Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hello everyone.

I am a glassblower and here is the website that I made.  http://www.firedancersglass.com/

I did the photography, writing, and layout (everything except the logo & sink collage).  I know it needs improvements, but I just don't know "where to begin". 

I'm am using Weebly.com for the hosting & layout/templates.  I don't really understand SEO techniques.

I mainly want to sell the glass sinks, but figure I should offer other products to widen my market and to show that I have the skills to do other things also.

My prices are a good deal lower than the competition, the starting price for hand blown glass sinks is about $1400.  I don't know why they are so expensive.  I just want to build up my market and am quite happy with $900.  Is that "bad" to do?

What should I do to get visitors to my site?  What should I do (improvement wise) to get them to make a purchase?

Don't be afraid to be honest with any criticism.  Maybe try to offer it in the "order of importance" if you can, so I'll know what to work on first.

Thank you all very much.

Glenn

Glenn,

First let me say your work is beautiful.  The pictures are gorgeous.

Weebly is a great starter website development site.  Here's my feedback:

1.  There is no "home" page, it begins at the sinks.  The home page should be more general information then the user can choose went product they are interested in.

With in Weebly, you can create a page that have Products as the main header then if you float the cursor you can add the product choices.

2.  The picture and video of the confedi sink slide is a little too big.  I would make it smaller.

3.  I would stay away from italics with the font( not a big issue)

4.  The biggest thing - remember customer buy based on Benefits - not features. So for every feature you list, add the benefits of your product.

I hope that helps.

rckqn,

Thanks for taking a look at my site and the tips you gave.  I will have to spend some time to put together a Home page, it shouldn't be too hard after I decide on the layout.  I tried to reduce the Confetti slideshow image size, but it wasn't a simple fix through Weebly.  I'll have to go back into Flicker and work on that. 

I did enlarge the font size a little, thinking it makes the text more readable.  Couldn't figure out how to enlarge the tab text size, they seem a bit too small. 

If anybody else has any advice I'd appreciate hearing it.

thanks,

Glenn

Glenn,

Yes, you work is beautiful, but the poorly organized website is hurting you.

I agree that you should have a homepage that lets the user decide what sections they want to visit to learn more.

First, your logo is HUGE. It should be smaller, perhaps the size like you have it on the bottom. There's too much scrolling on the first page and there lots of big gaps at the top that make the user scroll even more.

When thinking of your homepage create a call-to-action for the user. Something to give them direction on how to proceed with the rest of the website.

Your first image of the upside down sinks was confusing to me when I entered, I'm sure I'm not the only one who felt that way. Your slide show is huge, make that smaller and you can probably bring it up instead of the upside down sinks.

Body of text that's written and white and is on a black background is usually hard to read because of the contrast. It's best that you use a white or lighter background and black text.

Here are some articles you can read from my blog about SEO:

Optimizing Your Website Content

Keys to Search Engine Optimization

Get Your Website Better Positioned in Google for Good Result

Hope this helps,

- Yiana