Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi,

Nice and warming site! It exudes the touch
of professionals.

I surfed the with ease. I did get confused by the
letters on the bottom and the tool bar/menu. Wanted
to know the difference. I perferred the menu.

When I clicked on the picture I thought the hyperlink
went to seperate departments as it deplays on the pic.

I like your story on the about page. I would have loved
to have seen a photo of the two who became frustrated.
I believe it would make the visit personalized.

On your resource page, the font type is much smaller than
the other pages. Also, I see that you have your affiliate
links on there as well. Do you want to give your visitors
a reason to leave? As well, you always have your links
open to a seperate page. Think about it! If they`d stumbled
across your site on Google, then click on one of your
links, they are gone. They have forgotten about you.
Should you have to have links on your site going somewhere
else, have them open in a new window.

One last thing, on your home page, offer something where
you can capture visitors email addresses so that you can
touch them weekly. Start a ezine with tips. Something!

I hope you find some value in what I`ve shared. I`ve
been studying and still studying the art of building a
website.

Continue to make this an Awesome day!

Won`t Be Denied!
C.F. Jackson

• I didn`t like that it is wider than the screen and one needs to scroll sideways to see the right 1/3 of the site.
• Don`t know why if I`m looking at carpets and click on "p" at the bottom of the page it takes me to chandeliers. None of the links on the bottom made sense to me, but I may be missing something.
  
• Think that the standard is to have a clear separation between the front part of the website and the legal section. The design should be close enough that they are clearly the same site but on one part you are trying to make the customer feel at home, and on the other you are stating things from a legal point of view. IMO the legal part should do away with all the decorations and be a stripped down version of the front end (decor wise), this is business and it should convey that sentiment.
• You have an 800 number on the `about us` page, think you should display that prominently so that those customers that are not fully sold can call you and have any questions answered right then and there.
  
• I`m not sold on the navigation bar on the top, something funky there.
  You have assorted products for sale on the "Home" page, then a "Products" page with another set of assorted items
  The order is also a tad off, you have Home with products, then four tabs about the company then two more tabs about products then two tabs about my account. I would take another look at that order and duplication of tabs.
  
• All your prices have
  Our Price: US$25.00
  Retail Price : US$30.00
  should that read "suggested Retail Price"?
  

When I first opened the site, I felt the warm, rustic feeling you wanted to come across.

 I second the side scroll comment: it is an inconvenience to scroll across the screen

 The layout of products seems a bit disjointed. For instance, when I click on “Rustic Kitchen and Bath” the layout isn’t even. The amount of words used to describe products should also be uniform, too much white space in some instances and not enough in other instances.

  Other than those two issues, I like your site very much – great job.

 Here are examples for you: Mac cosmetics have their products going from top to bottom, where as bluefly have their products presented horizontally and vertically.

 http://tinyurl.com/2rtljm

 http://tinyurl.com/359ge9

 One last thing, I’m guessing you are hosting with godaddy because of the godaddy banner on your website. I am building a website that is being hosted with godaddy. I’m having trouble getting my form connected with the mysql database on go daddy. If you can help me I’ll appreciate it. I’m using Dreamweaver to build my website.

 Thanks

Sydni

That doesn`t surprise me! The site feels very Minnesota, northwoods, that whole thing. Which is good. Great job conveying the northwoods sort of brand feeling. I have a very cabin-like home in Excelsior on a heavily wooded lot ... on a lake ... could I get more Minnesotan?