K! ) Or is it enough to look at pictures and now they don't care about buying lingerie anymore? If it drives more purchases, then great. Honestly, I don't know either way.

Stop thinking about rankings and start thinking about business first. Targeting high-search adult phrases doesn't necessarily bring paying traffic.

From my experience, very few men actually make lingerie purchases. They do enjoy looking at them online, but they don't buy. Just a hint.

[delridge]

Speaking of target market...

I seem to remember seeing somewhere, in another lingerie site review thread (could have been on some other forum, I can't remember where), the business' owner mentioning he was surprised to find that a third of his customers were actually male transvestites (how he found that out, I have no idea). They liked the anonymity of buying over the internet.

Now, don't take that to mean you need to revamp all the photos!

Matt

[McFox]

I like the pictures

[Scottie]

But did you buy anything?

You don't have to admit it if you are a transvestite...

That's the point I'm making. You might get plenty of people visiting to look, but do they buy? Or is providing adult content the goal of the site?

[McFox]

If OWG freely admits he's a sheep-sha, ahem, I have no idea what you mean, Scottie. I was simply commenting on the aesthetic quality of the images.

[Connie]

But did you buy anything?

You don't have to admit it if you are a transvestite...

That's the point I'm making.  You might get plenty of people visiting to look, but do they buy?  Or is providing adult content the goal of the site?

I didn't get off the 1st page. My original comments were based on the home page.

The graphic there was great. At 60 it didn't entice me to look further. If I was going to order the products based on the front page I would rather order them from "Victorias Secrets" cataloge or what ever it is named rather than order from a web site that I know nothing about. It looks to me like you are an affiliate site. Nothing wrong with that but the site does nothing to inspire my confidence.

To me one of the things that builds distrust is the link to adult only material. What is the target market? It could be both men and women who are looking for exotic lingerie.

From personal experience both men and women do look for and buy exoctic lingerie .

For me one of the turn offs is the link to Adult material. Even a site that is offering exotic lingerie is kind of border line but links to Adult only material makes the site an Adult only site. I don't care how many steps and warnings the user has to go through to get to the Adult material, any 6 year old can still access the Adult material.

I did not think about this until I read a womans point of view "Scottie's".

Your don't have a lingerie site. You have an "exoctic lingerie site" If I were actually looking for a bra, panties, bath robe or whatever for my wife, girlfriend or whatever, I would probably not buy from your site. Since I didn't go beyond the first page you may offer that. That is not my impression from the first page. In fact many shoppers (especially women) will be offended at the graphics if they are looking for "lingerer". I know in the last few years what is advertised on TV, and major catalogs have changed. I accept those changes of women in panty and bra.

I'll get off my rant, but "Scottie" you are right.

If I were looking for "exotic lingerie" I might buy if the site gained my trust.

The site would never gain my trust when it provides links to Adult only material. I don't trust Yahoo so why would I trust you?


Where is your money coming from? Adult or Lingerie? You have some hard decisions to make. If your sales can't survive another $15.00 per year for domain registration, and $10.00 per month to host a domain you will never survive IMO.

[Datagg]

Thank you for all of your comments. On a good note, 3 orders came in today. ! Was from a male, who ordered a piece of lingerie for his wife. The next one was a male who ordered for himself, in the men’s section. The third was a woman, who bought fishnet products.

So although I see all of your points, I also have to look at it as a point of view. Perhaps shared by many, perhaps not. Based on a 2 month e store right out of the gate, having now a total of 7 orders thus far, im second guessing whose right and who’s wrong. I’ve heard from people they like the site, ive heard from ones who didn’t, and of course the it’s ok people. Yet how am I supposed to view this. An adult section that is going to kill my site and offend, or isn’t as the 7 orders in 2 months has occurred. Each one wrote in a testimonial of kind words, ive had no complaints; yes ive lost a couple of link exchanges do to the adult section, yet again how am I supposed to view this. Pack up and close it down, fall to the way side of the ones who don’t like it, or admire the ones who do.

Very tough call indeed. Again I respect all of your opinions here and thank you for them. As Scottie said, yes but did you buy? Perhaps not, yet 7 others did. That’s also has to be a factor in the equation.

Edited by Datagg, 24 August 2004 - 10:40 PM.

[Jill]

Then I guess you're all set!