Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

Gareth --

your UK site is reminiscent of the sites I see (which may be a smart business idea, but is a huge pet peeve of mine), where they take a domain that looks legit -- like the .com of a popular .net and basically make a page of ads to trick people into clicking on ads. Couple of examples are nd2x.com and wheeloffortunespinid.com -- I don't want to link to them to give them any more page rank than they already have.

My point is, well, that your UK site really looks like one of those sites. I think the content management system contributes to that in a way, but I'm sure there would be ways to make it look more like a "site" instead of an "ad place" ... I mean -- you actually take the time and blog and make this site a REAL site -- don't diminish those efforts by making it seem like a 'cheap' knockoff.

I think Jay's navigation suggestion is a good start.

Hope this helps! :)

Jennifer
XPRT Creative

Thanks for the comments Capitol and Jay. I haven't done any work with meta tags on the UK site due to Google not viewing them as important but they help in describing the pages so I'll get working on that along with the About Us and FAQs section.

The shop at Amazon is another great idea - thanks. In terms of robots spidering my site I have just blocked them from going through the admin pages, the rest are open.

Jennifer I'm surprised you have put my site in the same ridiculous category as the ones you mentioned. If you actually look at any of the product pages you will see that there is text for opinion and description of the products and I have manually sourced the two cheapest prices for the cds and dvds selected. It is a comparsion shopping site with the ability to add your own comments. How is that the same as sites with absolutely nothing but ads?!

Gareth -- Oh man! I am not saying that your site is one of those sites -- in fact, I specifically mention that you actually have solid content and that you are a "real" site!!

The point I was trying to make (and I'm sorry I didn't get this across better) is that is that the LOOK of it is very similar to those other empty content sites.

To be totally honest, when I first clicked on the site, that's what I thought it was. I only stuck around because I was there to check it for this forum request; I quickly realized it definitely was not one of those ad-sites, and I think your content is good.

You asked why we thought the site compared to the other -- and I did not mean to undermine your work on it in any way. I just think it has that same look as the "ad" sites. ...

I think your content is solid! The presentation is the weak spot. I could be totally off base, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention what I thought about your design based on my 14 years of web design and user experience. (Other people may go to your site and get the same feeling I did. In which case, it undermines your efforts to increase credibility.)

Hope this helps to clarify -- and to make this very clear, I don't think your site is in the same category as those others.

Respectfully,

Jennifer
XPRT Creative

I agree with Jennifer
If I was not coming to your site from this forum I would not stick around too long - my first impression was that this is one of those sites with ads and no content.
You've done a brilliant job with content, but you should remember that many people are so fed up with empty sites that if they see something which looks like that they don't even bother to go through the content.

Thanks for your comments guys. I have redesigned the site based on your feedback. There are still some CSS issues to fix up and some things with the new template to be sorted but thanks to you I think I'm heading in the right direction :-)

Jatinder I have followed your suggestion with the latest additions and template change. Jay I have added the About Us and Contact links at the top and am working on an FAQ section. I have also followed the group consensus about dropping the AdSense ads from the homepage. Hope you all like it.

Thanks everyone again for your help!

Regards,
Gareth

I guess these websites doesn't have the punch to make me feel "Ahaa!! I wanna stay on this website and check some products". Almost all of the people above suggested the technical stuff related to positioning of stuff but one thing I would like to add is "What looks good, sells more". So improve on the looks, check other websites dealing in the same stuff or maybe even closer.

Above all, you have great content, good stuff just a bit of extra icing on the top will make it a special treat. If you need any designing suggestions then feel free to buzz me anytime.