| Jul. 22 2008 at 8:42 PM |
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Please critique my website. I am averaging about 100 hits per day , but my sales are very low.
Thanks
Kitten aka Linda Faye
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| Jul. 22 2008 at 11:03 PM |
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Hi Linda :-)
I think you've perhaps fallen into several of the problems that make Web sites a bit adversarial to potential customers.
The first is the white text on black background. This definitely can
work, but for whatever reason, site developers rarely seem to
understand what makes it work. In your case, it's not working. You
can't use the same sized fonts as you would with black text on white
backgrounds.
Addionally, with that black background, your white boxes and images are
far more "startling" than if the colors were reversed. To that end, the
home page looks "confused" due to the many visual interruptions of
white areas.
Much more importantly, I see no organized theme for your site or
product or business. I really don't understand what it is you're
selling, and that's not even getting into what it is you're
offering....what's in it for me. I got the idea that it's art, but with
all the references to "kitten," I thought it was some sort of
cat-lovers' site?
I would have clicked away...but went to the "categories" page, given
this is a critique. There, I began to suspect this might be a tee-shirt
company. "So what?" I thought.
So basically, I think the initial approach to this site is going to be
"What am I selling?" Before you answer that, tack on another two,
important questions:
- What's the purpose of what I'm selling?
- How does this offer a new way of doing something to people buying what I'm selling?
Craig Landes
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Defining the undefinable. "There are 10 kinds of people in the world---those who understand binary numbers and those who don't." - Unknown
International Society of Curmudgeons
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| Jul. 23 2008 at 1:03 AM |
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Linda, I generally defend white on black because my site uses it.... Try a softer looking font before you dump it. Your artistic style is, shall we say, a bit out there. That may be the reason for few conversions. Congratulations on getting a hundred views a day.
In the next section, I would change the all upper-case text into a bullet point list. All caps are hard to read.
Craig - Zazzle is similar to Cafe Press where people can rent "storefronts" on their parent site. I don't know how much control that Linda has over the HTML code, if any.
Steve Mann
Internet Videographer
MannMade Digital Video
My Email
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| Jul. 23 2008 at 2:01 AM |
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Ah...okay, I do know Cafe Press, and that explains some of what I saw.
If that's the case, then I'd probably argue in favor of your own
domain, Linda, and taking back control over the many elements involved.
And again, although white text on black doesn't *usually* work all that
well, on your site, Steve, it's not bad at all. The key is easy
readability, and not having too many distractions with image borders or
backgrounds. :-)
Craig Landes
---
Defining the undefinable. "There are 10 kinds of people in the world---those who understand binary numbers and those who don't." - Unknown
International Society of Curmudgeons
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| Jul. 23 2008 at 11:45 AM |
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CraigL wrote: ... The key is easy
readability, and not having too many distractions with image borders or
backgrounds. :-)
Linda may want to try this - all of my images have a soft edge on them to blend better into the background.
Steve Mann
Internet Videographer
MannMade Digital Video
My Email
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| Jul. 23 2008 at 12:45 PM |
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So it's kind of like a Yelp for movies. I like this model better than I would an actual movie blog, I think. Just stay away from the pitfalls of sites like imdb, which are really comprehensive but can get busy on the eyes after prolonged usage. Granted, I didn't sign up for your site so I can't comment 100% on functionality.
-ph.ind
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| Jul. 29 2008 at 4:37 AM |
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hey, If you wanna get around the white on black issue, but still keep the dark look. Make a text area which a dark grey background and use black text.
Just and idea.
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