Google recommends that you separate two or more words with a punctuation instead of squishing them together and use hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_) between them. For example do:
An exciting, unique invention the Coolerwagon, is an all terrain motorized beach wagon that is in version 3 of it’s development process. This website critique is of it’s website www.coolerwagon.com where you can see the progress of the Coolerwagon’s development and buy other beach items that you might need for a relaxing day out in the sun.
• The overall look of the website can be cleaned up and brought up to today’s standards. But the navigation is easily found and clear to understand, which really important for a website.
• Make all your text the same size and the same font to keep consistent throughout the site.
Homepage
• Remove ALL sound. The sound of the Seagulls might of seemed like a good idea to make the people feel like they’re at the beach, but it’s actually doing the opposite. People visiting your website could be at work and you don’t want them to get in trouble.
• The header could be cleaned up a little to make it look more professional and showcase your product better.
• Take off the emphasis on the “latest news” and create a call-to-action for your visitors to follow. Right now your homepage serves just as an information page and doesn’t prompt the user to act. When you ask the user to perform some kind of a task on your site and they do it, it shows you that they’re interested in what you’re offering and that could lead to a sale. This could be something simple as having a button that say “View our Coolrwagon Video” or something similar to that.
Of course there are more things to review to make this website better such as search engine optimization, but this is a whole different subject and will require it’s own review.
If you’re reading this review and want to add more suggestions, please add your comments below.
Disclaimer
The video website critique and suggestions are for you to review and take what you feel will better your business website. There’s no guarantee that the suggestions mentioned will improve your business. Design Leap is not held responsible for any negative outcome.
I participate in few forums here and there and provide website critiques on numerous of them. There was one website critique request that came from a website designer that wanted some feedback on a recently completed flower shop website. I was very disappointed and a bit angry with the web designer, because the designer took advantage of a small business owner by promising to deliver a site that sells flowers, but the look and functionality of this flower site didn’t even come close. I of course dug a little deeper and found background information on the web designer, which led me to writing an article What to look for in a Web Designer.
What was wrong with that website?
Well, there was nothing about the website that said, “We sell flowers”. I don’t mean literally, but when a visitors arrives to your website, they should almost immediately know what the website is about. On top of that, this website was built all in Flash, meaning there’s no way for search engines to crawl the pages of this website. Not having the website search engine friendly is a huge loss for this small business.
Is cutting corners worth losing your business image?
The design of that flower shop website wasn’t professional, it looked like a job of a student who’s still practicing design skills. Shouldn’t the beautiful flower arrangements that this shop sells be represented in the same professional quality website? Your website reflects your business image, many will see your website without ever meeting you. Many who visit a poor quality website will reflect that what you sell will be poor quality also. Do you want to make a sale or do you want to lose that visitor for good. It’s really important to have a quality website that delivers what your customers are expecting to see. Unless you’ve done business with that person before, you wont win a visitor over with a poor website where it’s hard to navigate and find what they’re looking for.
Before hiring a Web Designer
It’s to your business’s best interest for you to do a little “homework” on what’s involved in a website design. You don’t have to become an expert, but you should understand the basics. Don’t be afraid to ask questions! Any Web Designer that you choose should be able to answer your website design questions or at least find the answer and educate you on your options before proceeding with the design. In the case of the flower shop, the use of all Flash was a poor choice; this is where the Web Designer should have educated the owner not to go this route.
When setting up your blog you want to be sure to buy a domain name and a hosting account. Having a blog on a subdomain on one of the free blogging platforms such as wordpress.com or blogger.com (yourblog.wordpress.com or yourblog.blogspot.com) gives all the search engine benefits to that blogging platform. All the hard work that you’re doing in creating great content for your visitors doesn’t help your website ranking for your business if you don’t have your own custom domain.
Bringing competitive prices and great customer service is what the owners of www.sdcards4cheap.com are striving for. Knowing that they have a lot of competition to beat, they wanted a video website critique with suggestions on how to make their website better.
• Show your visitors what’s your competitive advantage is more prominently.
• “Click Here for Help,” throughout the whole video I’ve been referring to this as a chat icon but I’ve never clicked on it. After I did the video I decided to click on it and to my surprise, it wasn’t a chat icon. Many online users expect certain things on the website to act the same on all sites. For example, it is common to click on the logo and be taken to the homepage of a website. As you can see from the video, by just looking at the “Click Here for Help” image, I was predetermined that it was a chat icon and many users might think the same way. Either make that image say “login for help” or something that doesn’t make one think it’s a chat icon or perhaps it would be a good idea to offer online chat support for your customers. Also, I believe that by making people login to get basic help, you will turn off a lot of visitors. Perhaps create a F.A.Q. section where all users can access the page.
• Think about adding your search bar a little higher so more people can see it easier and find what they’re looking for faster.
Homepage
• Currently the homepage doesn’t require the user to do anything, add some call-to-action to prompt the user to act.
• Add promotions or simply featured items so users can see what you’re selling right away.
• Having text on the homepage is great for search engines, but you need to add images and call-to-action that focuses on your target market.
Best Buy product page
Product pages
• Make it easier for people to scan your pages and see the product names and prices.
• Create different color and/or size “add to cart” buttons.
• Look at your competitors and see what they’re doing right and follow their footstep (but don’t copy them exactly).
Manufacturers page
• When users click on a “Manufacturers” on the blue navigation menu (without selecting a particular item), there’s a list without images, make sure that you add images because it makes easier to scan through.
Of course there are more things to review to make this website better such as search engine optimization, but this is a whole different subject and will require it’s own review.
If you’re reading this review and want to add more suggestions, please add your comments below.
Disclaimer
The video website critique and suggestions are for you to review and take what you feel will better your business website. There’s no guarantee that the suggestions mentioned will improve your business. Design Leap is not held responsible for any negative outcome.
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Quick Tip | Yiana Palacios | 
November 5, 2009 9:26 am | 
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What was wrong with that website?
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