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mommajan
Joined: Mar 31, 2004
# Posts: 28
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Posted: 2004-Apr-28 22:15
Name of Site/Business: Momma's Things
Site's Main Purpose: Ecommerce/Sales
Please Review the following:
Does/can the site achieve its main purpose?
Search engine marketing. Can the pages be reasonably well indexed by search engines?
Additional Comments/Notes
I have read the 5000 things to do to irritate your viewer and am writing my shipping info page. It should be finished in the next few days. I already knew it needed to be done, I just got a little distracted with a worthless Search Engine Placement company. I'll get it up asap.
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trinity71
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 42
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Posted: 2004-Apr-29 03:25
Having to scroll horizontally is not a good thing. A little tweaking to your code should help that. (I used IE to visit your site)
It's a nice looking site, and navigation is clear and simple. Some of the images took a while to come through. I've seen some websites use thumbnails to help with the loading, and they can be clicked on to see a larger view. Maybe someone here who is more knowledgeable in this area can tell you how you can do this.
My main issue though, is the page width. It can be an irritant to have to scroll back and forth as well as up and down.
Peace and Prosperity,
Deb
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mommajan
Joined: Mar 31, 2004
# Posts: 28
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Posted: 2004-Apr-29 04:24
Thanks, I'll see what I can do to get that adjusted.
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trinity71
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 42
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Posted: 2004-Apr-29 04:30
You're very welcome, mommajan 
Warm regards,
Deb
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OAC
Staff
Joined: Jan 25, 2001
# Posts: 6809
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Posted: 2004-Apr-29 04:51
You need to validate your code - there are a number of coding errors eg there are a number of errors specifying links eg:
a href='http://www.religiousmall.com/'>
should be (and note the parantheses change as well as the quote change):
<a href="http://www.religiousmall.com/">
Yes, your pages can be reasonably indexed by search engines.
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OAC
Staff
Joined: Jan 25, 2001
# Posts: 6809
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Posted: 2004-Apr-29 04:54
PS: Try this validator:
http://www.htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/
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mommajan
Joined: Mar 31, 2004
# Posts: 28
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Posted: 2004-Apr-29 20:43
OAC, thanks for your help - it's good to know that my site can be indexed by the search engines.
About the code validation, I changed the one thing that you mentioned (I think) but I really don't know anything about HTML code. I have purchased a website builder program/template and that is what I have used. I ran a validator on my site and got back 41 things to change but I had no idea what I was looking at. I tried to get the company I bought from to help and they tried to tell me that none of these things would really affect my site except for disabled people. ??? I don't know what that was supposed to mean. I'll run the validator again and see if I can get their programmers to fix the errors.
Thanks again for your review and help.
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OAC
Staff
Joined: Jan 25, 2001
# Posts: 6809
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Posted: 2004-Apr-29 23:37
Well, they are partly correct. 16 of the 41 errors relate to the ALT attribute not being specified in relation to an image. A fairly significant % of the population now falls into the disabled category (this includes partly sighted people). I guess those sorts of people never buy anything over the Internet, right? Wrong! Furthermore, in some countries, it is soon to be illegal to have web pages that don't meet disability requirements.
However, the rest of the errors are mostly sloppy coding (by them) eg the use of single quotes instead of the standard double quotes eg
<img src='http://mommasthings.com/images/cart.gif' width='74' height='42' border='0'></a>
instead of:
<img src="http://mommasthings.com/images/cart.gif" width="74" height="42" border="0"></a>
Browsers have been programmed to guess what the page designer really meant, when it comes across coding errors. Browsers, and different versions of the same browser, handle things differently. So what displays OK (despite sloppy coding) in IE 5.5 may not completely display OK in IE 6 or Netscape 6 or Opera 6 or Mozilla etc.
What they are telling you is that it is OK to have coding errors. What does your common sense tell you?
In addition,, just because a browser overcomes sloppy coding doesn't mean a search engine spider can. When a spider encounters coding it doesn't understand it and it can't figure out how to proceed, it just doesn't index that page. I don't see any such errors on your home page but any company that thinks sloppy coding is OK, in my view, can't be trusted to not have such errors somewhere in the site.
There is no need to get too worried - I think your pages should display correctly for the vast majority of viewers. If they clean up even some of the errors, then the exrcise has been worthwhile. If they don't, then don't lose any sleep over it - just resolve to get a better site design (i.e. a tailored one, which unfortunately will cost a lot more) a year or so from now, out of your profits.
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trinity71
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 42
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Posted: 2004-Apr-30 03:46
mommajan..
If you have the time, it would be a good thing to learn some html. I taught myself how to (I'm no expert by any means) but it is a fascinating subject. I didn't use a validator (didn't know there was such a thing) so I checked EVERYTHING manually (I guess that is the right term?) That does take a while, believe me.
The coding errors OAC pointed out seem a bit simple to me and I wonder at the attitude of the company you used. When I was checking the errors I had made, it was mostly because something didn't work the way it should. And I had to figure it out. It really gave me a sense of accomplishment when I did get it right and everything worked like I wanted it to. Every now and then when I visit my site, I come across a small typo or something, and I have to fix it.
I'm a perfectionist....what can I say? I try not to let that trait get out of hand, though. Something like that can try to rule your life!
Good luck!
Deb
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mommajan
Joined: Mar 31, 2004
# Posts: 28
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Posted: 2004-Apr-30 20:22
Thanks so much for all your help and comments. I'll take any input I can get.
Yeah, I am wondering alot of things about the company I hired for all my stuff (website building, SEO, and Search Engine Placement). They really saw me coming and knew I didn't know anything about all this. They got me good. I'll know better now and won't get taken again. Thanks to JimWorld for all the knowledge I've gained.
I plan on getting a new company. The only good thing about this is that I can change anything I wantm at any time, add anything any time, have unlimited space and unlimited changes - and I tend to add new products almost daily as well as change my pages almost daily. This is a great benefit over having a company make all my changes for me. I'm not sure I could get all that anywhere else for such a great price. I haven't found it anywhere.
Yes, I agree that disabled people certainly do buy stuff on the internet, many don't have other means to easily buy things and the internet is a great convenience to them if not a necessity for many of them. I will work on the company and see if I can get them going on fixing the errors.
Not to mention, I, like trinity71, am a perfectionist and want everything to be pretty darn close to perfect.
All in all, though, this company seems to have a pretty good setup with their web builder program. For the most part, it works good for me and sure is easy to change whatever I want.
Thanks all for your help.
Mommjan
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MsDetta
Joined: Mar 14, 2004
# Posts: 6
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Posted: 2004-May-04 02:38
I would think that you would want your website to inspire a "peaceful" feeling. Instead, the feeling is "circus."
Your accent colors clash with the graphic design of the website. The graphic is gold, orange and green. Your content is purple, red, blue, green and black. IMHO, these constant shifts in color detract from your website. Use green, gold and orange to highlight your important points. If you think this is too limiting, trying changing the font type from Comic Sans to Arial for different sections or headers.
I see the template was made using CSS. In addition to learning the basics of HTML coding, you should also read up on the basic of CSS.
Part of your horizontal scroll problem is due to the fact that _2_ of your td tags are set to width=100% -- The total of all td's in each table should equal 100%. In order to spot what might be causing the table layout problems, add a border="1" to each individual table (remove this later). This will help you spot layout problems.
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mommajan
Joined: Mar 31, 2004
# Posts: 28
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Posted: 2004-May-04 22:44
MsDetta,
Thanks for the input about the color scheme. I'll work on toning it down and coordinating it a bit.
I'll try to learn more about HTML and CSS and see what I can learn.
Thanks again for a new perspective.
mommajan
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trinity71
Joined: Eons Ago
# Posts: 42
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Posted: 2004-May-04 22:47
mommajan:
For learning html, the tutorials provided here at JimWorld are absolutely the BEST!
I highly recommend that you check them out. There are other very good tutorials on the net, and I used several in my self-instruction. But when I found the html tutorials here, I wished that I had found them first!
Peace,
Deb
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mommajan
Joined: Mar 31, 2004
# Posts: 28
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Posted: 2004-May-06 17:41
Thanks trinity71, I'll check out those tutorials and see what I can learn.
Does anyone have any ideas why I have failed to make a single sale on this website? I know I haven't been indexed by the search engines yet but I did place some Google Ads (pay per click) and got a little traffic from them (avg. of 17 visitors a day) but still no sales. My site seems to be easily navigated and my products sell pretty well with my catalog, but not online. My visitors seem to be checking out quite a few pages when they visit but I think I'm hearing "No, thanks, I'm just browsing".
Any ideas?
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OAC
Staff
Joined: Jan 25, 2001
# Posts: 6809
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Posted: 2004-May-07 03:04
mommajan,
Your experience is normal, for the volume of traffic you have indicated. The reason is that prospective buyers now research products and vendors primarily through the Internet. Thus you will get a high ratio of lookers to buyers.
Also, many prospective buyers revisit a site a few times, before buying. They are double checking informaton and finding answers to other questions they have.
Are you making a fair comparison with your catalog? eg
1. what % of people who got your catalog, purchased?
2. your catalog has probably been around a while longer than your web site, so will have an established reputation and previous customers. What % of your sales are just from new customers?
As to PPC advertsing, there is a lot to it, to be successful (including how to write effective advertising copy). However, a typical experience, with good copy, is 2% clickthrough and 4% purchase rate - i.e. if your PPC adv was shown 10,000 times, 200 would clickthrough to your site and of those, you would get 8 new customers (but most of them would probably visit your site a few times, before buying). These rates depend on the nature of the products, your prices, the advertising copy, how good your site is/can be at converting visitors into customers and your competition.
Hope this helps.
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JQ
Staff
Joined: Mar 11, 2001
# Posts: 2765
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Posted: 2004-May-07 04:38
mommajan, here's a bit of speculation based on how I feel about doing business with sites...
You have no "about" page. I like to know a bit more about how long a company's been in business, etc. Who are you, what's your motive, etc.?
I realize that you are likely not a big company, so this is where a bit of "folksy-ness" might come into play and work to your advantage. Talk about why you started the business and maybe even add a pic of you with your smiling kids to emphasize the human element of who someone is actually dealing with when they buy from your site.
- No privacy policy.
- No return policy.
- No up-front assurance that ordering via credit card is secure on your site. (I want to know that before I place an order and go to check out.)
"Catch the Passion of Giving!" - christian_gifts.html = 404, not found. First link I clicked, that's a bad omen for me that you aren't meticulous since you haven't checked your links to ensure they're valid.
Spring 2004 Catalog
Order our Latest Catalog!
I can't find a way to request a catalog.
Use real-size thumbnails. library/31721.jpg = 420x420, yet you are squishing it to 100x100 via html tags. I'm on a dialup and this just makes my download time longer. This is really compounded when you have more than a dozen images on a page like gift_ideas.html.
You could also make better use of your "alt" tags to describe images. All the ones I saw were blank and file names like 34162.jpg are not very descriptive.
Looks like you've got a lot of nice products - that Blue Glass Vase is absolutely gorgeous! Good luck with the site.
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Rezac
Joined: Jan 25, 2004
# Posts: 817
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Posted: 2004-May-10 15:30
OAC, with all due respect, I don't see how they could make sites 'illegal' simply because someone forgot or neglected to put up alt text in images...although it's a simple task and yes we should all to it, I think that's a little more than a stretch.
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JQ
Staff
Joined: Mar 11, 2001
# Posts: 2765
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Posted: 2004-May-10 20:15
Rezac, accessibility goes way beyond alt tags. There is a growing international movement in this regard. Here in the U.S. at least, the focus is on mandating government agencies to make their online information available to those with disabilities. The private sector is not a big issue... yet.
But it just makes good business sense. Even if your products or services are not something that a disabled person would use personally, disabled people do buy gifts for non-disabled friends/family and are often involved in other purchasing decisions for family or business.
Making your site accessible to the disabled can give you an edge over your competitors who don't.
Here are a couple good links to read up on web site accessibility.
http://www.webaim.org/
http://www.w3.org/WAI/
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OAC
Staff
Joined: Jan 25, 2001
# Posts: 6809
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Posted: 2004-May-11 08:56
"make sites 'illegal' simply because someone forgot or neglected to put up alt text in images"
Rezac, I think you may be confused. I never said anything like that. Maybe too early in the morning and not enough coffee in your system yet?
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Rezac
Joined: Jan 25, 2004
# Posts: 817
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Posted: 2004-May-12 07:52
lol
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