Please review CEOgolfshop.com

[seowizard]

Hello
My site is successful, but I'd like to really boost sales dramatically going into the holiday season.
CEOgolfshop.com is used to attract our corporate buyers who buy logo shirts and other products in bulk.
my.CEOgolfshop.com is the ecommerce store that serves both consumers and corporate buyers. We do lose some business due to the $200 minimum, but that's not really our market and don't want it to be.


FEEDBACK REQUEST
any input about the site design and SEO is appreciated. Thanks!

[JEccles]

Seems like you have everything set up well. You have keyword rich content on the pages, your meta tags and Alt_Tags are all in place. The design is good - you did well with the Volusion Template.

What are you doing in the way of marketing? Have you been sending out newsletters? One option you may want to look at is lowering the minimum for a short period of time (as a special incentive). Or offer free shipping.

[seowizard]

What are you doing in the way of marketing? Have you been sending out newsletters? One option you may want to look at is lowering the minimum for a short period of time (as a special incentive). Or offer free shipping.

I recently changed how we're doing emails (we're actually sending them regularly!) but the list is not big enough. I've been toying with incentives to increase sign ups for months and the latest just went up last week.
We've been offering free shipping as a promotion to our email members for the last month. It's complicated though because I can't offer free shipping on golf balls- the margins are too thin. I need to keep the posted prices to be competitive.
Thanks

[JEccles]

One thing I tried, on my personal site, to get people to sign up for my newsletter was a contest of sorts. Gosh - I can't remember the name of the site now, but it is a site that lists different online contests and sweepstakes. I signed up and made the newsletter registry a condition of entering. I gained about 120 sign ups and have lost maybe 15.

You can also exclude the golf balls from the free shipping by using a coupon.

[JPnyc]

I can't see a thing to critique on the site. It's laid out well, fills the screen nicely at all resolutions, looks good and loads fast enough. Some outdated coding techniques, but nothing compared to some of those I've seen.

[JEccles]

ISome outdated coding techniques, but nothing compared to some of those I've seen.

That is a Volusion thing.

[Younicycle]

2 tiny, picky items. Under customer favorites:
1)the > for Bugatchi Uomo isn't lined up
2) The golf bag, umbrella & golf balls at the bottom of the page are ~ white on white... not that that is bad. Might jump out more with a darker background.

Nice site

[seowizard]

2 tiny, picky items. Under customer favorites:
1)the > for Bugatchi Uomo isn't lined up
2) The golf bag, umbrella & golf balls at the bottom of the page are ~ white on white... not that that is bad. Might jump out more with a darker background.

Nice site

Thanks- actually you are on the corporate site and I'm looking for critiques on the ecommerce store http://my.ceogolfshop.com. While it doesn't look quite as clean, I used the H2 tag on BUGATCHI UOMO for SEO so that's why it's a bit off.

[Casey]

In response to the first post about your ecommerce site. Make sure your website is sale friendly. For example you offer ‘related products’ on the right side of your webpage, but your website is so wide that customers don’t see the products as they shop.
These days shoppers aren’t very patient so although your search refinements are really good make sure your search box works well too. Sometimes customers want to find one or two items quickly so you should make it as easy as possible for them to find what they want.
For example when I search on your website for black golf cap I get golf caps but also golf balls and bags also when I search for black golf hat (synonym for cap) I get search results of shirts and golf bags but no hats.
Check out this golf store for an example of a good search query-(and a good golf website)
http://onlinegolf.co.uk/
You can see here, how golf hat and golf cap bring up the right & the same search results.

[Microdocman]

Hi,

My interest in reviewing this site was as a customer, technical writer and golfing person. I viewed the site in Firefox and IE 7.

As a Customer (based in Australia):

*The left menu was clear and easy to navigate.
* Quick links were not quick to find.
*Items were in logical order (unsure what embroidery ment).
*Two menu items for mens pants and shorts, unsure why.
*Couldn't find infromation on international shipping.
* I expected deals to stand out on the top header.

As a technical Writer and Information designer:

The type of person who visits your website will generally be three types of people, a user (buyer), a researcher/reader (potential user) and a standard visitor (arrive by search/browse etc.). You will need to convert readers and visitors into users for sales. This is important to know, for example, readers are likely to thrive scrolling past the fold line of a page, a user knows want they want for the right price and a visitor wants quick browsing information to stay and become interested. You work is to accomodate the three catagories.

Here are some comments from a professional point of view:

*You need to make you graphics fresher and more eye catching, colour scheme seems bland. Go to your local hadware shop and pickup a colour wheel to match.
*I think there needs to be a strong tagline to identify the type of site.
* The graphics displayed different in Firefox and IE7, a resolution problem.
* You need to move the quick links above the fold line, so they can be quickly seen.
*Try changing your "how many...?" question, as you are as only consistent as you comp.
* you need legal information on shipping worldwide especially when Aussies see free delivery cons
* Your content needs to be concise, consistent and correct plain English. For example, try to avoid 'usually', which is seen as a vague word.


I've only had a brief look at the website. I think you need to further improve the design and content to attract the three aforementioned types of users, then convert them to users (buyers). I hope I haven't been too harsh.

good luck

[JPnyc]

that was one heck of an in depth review for a brief look. I'm impressed. Welcome to the forum

[ariel66]

Don't know weather anybody is still following this thread as it's a year old now, anyways if so I'd like to know weather the plain white background (boring!), is a favorite with visitors i notice that amazon has a similar layout and obviously they don't do to bad!

[The Old Sarge]

It may seem boring to some, but to others it says "clean", "serious", "professional", "no frills" ... even "safe" and "trustworthy".

[Microdocman]

Hi JPnyc,

Thanks for the welcome. I enjoy reviewing and appraising websites. I hope my comments were useful for people reading the thread.

[Microdocman]

Aerial and Old Sarge,

You raise a good point about successful websites. Interestingly Amazon have moved away from the horizontal multimenu to a more standard left hand menu. There is method in this madness. Making small changes of a longer period of time, rather than a complete rebuild helps reduce your churn rate. For example, the first few minutes of navigation are important to keep potential clients. People tend to move on quickly if they can't figure the layout and navigation, they won't come back. Making small changes keeps things managable for developers and more importantly, visitors will be comfortable with a familiar website. Clever web management.

I'm a believer colour schemes need to be topical and need to meet the visitors needs. The colour schemes need to also lead the user through buttons and links.

One of the best example of small changes and white background is Google. The design in Google's graphics is very clever. Also there is so much etra being added monthly/yearly. Check out the menus at the top for changes. Also, check out the amount of white bckground, which makes you focus on the search box. You'll also there ar changing graphics around the word at specific times and events. This is a classic subtle signature of Google.

Btw, as a researcher i'm not all out fan of Google. I use a raft of search engines to get balanced reseach.

regards
M'man