| Monte on May 17, 2006 at 1:38:39 PM (# 1) I'd highly recommend doing away with frames.
You may also want to do away with the popup of your storefront into a separate browser, or determine a way around popup blockers. Some people have popup blockers installed, so they'll never see your store. If they don't see your store, they can't buy from you.
I would also suggest reading up on optimizing your pages for search engines. Don't pay ANYONE to do it for you, the information is free and readily available.
BachusII on May 17, 2006 at 1:57:04 PM (# 2)Don't pay for search engine optimization that is. I'd take a long hard look at the photographs. As they are now they don't sell you products.
Jack Turk on May 17, 2006 at 6:21:45 PM (# 3)
This message has been edited.You are obviously are an accomplished artist, so here's some positive critical feedback:
1. Those brown/red hyperlinks on navy blue background are unreadable.
2. Make the gallery part of your own website.
3. The yellow USN logo is in different places on different pages (or AWOL). Be consistent, i.e. same place on each page or remove it altogether or put it in the header or under the menu.
4. You have used different sized fonts on different pages. Again be consistent, it will look more professional.
5. Get rid of the frames.
6. Some of the normal text is underlined. On webpages underlining is reserved for hyperlinks.
7. As you say, you had a captive audience on the base, but now you're in civy street (and civies are like wandering clouds ;-) ). Have you thought about diversifying your atistry, such as landscapes, cityscapes, birds of prey, flowers, fish, other animals. They would look good on glass. Most civies aren't interested in military emblems.
8. Add alt and title attributes to your img tags. <img src="whatever.jpg" alt="Nice picture of whatever" title="Nice picture of whatever">
Fair winds.
RobinT on May 18, 2006 at 4:47:34 AM (# 4)Thanks to all for the constructive feedback. Let me redesign and try again. When it's done, I'll ask for your patience to look again.
I am pretty frustrated at the moment. The pop-up blocker comment answers the question as to why I get phone calls, asking for a price. I now know they are blocked from going to the store.
Got my work cut out for me today.
Fair Winds to you too Jack. Long may your big jib draw.
Robin
towcar on May 18, 2006 at 8:30:30 AM (# 5)You were saying you were offering other forms of payment ....you didnt say what kind....I assume you meant credit cards ....with the security of the net their is a fear of a security issue or breach ....try to learn how to secure this...I have no idea how to do this ..good luck......
philcha on May 19, 2006 at 7:44:35 AM (# 6)
This message has been edited.Home page took over a minute to load (over 56K modem link) - still loading as I type this. Main reason appears to be excessive use of images: - Main menu appears to be all images, not text. If you want the helm image and rollover:
- Use text for menu links and make menu links a CSS class (see next point).
- Use CSS to set one bg image for the hover pseudo-class and another bg image for other link pseudo-classes. That way your menu will use only 2 images rather than 16.
- Remove unnecessary images, including the animation (each frame is about as big as 1 image!) and "geovisitors".
- Reduce the size of the graphics at the top - this will reduce load time and leave more space for content.
- Use thumbnails for the product illustrations on the home page - this will also reduce load time and the amount of scrolling the visitor has to do.
- Optimise the remaining images (Google for "optimize image")
Frames have pros and cons. Unfortunately this is one of the worst uses of frames I've seen, as the space left for the content frame is about 25% of the screen at 800x600 px - it's like peering at the content through a slit. I use 800x600 because my eyesight's poor - I imagine a lot of potential customers are middle-aged, and some will have poor eyesight. Different pages have different fonts. You need to be consistent. I recommend Verdana - most sites use it, for good reasons. How big is your potential market? - What % of your former conrades bought from you? You'll get a lower % from other military people because they don't know you.
- How many people retire from the USN per year?
RobinT on May 23, 2006 at 5:50:24 AM (# 7)By reading all above, it appears "simple is better". Was away the past few days. Returned now. Will attack all the above.
Thank you to all who took the time to comment (and e-mail as well). I am glad I found this site. I will scrub the whole site and start from scratch.
Best Regards, Robin
| 
Military Glass Art - big hit prior to going on internet