Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Though launched, I would really appreciated a critique and advice on any improvements possible.  www.caterinabeauty.com

 

 

 

Looks good/great. I think this should work well provided you can get traffic. Are you sure you want to use a gray background instead of white? White looks much nicer! Just an opinion.

The landing page has the following paragraph.

"Our products only contain natural oils and botanicals, no EDTA, coloring or artificial ingredients, such as wheatgerm oil, primrose oil, lavender, and chamomile."

As written, you`re saying that your product does not include wheatgerm oil, primose oil, lavender and chamomile. You should rewrite this paragraph to say.

"Our products only contain natural oils and botanicals such as wheatgerm oil, primrose oil, lavender oil, and chamomile extract(?). We do not use EDTA, coloring, or any other artificial ingredients."

If I might suggest some traffic notes. New brands are built with PR - not advertising. You should read the book "The Fall of Advertising ... and the Rise of PR" if you haven`t already. I think you would find the information invaluable.

This is really just one of my biggest pet peeves with sites but I would make your main body section a much lighter background color and make sure the font is dark, when the colors get too close together it`s just harder to read.

The idea of course is white background with black font.. I know some people find that boring but if you want people to read it`s got to be easy on the eyes.

On your homepage
This is the page that many will come in through so you want it to grab them and entice them to stay.  Think about your target market - what are they looking for?  Is it the ingredients or the experience they are looking for?  How do the products make them feel?

As I`m sure you`ve probably heard people buy on emotions and while it`s great to let them know what`s in a product it`s not whats going to entice them to buy.  Of course people may be looking for all-natural ingredients, but they have a reason that they are - maybe to sooth dry skin, calm their nerves with the aromtherapy oils, or whatever other effect the products can have on them. 

Also, I would add some good quality pictures of your products, people will want to see what they are buying since they can`t smell or touch.

I was returning to this post to make a point that Angela beat me to. I don`t want to sound like I`m on the bandwagon, I just want to share my feedback so that you knew others feel the same way:

I like your site very much, but I would much prefer to see pictures of the products instead of just a pic of what appears to be the `label. Since I cannot touch or smell the product `on line`, being able to see what it looks like and being able to somewhat envision it `to scale` is a large part of the online shopping experience to me. Any chance of making the thumbnails `larger` and having them present the actual product?

I will have photos of the products this week and my web people should have them posted within 10 days of getting them.  I was waiting for the samples with my label.

I feel like the fonts and writing was a bit small and unclear ...  don`t make it hard to read!

Also your pages don`t have meaningful titles. I`d go back and make sure every one was labeled with a proper title.

I will bring all this up with my web designer.  In terms of titles, can you give me an example of what you mean.  This is very helpful.  Part of the problem is so little money and so much to be done.

Right now there are no titles.

When you are on a product listing page, give the page a complete title. Something like "Product Line - Company - Short Description"

For the site www.caterinabeauty.com, the expert Professor gives his signature of one smile  out of four smiles for the pleasant look and two frowns  for the site name. Two frowns  for boring page and lack of any message.

www.caterinabeauty.com gets an all around two frowns out of four.

I have to say, the page just sits there and does nothing. It doesn’t jump out at you. Not distinguishing from other boring sites that look like your basic Yellow Page ad. Needs Life! And distinction! Fire your copywriter, web designer and get your money back fast! Take it from an expert, they sabotaged your vision and didn’t take time to understand your vision. It’s like hiring a bad movie director for your beautiful script, but he makes a bomb box office disaster. I’ll provide some expert key points later, so don’t overdose on anything just yet.

“You know its official when you see Professor Rainmaker signature, because anything else doesn’t count.”

 

“Opinions don’t count; just expert ones!”

 

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

BusinessWeek Magazine-

"...had no product in 2003 when they pitched their business plan...Mangrove`s partners cut a check for seed funding of $130,000. "We like going against the odds," says Tluszcz."

“While everybody else gives opinions, The Professor provides expertise without failure!”

Opinions don`t count, just expert ones!


The Professor- Marketing to the elite businesses!