fifeclub — Tue, 16 Dec 2003 04:09:59 +0000

Howdy. I was a little worried about what I'd see but I think you've got a lot of good elements working here. I happen to be Jewish so I'll say smart choice of white on blue. Even though those aren't necessarily your company colors, it is good branding to instantly connect in this way to your target customers. The colors help tell them what you are about even without reading. Also, the header is clean and simple which is good, although I'm not sold on your needing those four little logos on the right side. They actaully detract.

The left side navigation is way too long. I'm assuming you may be listing every item. I don't like reading more than I need to so I end up reading none of it and poof I'm gone. What I would strongly suggest is that you go with that top section of main categories and that's all. Do not list every item on the front page.

BUT THE ONE BIG PROBLEM I have with this site is the resolution. I view at 800x600. Most web designers have big screen resolutions but most of yor typical viewers won't. It MUST fit into an 800x600 screen resolution without a horizontal scroll bar.

And as for the buying problem, that's life on the web. If you had 1 sale for every 100 visitors I'd say you're doing pretty well. The key is to market your site because visitors finding you from a search engine should just be considered good luck. THink about exchanging a link with another quality Jewish site, or even pay advertising. Heck, posting a piece of paper about your site on the temple bulletin board would be great too.

Good luck.

Thank You

Seeker — Mon, 15 Dec 2003 19:30:29 +0000

Just a quick note (I am at my "day job") to say thanks for all the great suggestions. I will work to incorporate them in the comming days.

This is a really great forum!

Thank You!

Megan — Mon, 15 Dec 2003 14:47:32 +0000

http://www.jewishgiftsgalore.com/

This is a good start. I really like what you've done with the header graphic. It's striking looking and the font you've chosen for the text is particularly appropriate. YOu might want to move that text a little closer to the star to make it more of a logo rather than separate parts. The hebrew text on the left should be done in a better colour.

Now, something needs to be done with the navigation menus. There are too many of them, first of all, and I'm having a hard time figuring out what I should focus on. You've got the top icon bar, the tabbed one under that, then the blue bar below it. Plus the left side which contains three menus, the top one, then the quick product finder, then the bottom section. I would move that quick product finder either to a right column or to a directory-type section in the cotnent area. Those two horiztonal menus, the tabbed one and the one below it, are really confusing to me. I don't know at all what those links are referring to. Something should be done to make that more clear.

What you really need to do is edit these navbars and keep only the essential navigation items. You do not need that engraving menu, for example. The quick product jump may be better suited to a javascript drop-down, which would take up a much smaller amount of space. The shopping cart menu should be reformatted to make it more obivous what it is. Look at how other sites do this.

One more thing - your shipping page doesn't say whether or not you ship outside of the US. You should make that clear as well.

Busy — Sun, 14 Dec 2003 23:31:28 +0000

on 800x600 it takes 8 times to press the 'page down' button to get to the bottom of your site, and I have a BIG horziontal scroll bar

Some of the things have "Jewish ....", you've already told us (in the banner and content) it's Jewish products
the 'Quick Product Finder' has name and price under it making it a very long and messy looking list.

If I came to your site looking for a gift, I'd see the quick links, freak and leave as it lists way to many things, the links above that however are good and organised.
Some of the following pages are laid out better but still have big scroll bars, but you need to add some text links at the very bottom or at least a "top" link

I went looking around and on some pages your quick links are on one line, looks way better is isn't as scary, but do you need the price on the items? your giving to much away and no reason for the person to look at the item, not having a price will make the person cick the link to find out, then the see the description and picture which is your selling point.
I think fine tuning the layout could help in sales

Suzanne — Sun, 14 Dec 2003 23:08:04 +0000

I think you could improve the look of your site by making it fit 800x?? resolutions better, and by using "the grid". Align each element so that you have each element in line with another element.

Another trick to improve the professional look is to consider each element of the page individually, and place it with purpose. Anything that's on the page without its own location should either get a location or be removed.

For instance, the little "helper" links in the middle of the sample items on the front page are lost in an ocean of detail.

The quick product finder links on the left are far too numerous for anyone to make sense of, divide those into sensible categories instead, or use small images for a much smaller set of "quick products". If you look at successful ecommerce sites you'll see they only offer one or two suggested items, not 30.

The text on the page is almost all the same size -- use text sizing to help the user know what's important and what's extra detail.

The images of the products are far too large -- you can link to a larger image, but keep smaller thumbnails on your main page to help both your bandwidth and your user be able to skim quickly through your products and see what you have to offer without getting overwhelmed.

At the end of your page you have an entire screen+ of stuff that doesn't matter to anyone. Get that webring code reduced or removed, design a page element for the address information, and remove all the centering.

cbc58 — Sun, 14 Dec 2003 15:19:00 +0000

Hi-

I too think there is nothing wrong with your site ...

I think its a matter of marketing.....

Maybe you could put some kind of satisfaction guarantee
on your products, or give your site visitors a more detailed
product page/description right off the bat.... (choose one product
to highlight) this way they will be able to see their purchase options and how to order your products..... without additional effort.

They can then go through and search for other things if they want
to.

JMHO

jd777wolf — Sun, 14 Dec 2003 07:57:54 +0000

I can see nothing wrong with your website. I understand that you are not a web designer, (I've seen some really eye-gouging sites, ouch) but your site looks good. It's very user friendly, self explanatory also, which is what most people like. I'm not jewish, so I can't really comment on the quality of the items.

I do, however, have a question for you. How are you advertising? Perhaps you are not targeting the right people. If you are relying on search engines, then the hits to your site don't mean that they go into your site looking for "jewish" gifts in particular. It's happened to me lots of times.

I hope this was of some use to you, and thanks again for your review of my site - ntunderground.