Small Business Design Resources

Website Critique: Jewelry inspired by nature

Arjeent is a unique jewelry making website. They make jewelry inspired by nature and also custom jewelry taken from a provided photo from a customer. The video website critique of their website www.arjeent.com gives suggestions on how to improve the navigation and make finding the right type of jewelry to purchase much easier for the average user.

Overall Improvements

• The current website is generic, make it pop more and showcase that unique feel that the products have.

Homepage

• Don’t just jump directly into showing the products, explain/show the user what the website is about. Because this is so unique, you need to find that “WOW” and bring it to the homepage.
• Use the homepage to show promotions, specials, and/or even advertise the custom jewelry from photo section.
• Create a call-to-action! Don’t make your users stop and wonder what to do or where to go on your website. A call-to-action prompts the user to choose to either do this or that and explore the website.

Swarovski product page example

Products

• Users are use to seeing a navigation where they can choose what product they want to shop by. Give them this option of choosing either to shop by the specific jewelry item or even by the animal type.
• Give more description to each product. This will not only help the user but will start improving your SEO.
• Under each animal that has multiple choice of jewelry items, you can say “also available in…”. This way you’re giving the user options of the jewelry type for a particular animal.
• Take a look at other well known jewelry websites and see how they showcase their products (see image of the Swarovski product page to the right).

Other recommendation

• Add a blog with articles about stress issues and relaxation methods. Having a blog is great to have new content on your website, which search engines love to see.

More website critiques

Of course there are more things to dive deeply into making this site better such as search engine optimization, but this is a whole different subject and will require it’s own review.

If you’re viewing 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.

Website Critique: Relieve stress with Lavender products

Lavender Dreams 4ever offers Aromatherapy products that help relieve stress and tension. The video website critique of their website www.lavenderdreams4ever.com offers improvements to their homepage and suggestions for the navigation menu among other things that will make a user experience more welcoming.

Overall Improvements

• There should be contact information in a visible location on every page. Best to include a phone number in addition to email so users can trust you better.

• Add relevant images where appropriate to break up the long text.

Homepage

• Create a call-to-action so users can immediately know what to do when they arrive on the website.

• Give more attention to your “Free Sachet give away with every purchase”. Everyone loves free stuff, make sure they know about it.

Products

• Reposition the products navigation menu so it’s easily accessible.

• Restructure how all products are displayed on the main products page. The slider makes it a little hard to tell how many products you have to offer.

Other recommendation

• Add a blog with articles about stress issues and relaxation methods. Having a blog is great to have new content on your website, which search engines love to see.

More website critiques

Of course there are more things to dive deeply into making this site better such as search engine optimization, but this is a whole different subject and will require it’s own review.

If you’re viewing 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.

Website Critique: Enhancing your presentations with Presenter Media

Presenter Media is a website that offers PowerPoint templates, animations and clipart for unlimited download during an entire year subscription. It’s a great deal, but most first time visitors miss the subscription information. The video website critique shows where the website can use some improvements to make the subscription services more prominent to new visitors.

Overall Improvements

• Basically put the focus on your subscription service. Check that your main website content is above the fold. If people can’t see it, they won’t subscribe!

Homepage

• The Flash animation at the top is not working in your favor. It’s displaying your products, but not showing what could be accomplished using your products. You are not just selling images/clipart so I believe it’s best to show what can be done using your products instead of just displaying them.
• There are so many ways you can use that top banner space, but the most effective way is to create a call-to-action for the subscription. Just take a look at other subscription based stock photo websites and you’ll notice that the subscription information is right there at the top to grab the visitor’s attention.

Screenshot of www.getharvest.com

• Another option is to polish up the look and feel of the 3 categories that you currently have blending into the text. For example take a look at what Harvest did on their homepage to focus on the subscription and below that show the 3 distinct groups that they’re targeting.

More website critiques

If you’re viewing 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.

Website Critique: Starting a Business Using Launchx.com

Launchx provides all-in-one business start up kits for people who are just getting started on launching their business. The video website critique of www.launchx.com offers suggestions on how to improve their website to promote their products easier and better.

Overall Improvements

• Clean up the organization on all the pages to flow and look consistent throughout the website.

• Use better quality images and size them to look consistent and give a more professional look.

• Add the contact information where everyone can see it on every page (make it easy for people to get in touch with you).

• Call more attention to your Guarantee (assuring people that you’re there for them will make selling the products easier).

Homepage

• Add a call-to-action so people can click and discover other information on your website. Adding a promotion or a special offer can work very well here.

• Reorganize the look and order of information to what is most important first.

Products

• Product pages shouldn’t have links that take away the user from purchasing the product. Make it as less distracting as possible to eliminate people leaving the product page to view other offers.

Other recommendation

• Make the blog link directly from the navigation menu and make it look like the user never left your website.

More website critiques

Of course there are more things to dive deeply into making this site better such as search engine optimization, but this is a whole different subject and will require it’s own review.

If you’re viewing 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.

Website Critique: Independent at home

Independent at home provides home medical equipment and supplies to aid individuals independence and safety. The video website critique of www.independentathome.com covers some points where the website can use some improvement to make it easier for shoppers to browse and search engines to index the site.

Overall Improvements

• Take it up a notch into making the website more professional and organized.

• Let a professional design your business logo and use it throughout the website and all your marketing materials.

• Remove all “empty” categories. Finding an empty category makes the user think that they’re waisting their time and can move on to a competitor.

• Make all your photos the same size to make the products look more professional.

• Make “Add to Cart” button stand out to prompt action from the user.

• Add more links to your inner pages. Each category should have some text at the bottom with keywords that link to the inner pages.

• To help out the search engines, add more description text to each product. Search engines love content, give it to them!

Homepage

• The top header can be more attractive and more professional looking.

• Add a call-to-action before listing all your products. When a visitor comes to a website they have a task in mind to accomplish, steer them in the direction of what you want them to accomplish on your site.

Other recommendation

Add a blog to the website and keep adding relevant articles with keywords that link back to your product pages to boost search engine activity.

More website critiques

Of course there are more things to dive deeply into making this site better such as search engine optimization, but this is a whole different subject and will require it’s own review.

If you’re viewing 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.

Website Critique: Hollywood Style Scrubs

Carey Bennett designs clothing for a popular TV show SCRUBS among other shows. Now you can get these soft, stretchy, and sophisticated scrubs for real health care professionals. The following website critique is for www.BestEverScrubs.com where you can buy these Hollywood Style scrubs and accessories.

Every website should have a predetermined action that they want the visitor to complete when he/she arrives there. Help your visitor get where you want them to go by creating a call-to-action. A call-to-action can be in a form of a button or some type of message that tells the user what to do. For example on Best Ever Scrubs website this call-to-action can be “View our new PocketShirts” where a button takes the user directly to the PocketShirts page.

Overall Improvements

• Reorganize the navigation. Make the navigation that the users will use to “shop by” as the primary accessible and easy-to-use. Currently the top navigation gets users primary attention, but it really doesn’t assist them in the buying process.

• You have a great opportunity to promote your products by showcasing the celebrities that wear them. Don’t hide those images just inside a portfolio section.

Home page

• Stop the Flash animation from auto replay and minimize it so it gives room for more important information.

• Bring up your offers and new items to the top where users can see them immediately. Most people don’t scroll all the way to the bottom, so having your new items and promotions there makes you loose sales.

• It’s great that you’re participating in all the Social Media, but listing them on the homepage where you have it, takes up room from promoting the things that you want to sell.

• Reorganize your homepage where you have a call-to-action that prompts the user to do something. Currently just viewing the Flash animation doesn’t prompt the user to explore your products or perform any other predetermined task.

• Grab peoples attention by placing “As Seen On…” the homepage. It doesn’t have to be big, but it will get more interest than the Flash animation.

About page

• Your story is great, just add your photo so people can relate better.

More website critiques

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.

Website Critique: Unique, motorized cooler wagon

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.

Overall Improvements

• 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.

More website critiques

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.

Website Critique: Buy SD cards for cheap

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.

Overall Improvements

• 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.

More website critiques

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.

Website Critique: Factory direct craft

Factory Direct Craft, a family owned craft supply business was started by a stay-at-home mom. Now for over 20 years in business, the company has an online presence www.factorydirectcraft.com and ships their products worldwide. Striving for perfection in customer service, they wanted a video website critique with suggestions on how to improve their website.

Branding should be the priority of every business small or big. Having a consistent identity throughout your print and online marketing materials will make your business more recognizable. Studies have shown that it takes at least 7 times for a prospect to interact with a business before they buy something.

Overall Improvements

• Make sure that your store, blog, and forum all look the same. You don’t want to confuse your customers with multiple identities. Not all your customers enter your store directly from the home page.

• Update the look of the website to bring it to today’s standards. Keep in mind your target audience at all times. Remember that you’re selling to creative people, so don’t shy away from bringing some creative style.

• Let a professional design your business logo and apply it across all your marketing materials.

• The top navigation should consist of the main categories that are on your website to make the shopping experience easier. The current buttons on the main navigation at the top are not the primary places where your visitors will go to shop on your site. These buttons could either be moved to the bottom of the website or made smaller and moved up next to the phone number.

• Create consistency with all your images in size and style. You can also make the images on your multi-product pages a little bigger, this will let your visitors scan the products easier (seeing details) and in return shorten the time to add to cart. To the right is a sample of a subcategory view from www.sortingwithstyle.com.

• Move the description text that you have on each category below the products, this will bring the products higher up on the page. It’s great for search engines to have descriptive text on all your pages, but the reality is that most customers don’t actually read that information.

Homepage

• There’s a lot going on and nothing is calling attention of the user to dig dipper in to the site. It’s best to focus on one main thing or offer and give a call-to-action, it’s sort of like telling the user I want you to do “this” next.

Shipping page

• Make it more organized and easier to read. For example take a look at the Macy’s Shipping Information page, it’s easy to read and to scan to find the specific shipping information.

• Personally I think that your shipping and handling charge is too high. You can have great products and they might be priced right, but just having a high shipping cost can make your buyer turn to your competitors.

More website critiques

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.

Website Critique: Elegant jewelry and crafts

Lorraine Davis, a jewelry and crafts designer has decided to start her own business and set up www.elegantjewelryandcrafts.com website to sell her designs. Designing jewelry and designing websites is a totally different art, below is a video website critique with suggestions on how to improve her website.

In business, first impressions can make or break a sale, a connection, or even an opportunity. Websites are impressions of our business when we’re not there in person. Below are some further explanations and examples from the website critique video on how to make this website more professional and elegant as the name says.

Overall Improvements

www.displayimporter.com

• Set a style for your business and apply it everywhere. Let a professional design your business logo and include it on all your pages. Keep a unified look and color scheme that appeals to your target audience.

• Double-check, triple-check your links to make sure they are working and going where you intended them to go.

• Take professional photos of your products. If you don’t show your products as their best, how can you expect people to see their quality. Buy some jewelry stands and take photos against a white background, your images will look clean, unified and professional.

Homepage

• The homepage needs to have a call-to-action that prompts the visitor to do something: sign up for a newsletter, view gallery or anything else that you expect them to do. If you don’t tell them to act, they won’t.

• Remove 90% of the body text and replace with relevant information that the visitor wants to see.

Order Here page

• There’s no point to have a separate Order Here page. You need to combine your Jewelry page and Order Here page. When people browse your inventory, they want to know how much each item is and it’s information, they shouldn’t have to look for this information on a separate page. You can have a link from your gallery page that goes directly to individual product when clicked for more information.

Other recommendation

You might consider to sell your items on www.artfire.com, it’s a website where people buy and sell handmade products.

More website critiques

Of course there are more things to dive deeply into making this site better such as search engine optimization, but this is a whole different subject and will require it’s own review.

If you’re viewing 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.