Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi...

Sites are under construction. It is an ongoing project to long to explain here. If interested checkout my other postings in the New member forum near the bottom of the forum list page...

Anyway.. I do graphics and am a former programmer. I am trying to make a living creating original art clocks and custom personalized clocks for my customers.... who most don`t even know I exist....

I am about penniless and probably will be homeless in about a month....and moving in with a relative....so I don`t have booku bucks to make this work...

Any simple and "free" suggestions to improve the website, what I am doing wrong (remember I know there are a lot of links that dead end at the moment), what I can do to improve the look ... etc....

I`ve got one main site and two others... It has been suggested that I consolidate and operate one site featuring items from the other sites... any comments on that?

Here are the sites:

Personalized Clocks from Your Photos and Original Art CLocks...
http://www.picturemyheart.com

Military oriented clocks of original design...as well as custom personalized:
http://www.militaryclocks.us

My officially licensed Western Michigan Sports clock site where I feature my licensed Football clock design as well as adding other sports clocks...this one is really "rough" at this stage...
http://www.wmuclocks.com

Hey thanks for your feedback... I can create great looking clocks and prints, and have a good feel for design.... but am not really sure on what i should be putting together as a site design that sells....

I tend to want to be creative and graphical, with some nice presentation art rather than a cold store type catalog...(maybe that is my downfall)...

Also any additional tips on how to promote and market the site on a ZERO-any type of budget...remember, I am nearly penniless and almost homeless!!!

LOL...kinda as I manage to halfway smile!

Thanks In Advance for contributions.... I do appreciate it!.

Stephen

Stephen M. Basly
PICTURE MY HEART, LLC
Kalamazoo, Michigan 49001
sbasly@sbcglobal.net

================================

-------------------------

Regards,
Stephen

Stephen M. Basly, Pres., Picture~My~Heart
sbasly@sbcglobal.net

More Than A Clock... It`s ART! ClockART by Picture-My-Heart (www.picturemyheart.com).

I create Original Art,and Custom Personalized Clocks & Framed Prints (from your photo`s or digital images, forming a composite design with text and background).
THE GIFT FOR GIVING! Very UNIQUE!!
www.picturemyheart.com

I only looked at the first link, very briefly, as the page took a long time to load.

In viewing the page source ...
1) Too many keywords in the metas, and many run together ( no space after the commas, the description meta is the same way )
2) Shorten your title
3) Move the javascript to another file and import it.
4) Images need alt tags, links need title tags.
5) Get inbound links from other sites.

In viewing the site ....
It is a dark theme. I`m not sure that the dark really comes across for your subject. I think that you should get the images of your work right up to the top; the large "Hot" image just seem out of place at the very beginning, and is almost, to me, too "intense".

Your nav menu isn`t the same on each page, which can throw people off when browsing.


-------------------------

M Hall
Website Critique Community
International Society of Curmudgeons

Really slow loading.  Way too many images on the home page.
It wasn`t until I clicked on the second URL that it was clear what you do.

Your home page should not be the whole sales pitch - just tell the viewer what you do, show an example, and lead them deeper into your site with targeted pages.  Gifts, sports, military, etc.  Not all on one page.


-------------------------

Steve Mann
Internet Videographer
MannMade Digital Video
My Email

Hi Stephan,

I like your product. From a non technical point of view, I would brighten it up a bit. Just some lighetr colrs so your neat product stands out. I love the tears of joy testimonial , it caught my attention. I actually recieved a gift from someone who put my daughters picture on a clock.I loved it and put in at my downtown office. You have a great product, just brighten it up a bit. Also what shopping cart will you use...there ae plenty of resonables ones out there, also ecrater has a free one.

 

Erin

-------------------------

Our Goal Is Your Success!
Founder Girls with Goals

I hate to hear that you have this dream and that it may be squashed because of becoming homeless. If you need any help plugging this along, let me know. I know the life of being homeless, as a kid I spent years living on the streets and trying to act like a normal kid. It can be devestating. So make a plan and don`t give up.

 

Erin

-------------------------

Our Goal Is Your Success!
Founder Girls with Goals

This came up previously, but I don`t think it`s worth it to have multiple sites selling different versions of the same product. Instead, you have product lines, and should keep the entire concept centralized.

I believe that having a single site is going to make your life much easier where it comes to visibility, page rankings, and optimization. In many ways, it`s like a "concept." Many people get partway up a pyramid of premises, but don`t make it to the top where there`s a single, unifying concept---the overall umbrella.

In my opinion, you sell customized clocks, works of art. We went through the same problem selling customized navy signal flags banners. If you sell a clock, it`s a commodity item. If you sell personalized stuff, that too is mostly a commodity. But when you sell a work of art, you`re in a whole other arena.

It`s hard enough to sell art in a commercial venture. Why make it more difficult by different sites?

The key, I think, is to find a perfect "hook." This could be a perfect tagline. In our case, it took us many start-overs to understand that we don`t sell flags, signal flags, or banners. We sell "secret messages." Then, having finally figured that out, we came to realize in our pricing structure that we sell flags. LOL!!

Yes, it sounds contradictory, but it`s not. Our *product* is a secret message. Most people can`t read signal flags without a decoder---a page that links each flag to an alphabet letter. But when it comes to buying a message, we sell that message "by the letter," which means by the flag.

You sell art. It happens to be on a clock. The clock also happens to have a practical value. But you`re not selling clocks! Anyone can buy a clock. Nobody can buy a clock that *looks like* the one you`ve designed! So what can you do with that idea? How do you come up with a perfect tagline?

We sort of fell into ours in discussions with people here on SuN, and talking with others about our overall business. It ended up being "anything you can spell, we can make." The picture of a banner of flags "explains" the tagline, and the two must go together to have meaning.

I`m on Firefox with a DSL line, and had no trouble with loading time on the page. Maybe it`s just a variable. However, I do agree that the pages are too "busy."

I`d like to see the huge graphic at the top of the "my heart" page that talks about new releases....gone. It`s too big, tells me nothing, and reduces your meaningful info to nearly the bottom of the screen. Instead, I`d like to see the menu along the left with a products division: Family clocks, Military clocks, and whatever other branches of the overall product line.

Note that I keep saying types of clocks. And that`s the bottom-line problem. You don`t sell clocks!! We need a word-concept that sells something very different. The images themselves will instantly show the "medium" of your art, which happens to be clock faces.

Another product line, which you should allow for in the future, is plates--not to eat off of, but as art. Lots of people buy decorative plates to hang on walls, not for eating. You can borrow some of their copywriting techniques, I think, if you research some of the best known sites for these types of plates. The link is that they`re both round surfaces.

At the top and start of your home page, have 1 paragraph only, that explains how you make clock faces as works of art. Then have your best example, regardless of what product line it comes from, as an illustration of the overall concept. For example, you have that wonderful clock of the father and child. It strikes a chord, but also instantly defines what it is you do.

After you visually show what you "do," then your immediate problem is to show what it is you offer! What are you selling? Is it pictures? Or is it an emotional touchstone of some kind? What kind? What`s the link between the art you`re creating and an individual`s life?

Craig,

Thanks... This really helps and gives me some direction.

I had a line like, "It`s More Than A Clock, It`s Art!!! ClockART by Picture-My-Heart"  ...I`ve used that on a version of my business cards... and kinda elude to it on some of the webpages....but maybe need to make more use of it.

As far as the big ugly out of place image at the top... I just added that about a week ago... I wasn`t sure what I was doing so I thought I would spice it up a bit...originally I just had the "Clock Art" header with pictures of the small clocks.

Below that I had  the "copy" that is now midway down the page, just under the "Wedding" section/image, which starts out like:

We go beyond creating a clock with a simple logo. If you are looking for more than the ordinary, our unique gifts will satisfy your dis-   criminating tastes. These "one-of-a-kind" items are "THE" gift for    Business, Corporate, and Personal Giving!

Maybe I need to move this back to the top.

I also added some of the audio clips to the home page regarding testimonials...maybe I should move that to the testimonial page, and let the customer "play" it if they want to from that page while reading other testimonials...

I guess I just tried to cram to much on that home page....

Maybe I should redo it as an entry/splash page that is basically a nice graphic with some samples, and more copy about what i do... and try and hook them with that copy to enter the site....then the page which is now basically my home page would then be the second page to come up...

What do you think?

Thanks again so very much for responding!

Stephen
sbasly@sbcglobal.net

ps....
I also use DSL and Firefox (along with IE) and it seems to load fairly quickly also....But I can imagine it can be slow on dial-up. Maybe having just a "splash" or "intro" page with a nice graphic and descriptive "copy", that loads faster would be the way to go?

-------------------------

Regards,
Stephen

Stephen M. Basly, Pres., Picture~My~Heart
sbasly@sbcglobal.net

More Than A Clock... It`s ART! ClockART by Picture-My-Heart (www.picturemyheart.com).

I create Original Art,and Custom Personalized Clocks & Framed Prints (from your photo`s or digital images, forming a composite design with text and background).
THE GIFT FOR GIVING! Very UNIQUE!!
www.picturemyheart.com

You webpage is over 55K in size (for the page code) then add the image files that need to be downloaded... and that can make the site slow to load.

Also using freeweb and geocities can affect load time becuase of their servers` response time and connection quality.

 

-------------------------

Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter

Okay Guys....

Reworking the "home" page. Not so sure as it is so much a home page as a splash page...but it will be the "index" page (1st page to come up).

This is just real a real rough draft... less busy, less graphics and all that on the home page.... and a lighter "cheerier" rainbow background.... Don`t try the links...they don`t work yet....

You can compare this look to the current home page at: www.picturemyheart.com

The idea here is minimalize the graphics and links... just have a nice graphic that shows some different clocks, maybe people holding there`s, blended with the Dad and Baby graphic from my testimonials page....etc. ....and that`s it.

You will note that this appears to have a media player on this page...but it is just an image so the page loads quickly.  I figure I will have a duplicate page that has the "real" media player on it...and by hitting the hotspot links on the image from this splash page you can load the "video" page...

So if you don`t want to see the intro or wait for it...you won`t...you can gather what info you want from the simple graphic and the copy...then hopefully either play the video, which loads the video page....or simply "enter" which loads the "real Home" page with additional links and images...(I will be re-vamping it as well as creating this new "Intro-Splash-Index" page.

Here is two Versions of  what I have so far, before adding additional images to the main graphic composition.... I just want your opinions on the "look" so far... if it is cleaner...if looks like it will work...etc.....

Version A has a bacground similar to the main image...
http://www.freewebs.com/picturemyheart2/INDEXTESTA.html

Version B has a white background without a semi-transparent image:
http://www.freewebs.com/picturemyheart2/INDEXTESTB.html

Which of the two do you like best? And what do you think of these as compared to the original page at www.picturemyheart.com ?

Remember this is just a rough basic layout with an unfinished graphic..and the links DON`T WORK yet!...Just wanted some thoughts before I continue on... or start over again! LOL!

Thanks,

Stephen

 

-------------------------

Regards,
Stephen

Stephen M. Basly, Pres., Picture~My~Heart
sbasly@sbcglobal.net

More Than A Clock... It`s ART! ClockART by Picture-My-Heart (www.picturemyheart.com).

I create Original Art,and Custom Personalized Clocks & Framed Prints (from your photo`s or digital images, forming a composite design with text and background).
THE GIFT FOR GIVING! Very UNIQUE!!
www.picturemyheart.com

Okay, problem here is that although it`s much cleaner, the blue text on blue background just fades away.

Try not to go with a "splash page" concept, as many people just don`t like them. Why waste a click? Then keep an eye on your contrast, particularly for us older folks (seasoned citizens) who need glasses and can`t see so good. :-)

I like the rainbow background, but I much rather liked seeing pictures of your clocks immediately. That way I knew right away what it is you`re offering. So maybe a compromise between the cleaner "feel" of the new page, but the effectiveness of the original, in terms of showing your product?