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Thread: what do you think to my website

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
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    Smile what do you think to my website

    ive just re done my website.
    Now its not great, as I dont have a lot of pictorial content yet, and, the market stall looks rubbish at the mo, BUT as a site, what do you think about useability, logic of links, page loading time etc......

    any comments greatly appreciated

    its at : ben buxton .com but i havent put a direct link cause of seo etc..

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
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    Spalding, Lincs
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    Hi Ben, checked out your website and it looks good, I like the little video at the begining.
    Love and light,
    Maggie[FONT="Comic Sans MS"][/FONT

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Aug 2009
    Location
    Birmingham, UK
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    ben buxton .com but i havent put a direct link cause of seo etc..
    Whadya mean Ben? Your going to need as many links as you can get with this site using frames.

    Frame websites are way out of date and totally search engine unfriendly, which means that you are highly unlikely to be found for any search term.

    A navigation bar along the top would be good to give guidance to the user as to where they should be going.

    Also, I wouldn't use a splash page either. people want to go straight into a site thesedays without landing on a homepage and then having to click again to get into the main site - you'll probably find that they won't bother.

    Apart from that though for a start, videos are good, but you also need loads of text with your keywords built into it and to get rid of the frames.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
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    Market Deeping
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    Sorry Ben
    I'm with Geti on this one, the links aren't easy enough and "click on the pictures" navigation (like the market stall), where you don't know where you're navigating makes me close a site.
    If you want to keep the clicky pic then some floating info when you hover over the picture would help e.g. "Earrings Close Up"
    The link going to the market stall wasn't imediately obvious as it could've been just Bold and Underlined text.

    Your work is high quality and your website needs some more work to reflect how good you are
    Nic x
    Monthly FREE entry giveaways on Blogs!
    Shop Blog: http://muranosilver.blogspot.com/
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  5. #5
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    Jul 2009
    Location
    Wexford Ireland
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    Oh sorry but me too, I just wanted to see the jewellery there, just straight in find what i'm looking for oopppsss

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Aug 2009
    Location
    London, UK
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    First thing: your front page is loading rather slowly for me. It took ages for the YouTube video to be visible, so I was sitting there wondering why on earth you had an image of a tv on your page. You need more content (words!) on that page.

    'Enter site' buttons irritate me. I'm already on the site! You should be giving me the information I want to see immediately before I go elsewhere.

    Clicked on the button - a big scrolling marquee and yet another video to wait for. A little bit of about text. Still no jewellery photos! And it's not obvious where to go to see them. No navigation links.

    Eventually I click on the market stall link - normally I wouldn't, because I'm not in the area so not interested. It's also not immediately obvious that it's a link.

    Market stall - down the side you have listed Sterling Silver, Gents Steel Range etc, but these aren't live links so I can't go straight to those sections. There isn't anything saying to click on sections of the image. There's only a link to your fashion jewellery at the top.

    So I click on that and just get a page full of images. None of them have names or descriptions and I can't click on them for more details. It's really not ideal.

    On a design side, the big brushed metal gradients at the top and bottom of the page look rather clumsy, and the brushed metal as a whole doesn't really go with the blue wallpaper background. I'm on a widescreen monitor, so I see an awful lot of that wallpaper around the sides and bottom of the page - I want more content and I want it to resize itself to my monitor.

    (And like Geti said, you *want* direct links going to your site! Having a link to your website in your signature here is a good thing - and you might have got more clickthroughs even from people reading this if you'd put in a live link and not made people copy and remove spaces).

    Um, I hope this is helpful instead of disheartening? Keep the design simple, with easy navigation and plenty of links and enough text so that people can see who you are, what you do, and what your products are. Videos are nice extras, but don't put them in pride of place - they slow everything down, and YouTube can have problem times. An empty gap where a video should go doesn't look good.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
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    567

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    Hi Ben!
    So, you're online & you're live! That's quite an achievement & I know that if I ever get to that stage I'll be v pleased indeed
    I guess that now it's up there you can twiddle & perfect....
    I did visit your site 3 times before I found all the links (only found them after hints from forum members) so I guess they're not that obvious. The whole look of the site is pretty retro - not my thing - but if that's what you're after, then all well & good. I thought the actual photos of the jewellery looked good - nice quality & lighting, although I had to travel quite far into the site in order to see them - be good to see at least one example of your work on the first page.
    I'm guessing it's a WIP, so looking forward to see what comes next!
    J x

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Posts
    59

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    I am busy building a website, and have been for what seems like ages already, and every time I get close to thinking I am almost finished I realise I am quite far from it actually.

    I have had alot of experience in forums and I know how it feels to show something you have worked hard on and then get alot of feedback that at first seems a bit lesser than you hoped. The thing is that feedback is a brilliant thing so often under-rated. Use it as anything else and to it's fullest potential.

    Putting that website together without much web-design knowledge is quite alot of work, I was wondering if you had paid somebody to design the website for you?

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    midlands
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    Default thanks guys...great feedback

    (alan) I think the frames MAY be because its domain forwarding?
    I dont actually have it on a domain of its own, it uses masked forwarding.

    The reason i didnt put the address, is cause when i was doing a site for a friend, i mentioned it on a forum, and forums are quite well indexed (try googling your own username, and cooksons) and it appeared places above the site did!!! NOT what i wanted!!

    The site was made using easy webpage maker, a wisiwig tool, and all self taught....i had done the homepage before, but the rest took a day.

    Apart from the costume jewellery photos, from the wholesaler! i am picture short (no lighting) so the content is stretched out!

    really, it was a question of putting what little content i had up, and trying to make it look interesting! More of me working, and my own stuff would be good..and is comming...but thanks u guys as youve answered most of my main queries, such as loading times, link readability, user friendliness etc.
    This is particularly true of the video and images, as i have quite a quick connection, so i get mislead, and am still learning about image and flash/vido optimisation.
    I loved my little telly showing the utube...i maually edited the utube link html to fit, and colorised it, and photshopped the telly image found on the net. it was just indulgent to include it as an intro page!

    Ive learned quite a bit, and still am, so if anyone has hosting or web questions, im happy to help...maybee we could make this a feature, as you feedback is great!

  10. #10
    Join Date
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    Rye Foreign, East Sussex
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    lol yes much better than my feedback, i lose connection as soon as you ask me to look lol
    Su' xx

    My FB fanpage -https://www.facebook.com/CintaHandCraftedJewellery
    My Website www.cintahandcraftedjewellery.co.uk

    I want to learn so much, and i want to know it all NOW!!!:p

    One day i will arrive

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