What do you think?

[Ame]

I'm trying to update Earth Friendly Goods (first link in my signature) and feel like I'm going cross eyed. I considered standing on my head for a different perspective...but decided that might not be the best idea. I feel like I can't see the forest for the trees!

If you have a moment, will you give me some feedback?

I'm looking for:

• anything that's confusing
• important info that's hard (or impossible) to find
• any part of the design that is annoying or not user friendly

Basically anything that might help me improve peoples experience when they visit the site.

If you also have a website in your signature, and want to have it critiqued, please feel free to include your request on this thread.

Thanks in advance for your time and help

[rubelin]

I just did a really cursory scan and the things that pop out to me are
1 - toooooo many words on the front page!! I could tell it was all great stuff, but maybe you can spread it out through the site to the appropriate pages or just edit it down to the most important parts

2- could you add images to the categories?? or make them into buttons or something like that?? It looks like a swarm of words and is a little hard to use.

that's all for now, but I'll try to look further later

[eepster]

I agree about the too many words. It looks more like a blog than a store on the first page.

I find the site generally pretty busy and a bit overwhelming.

I was slightly confused about whether you had any products and where to click to find them, when I first landed on the home page. I think it was just the general business, the "shop" link being pretty small, being distracted by flashing pictures.

[Ame]

Thank you very much rubelin & eepster

The long text on the front page is more for search engines than for visitors to read. I think I am going to reformat it and make some changes to the text, so that it's easier to skim and doesn't look so overwhelming.

I'm also going to work on the text navigation and the right column....

If anyone else has any other suggestions or ideas, please don't hesitate to share them.

[eepster]

Originally Posted by Ame

The long text on the front page is more for search engines than for visitors to read.

I think there is a way to write tags into a page without them being visable. Sorry, I don't actually know how to do it.

[Ame]

I have meta tags, but content is also necessary for good results. If you check google, the site comes up first on many of the key words. I'm almost done re-arranging and rewriting....hopefully it'll do the trick!

[JustVanessa]

no advice, but now I want a wrap dress!

[Ame]

ok, im stuck.....I moved everything around and reformatted the text and removed a bunch and took off the animated photo ---------now it really looks like a sea of words and IMO it looks boring

I guess I'm going to have to put some photos in the text or something --- any ideas?

[mama_mich]

So is it that you have to have certain words you have in say google ad on your home page or the results won't happen? If so, are those your bold words? If it is just the bold words then I would have the sections with those words, the heading and a pic.

For example:

pic here Earth Friendly Furniture pic here

Our one stop shop for your "green" home. From sustainable wood furniture to our all natural latex mattresses, right down to the perfect earth friendly accessory.

Then you can list the pros that go with making such choices.

[Mama Dragon]

Add pictures to each section and break them up with a 50% width horizontal rule.

[rubelin]

You can add articles to your site for the SEO, the text doesn't need to be on the front page.

I like the front page better now. I would add a welcome message at the top introducing your little blurbs on the products you carry, to make it look more like a storefront.

[eepster]

I just checked it. It's looking better. It looks like a shop now and not a blog.

[Ame]

THANK YOU :

You all have been a great help...

I have tried to implement most (if not all) of your ideas and I am very happy with the results.

If you all need any advice or help...don't hesitate to ask - I'd love to return the favor.

[Kristine233]

I looks great, and easy to navigate.

I dont like to scroll on front pages so I'd still par that down a bit more, but other wise its good. On my home page I had a bunch of pictures I wanted to show and not sure how to fit in all my text etc, so I compromised and only show a bit with each visit. My text stays the same but my pictures swap out for each page refresh. So each time a person visits my site they see a different set of images on the home page (or click refresh), but I dont have anything rotating or flashing when you are just there. I've also done the same for text and products. Having product groupings to display and have it pull a different group each time the page refreshes or is loaded, but it does NOT refresh or flash when a person is sitting there. So its not distracting. So in your case, one time the visitor may see the furniture on the home page, the next visit they may see the clothing etc etc etc. Its random but gets your products seen. Then you could add a link that says "See all the bla bla bla" and point it to a page with all of them or a onsite blog or your categories.