# New Site Layout?



## clarkhaddock (May 29, 2005)

Hey guys, We just put up our new site and I wanted to see what users thought about it. The look, layout, colors, and most importantly the function. How well users can find what they need, get a quote and know how to place an order. Any suggestions on what I should add? http://www.countrywidepromotions.com

Thanks for taking a look see!


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## Twinge (Apr 26, 2005)

Okay... I've found a lot of things I see problems with. I'm trying to offer constructive critisism here; I'm not just badmouthing your site or anyhting  I hope to get the same in-depth review of my new site (we're still working on it) when I post it here in a week or two. Despite my massive list, the site isn't all that bad, hehe. I basically listed things as I saw them.

Don't really like the scrolling text at the top, nor the not-quite-just-a-keyword-list at the bottom. It's not too bad, but still looks too much like a list of keywords to me, plus it's barely readable with the only slight contrast on the gray. The links at the bottom are worse - blatently for boosting search ratings, and they don't even work correctly. Same with the list of links on the site map... It's not worth the possible increase in search engine results for the risk of being blacklisted and the drop in professional appearance.

The blue on the gray for the titles of the left looks pretty off too, and even harder to read is the blue on the dark gray at the top navigation. The visited link color is even worse.

You'll want to make a single css page that is linked to by every page, instead of having the css on every page -- this is much harder to upkeep, and makes loading times much worse for dialup (2 extra seconds for every single page). I'd definately recommend looking at some kind of more dynamic setup (such as php based) instead of the hundreds of single html pages. (I imagine they are auto-generated, but doing that every time you make a change is really excessive and tedious it seems to me.)

The 'click to enlarge' pictures seem kinda silly when they're not even 50% larger than the pictures they're enlarging 

The FAQ is hidden as it's only linked from the bottom. You probably want to specific what the money-back guarantee is _for_ (e.g., against defects, any dissastisfaction, etc.), how long it's eligible (such as 30 days), etc. Looks kind of odd the way you say 'we offer 15 brands' and procede to list them, but only list 7; probably put a word like 'including' there. What times can you call the phone number for contact? Things like this are good info that people want to know I'd say. You may also want to suggest some shirt brands (such as Gildan Ultras) - an uniformed consumer would not know where to begin (The default ones on the front are good, but not really enough IMO). Also, what kind of file formats do you accept for artwork?

The 'help department' link doesn't work correctly; it pops up a box only showing html (and this html includes frames -- frames are bad news).

On the actual product pages, it seems kind of pointless that you have to click the customize button - it should pop up automatically when you select your color; that's only more step that slwos the customer down and keeps them away from the checkout.

In the category listing (and searches), the 'customize' and 'add to cart' buttons go to the exact same page it seems to me.

You still list 'sleeves' as options for doing pants and shorts - confusing.

There's no real way to see what sizes actually are; Is a 'Large' pair of shirts a size 34 or a 38, for example.

The colors and design need a little work as well, though I don't have any good specific suggestions there at the moment.

It's good to see you've got it compatible for 800x600. The customer testimonials are a good touch. The general layout is pretty good, and instant quotes are nice. The basic mouseover for links is good without being excessive.


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## Adam (Mar 21, 2005)

Get rid of the hidden text for starters that is just naughty! That isn't going to help you in the long run.

The site looks good. Apart from in Firefox the font for menu looks big and clunky. Looks fine in IE.

I found it easy to navigate. Easy to find help. 

What would be nice is something that explains why to register? What happens behind the scenes? There doesn't seem to be much prompting to get people to sign up and that is what your aim is I guess.

The quote system works very well. Is the zip code supposed to be madatory? I'm from the UK so didn't fill it in.

Other than the black hat seo tricks it's good.


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## clarkhaddock (May 29, 2005)

Twinge 

I owe you big! When you get your site up send me an email and I will gladdly take a look and let you know what I see. I have wanted advise like this for months and got more from you than 10 other people. I am going to look over it all again and see if I have any questions about your remarks. thanks agian.


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## clarkhaddock (May 29, 2005)

when you say hidden text what do you mean?

We offer free ground shipping so if you do not enter your shipping zip code it does not matter. If you want to over night it or 2nd day you have to enter it in to make those options possible. I hate sites that make you fill in things that seem point less. I did not want someone to leave the site because they had a pop up come up and say your forgot something... Sometime I just leave the site. What would you suggest?


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## Twinge (Apr 26, 2005)

clarkhaddock said:


> Twinge
> 
> I owe you big! When you get your site up send me an email and I will gladdly take a look and let you know what I see. I have wanted advise like this for months and got more from you than 10 other people. I am going to look over it all again and see if I have any questions about your remarks. thanks agian.


Sure! Adam's post reminded me that I forgot to mention that I was viewing it in Firefox -- some things may not be as bad in IE, but IE's market is dropping; at least a good 10-20% of potential customers are using Firefox (or Safari, Opera, etc.) these days.



clarkhaddock said:


> when you say hidden text what do you mean?


He's reffering to the text at the bottom of the front page, I mentioned that too. You're one step up from the worst examples of this at least; the text is visible and not purely a list of keywords, but it needs some definate improvement.


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## Adam (Mar 21, 2005)

I should have commented on the Customize buttons too. They did the same thing as the Add To Cart button. 

When I did hit customize I got to choose the quantity. I hit it again I got the screen printing options. Confused I was. It would help if the buttons read Customize Step 1, and Customize Step 2 and then Add To Cart. Maybe also an Add To Cart now without Screen printing / embroidary.


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## clarkhaddock (May 29, 2005)

ya, i was not sure what you were talking about the "blue text" I am still working on a few things and I will address the multi browser look when I get those done. 

I have also heard that when IE puts out its new version that it will have everything firefox has which means most likly firefox will lose some of it ground.


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## Adam (Mar 21, 2005)

Hidden text: I'm referring to your long list of keywords at the bottom of the page. It is ever so slighty different to the background colour but treading very close to being caught.

Just out of interest did you do that? Or did you hire some bad SEO to do it?


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## Twinge (Apr 26, 2005)

Gettings crazy with 3 of us psoting at once 

You'll also want to mention somewhere your internation shipping policy and options; if you still offer free shipping, etc.

Adam is mentioning a lot of the same stuff I did -- but that just means we've both noticed it, so that's probably some of the stuff to look at the most.


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## Adam (Mar 21, 2005)

>Gettings crazy with 3 of us psoting at once 

That was a strange experience I feel dizzy now


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## clarkhaddock (May 29, 2005)

How much darker or lighter should it be? Is there a color code i need to go with? 

I found the template and then got a programer to make the changes and put in my info. Most of the site is simular to the template. I added the top and bottom. The goal of the top was to make sure the search engine woudl turn in a nice sentence when my site came up. I had an old site and the first things that were shown were Home Company services My account, etc... None of the good contect my site was about.


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## clarkhaddock (May 29, 2005)

Here is what I am working on. It will not work but this is what I will give my programer.

Product Description page. You will have one button from the list of product. No longer the Customize or Get Quote. It will be just "Get Quote"

http://www.countrywidepromotions.com/CWPquotepage.htm 


This is what the page will look like once you click "Get Quote" http://www.countrywidepromotions.com/CWPquoteresultb.htm 

These are my 1st attempt. any ideas?


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## Adam (Mar 21, 2005)

Well what use is it to the visitor in that colour? A sensible colour code is going to the correct one, one that somebody can read .

LOL and now I have just noticed a scolling marquee of unreadable text. Be careful mate, you'll get backlisted before you know it, do you really want that to happen?

Edit: Also those links at the bottom link to dup content of your homepage. Another penalty you might be open to.


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## clarkhaddock (May 29, 2005)

if I make the scrolling text white will it be okay?


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## Adam (Mar 21, 2005)

Sorry I can't comment on making scrolling text good  

But yeah go with white if you really want to keep it.


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## clarkhaddock (May 29, 2005)

Not good because it is considered a trick? Bad because it does not look good?
Thanks for the input by the way. I checked out your site. Very nice.


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## Twinge (Apr 26, 2005)

clarkhaddock said:


> if I make the scrolling text white will it be okay?


I'd still say remove the scrolling text, it kind of looks tacky to me anyway. It wouldn't immediately make me leave or anyhting, but it would put me off a bit.

(I'm going to bed, you two can keep posting back and forth if you want ;D


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## Adam (Mar 21, 2005)

All bad tricks. Do things the nice way and they will pay off. 

BTW just noticed your revised quote page, looks like it will work much better. Fewer steps which is always good. How about the word "optional" next to some of those fields. 

Thanks for the comment about my site.


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## clarkhaddock (May 29, 2005)

which fields? Do you mean the screen printing and embroidery? Instead of option? Those are the only optional fields. Once I get rid of the blank option they will have to enter one of the two. What do you suggest?


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## clarkhaddock (May 29, 2005)

Thanks Twinge!


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## Adam (Mar 21, 2005)

This is how I see it, 2 and 3 are optional. I guess you just sell blank t-shirts without screen printing? But that isn't entirely obvious, so thought it might help explain things a little better.


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## clarkhaddock (May 29, 2005)

Twinge,

Can you tell me a little more about this:The links at the bottom are worse - blatently for boosting search ratings, and they don't even work correctly. Same with the list of links on the site map... It's not worth the possible increase in search engine results for the risk of being blacklisted and the drop in professional appearance.

The site is in PHP and we did a rewrite. Is that what you are talkign about?I'd definately recommend looking at some kind of more dynamic setup (such as php based) instead of the hundreds of single html pages. (I imagine they are auto-generated, but doing that every time you make a change is really excessive and tedious it seems to me.)

What other product would you suggest or how would you suggest them? You may also want to suggest some shirt brands (such as Gildan Ultras) - an uniformed consumer would not know where to begin (The default ones on the front are good, but not really enough IMO).

The 'help department' link doesn't work correctly; it pops up a box only showing html (and this html includes frames -- frames are bad news). I just checked and it works. was there a link or page that did not come up. I know frames are not good but i thought they would be okay and good for the help. instead of a customer losing their spot.


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## Adam (Mar 21, 2005)

I'm not sure Twinge noticed that you are using mod_rewrite on your pages. It looks like they are all html index pages but I'm sure you have some dynamic scripting beneath all of that. Infact I'l take a guess and say it is PHP.


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## clarkhaddock (May 29, 2005)

is your company in the US?


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## Adam (Mar 21, 2005)

A very hot UK at the moment.


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## Twinge (Apr 26, 2005)

clarkhaddock said:


> Can you tell me a little more about this:The links at the bottom are worse - blatently for boosting search ratings, and they don't even work correctly. Same with the list of links on the site map... It's not worth the possible increase in search engine results for the risk of being blacklisted and the drop in professional appearance.


I'm talking about the big list of links you put at the very bottom purely for the purpose of boosting search engine ratings; Adam talked about them some too. They need to be removed. These:

Custom T-Shirt Printing | T-Shirt Printing | Wholesale T Shirt | T Shirt Design | Make Your Own T Shirt
T-Shirt Screen Printing | Design Your Own T Shirt | T Shirt Logo  | Personalized T Shirt | Corporate Apparel

You'll have better luck and the site will look more professional if you do SEO correctly. You've got the same thing going on the site map page as well.



clarkhaddock said:


> The site is in PHP and we did a rewrite. Is that what you are talkign about?I'd definately recommend looking at some kind of more dynamic setup (such as php based) instead of the hundreds of single html pages. (I imagine they are auto-generated, but doing that every time you make a change is really excessive and tedious it seems to me.)





Adam said:


> I'm not sure Twinge noticed that you are using mod_rewrite on your pages. It looks like they are all html index pages but I'm sure you have some dynamic scripting beneath all of that. Infact I'l take a guess and say it is PHP.


Yeah, I didn't notice that... I basically just meant that it looks really weird to me, all the strange-named html pages with numbers and dashes all over the place. OTOH, a set up like that is probably better for SEO (than the standard php pages with ?s in the names and such)... and I don't really know what I'd suggest as a 'better' way to do it anyway. _Definately_ put the css is a seperate file, though.



clarkhaddock said:


> What other product would you suggest or how would you suggest them? You may also want to suggest some shirt brands (such as Gildan Ultras) - an uniformed consumer would not know where to begin (The default ones on the front are good, but not really enough IMO).


Seems like something that might be in the FAQ, or even potentially a little tutorial or 'where to begin?' section to help folks that aren't very good at figuring things out, hehe.



clarkhaddock said:


> The 'help department' link doesn't work correctly; it pops up a box only showing html (and this html includes frames -- frames are bad news). I just checked and it works. was there a link or page that did not come up. I know frames are not good but i thought they would be okay and good for the help. instead of a customer losing their spot.


Maybe it does in IE -- it does not in Firefox, tried it again myself. Frames may be okay for that part, but I'd have to see it actually working to really say, hehe. I attached what I get in Firefox -- a little pop up window with html.


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## clarkhaddock (May 29, 2005)

Can you expliain: You've got the same thing going on the site map page as well.
Are your talking about my content pages I am working on? I stil have a lot of work to do but each page will have a title that fits the information on the page. Wholesale t-shirts for example would be the name of the page and over the main image area. I then talk about what we can do in terms of Wholesale T-shirts on the bottom left in the company services page. I plan on adding unique customer reviews to each topic when ever I get one that fits and changing out hte main image. I will also change the popular products to fit each topic. Will those things (unique heading, unique company services info, unique customer review, popular products) make them okay/a good thing? 

Thanks again for the input.


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## clarkhaddock (May 29, 2005)

One quick question. Is what I am doing the same as another company? Take a look? if you do searches for all types of phrases you will see their content pages come up. they are, what I think, number one for online business. It does not seem to be hurting them. Only helping.


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## Adam (Mar 21, 2005)

lol please!


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## clarkhaddock (May 29, 2005)

lol please! what do you mean by that?


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## Twinge (Apr 26, 2005)

clarkhaddock said:


> Can you expliain: You've got the same thing going on the site map page as well.


Talking about this page -- http://www.countrywidepromotions.com/index.html/page/shop-sitemap

Same crap links at the bottom.



clarkhaddock said:


> Are your talking about my content pages I am working on? I stil have a lot of work to do but each page will have a title that fits the information on the page. Wholesale t-shirts for example would be the name of the page and over the main image area. I then talk about what we can do in terms of Wholesale T-shirts on the bottom left in the company services page. I plan on adding unique customer reviews to each topic when ever I get one that fits and changing out hte main image. I will also change the popular products to fit each topic. Will those things (unique heading, unique company services info, unique customer review, popular products) make them okay/a good thing?


If they actually contained real content there wouldn't be a problem. Re-linking to your main page (and some of them don't even do that correctly) is just not cool.



clarkhaddock said:


> One quick question. Is what I am doing the same as Custom Ink? Take a look? http://www.customink.com/GA/Atlanta...en-Printers.htm if you do searches for all types of phrases you will see their content pages come up. they are, what I think, number one for online business. It does not seem to be hurting them. Only helping.


Interesting... but they don't have anything like that on thier main page, at least. I'd still say that's a pretty bad way to bring folks in, but at least it's seperate from the actual page itself.


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## clarkhaddock (May 29, 2005)

If they actually contained real content there wouldn't be a problem. Re-linking to your main page (and some of them don't even do that correctly) is just not cool.

I am still workign on those pages. The best example of what I am going for it my page:http://www.countrywidepromotions.com/custom-screen-printing.html See how I have a new title, popular products, customer review and the company services is also not the same. I am workign on all of these being the same way. I am going to take off the links at the bottom of my homepage and on the other pages. If I do all that do you think it will be okay?


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## clarkhaddock (May 29, 2005)

hey guys,
i just put out a new ordering set up. If you have a few minutes, take a look. let me know if you see anything that you would change. thanks again.


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