Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Craig (above) has a great idea!  Lay it all out... so yu can "see" it then come up with a structure on the site that makes sense.   There are lots of ways you can divide up the merchandise...

You really need to make your opening page pop, get rid of the all caps and get some fabulous photos of your work there. 

Think about these questions too:

1 - Why should I buy from you as opposed to someone else ?

2 - Do you offer refunds, exchanges, what methods of CC payment do you take?

The visitor has to know you are there for them.  Build trust.  Perhaps a page (on the backend for those interested) that speaks to how you come up with jewelry ideas, or your "philosophy"... Offer the visitor something they may not find else where.

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Web Site Design
Internet Marketing
Web Hosting

NewWard Development, LLC http://www.newward.com
"We Make Your Web Site Your Best Employee"

"Want a no hassel online experience?

You have come to the right place.

Need a gift? Need something unique?

ELEGANT CUSTOM JEWELERS has a large variety of Handmade Jewelry, Premade Jewelry and loads of accessories all priced right!

Can`t find it? We will find it or make it or design it!

We accept all major credit cards and Paypal."

This doesn`t sell me at all. Why is shopping online ever a hassle? It`s a simple e-commerce store ... I wasn`t even thinking hassle before you mentioned it.

Tell me ...
*why I want your jewlery.
*what makes you different.
*what makes you special to me.

Elegant Custom Jewelers
Why settle for the same necklace other people have when you can have a custom, one-of-a-kind piece of artwork that will leave people talking!

I bought something for a similar reason ... very simple thing, but people always ask about it. I have a picture and my reasoning here.

Pictures need to be larger and better. They are too dark. They need better lighting - diffuse lighting.

The multiple lines of Bracelets and Necklaces are confusing.
Support jewelry didn`t make sense to me until I clicked on it. That needs some clarification. And what makes them support bracelets? Donate a buck to the Komen Foundation for every purchase or something.

The descriptions need to be more romantic-sounding ... and no caps. Name the bracelets if you have to - make it unique. Like the "Betty" bracelet and the "Jill" bracelet.

That being said, I really like the jewelry. I just think the site needs work.

Well, I have made some Major Changes.  Color, Context and more.  I have only changed the top few. 

Please let me know if I am on the right track.

Appreciate it Greatly!

http://www.elegantcustomjewelers.com

 

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Chrisi
Deisigner
http://www.elegantcustomjewelers.com

You are getting much closer.  You still have three "Bracelets" and two "Necklaces" buttons on the left nav area.  Very confusing.

Now, let`s look at the copy:

The first two lines can be reduced to: "Elegant Custom Jewelers is the place for a wide variety of Pearls, Swarovski Crystals, Gemstone and so much more."

You can drop the " fine, elegant and unique Jewelry" because that`s what your images should imply, so it should be redundant.

I am not sure what this line says: "Custom Ordering is one of our great features. We match the Jewelry for You."  Maybe I am missing something, but it tells me nothing.

The tone of this line bothers me.  First it`s passive and second, "affordable" is relative.  "Our staff can help you pick out that perfect gift for that perfect someone at an affordable price."

To many "or"s, poor grammar: "Can`t find it? We will find it or make it or design it!"

Duh!
"We accept all major credit cards and Paypal."
This should never be on the front page.  I doubt that anyone would read this and say "I have to buy something because they take PayPal!"  It`s incidental information that does not sell your product.

You really need better photos.  Some of them have the shadow on top which makes them look upside-down.  Some of the larger items are out of focus, and they ALL lack color depth.  I suspect that bright colors are one of the significant attributes of the product, and your scanner images just don`t do you any favors.

Steve


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Steve Mann
Internet Videographer
MannMade Digital Video
My Email

Steve,
You`ve made really good points, and I agree that the copywriting is weak. Apropos the "we accept..." it`s not so much that people will be motivated to shop because the site accepts PayPal. Rather, it`s that before they even take the time to browse the site, the know that they`ll be able to buy using a credit card.

Reason it`s important is that for the moment, our site ONLY takes PayPal. Why? Because it costs too much to accept other credit cards, or checks. We make a statement on our home page because we don`t want to waste someone`s time as they look through the content, only to discover (no pun intended) that they can`t use their Mastercard to buy something.

I played with some of the photographs in Paint Shop Pro, and it would be easy enough to fix them. It`d just take time going through each one. But since ECJ intends to go through them all for resizing, that would be the time to also brighten them up and fix the colors.

Why not take credit cards through PayPal?

On the images, ECJ said that they used a desktop scanner to make the images, so the color depth is probably 8-bit, pretty thin for photographs.

Steve


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Steve Mann
Internet Videographer
MannMade Digital Video
My Email

We do take credit cards through PayPal. But many people don`t know how to do that, or don`t want to do it. We also likely will use Google Checkout. But there`s definitely an advantage for impulse buyers when they can simply enter their credit card info into an on-site shopping cart. And so it should be reference---not blatant, but elegantly.

Regarding scanned images, it doesn`t matter. Photo-editing in Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop would take care of it right quick. :-)

But it won`t fix the focus and shadow problems.

The quality of the jewelry is her biggest asset and she really needs professional product photos to show it off.  No amount of copy can say more than a good photo.

Steve


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Steve Mann
Internet Videographer
MannMade Digital Video
My Email

< =text/>_popupControl(); First, I would like to thank Craig for his constant help with this.

To Steve, I am not a professional photographer as you are.

I just do my best to scan the pictures.  My "title" is Designer. 

The pictures was something I was not even interested in fixing at this time.  I had bigger fishes to fry with other items on my site.

I built this site myself. A newbie to say the least.

If I had the money for a Photo Light Box or a professional photographer, don`t you think I would have a professional build my site??

I was asking for help, not for someone to push his own agenda.

Thanks, but no thanks.

 

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Chrisi
Deisigner
http://www.elegantcustomjewelers.com

From a coding aspect....

Your main page
Title: ELEGANT CUSTOM JEWELERS .... try something like
   "ElegantCustomJewelers.com - Handmade Jewelry, Bracelets, broaches"  ..... you get the idea. Your home page should have your domain name and a few keywords. You also have way too many keywords in your metas for this page, narrow it down to maybe a dozen of the most relevant for your site. And there is no meta description.

All other pages should have unique titles related to the content of the page with keywords included. You should try to only focus on a few overall keywords on each page. One word page titles don`t help, make it a keyword rich title, and place your domain name into it as well if it won`t make the title overly long. You also are lacking meta tags in your product pages; some people feel they are not as useful as they used to be, but put them in there anyway.

ALL links should have title tags in them, and ALL images should have ALT tags. I see H3 tags, but no H1 or H2 tags. More textual content on your main page is a must.

Your page also says it is XHTML 1.0 Strict .... it isn`t, with 21 errors in the W3C validator .... probably more the Yahoo programs fault than anything.






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M Hall
Website Critique Community
International Society of Curmudgeons