Site Review Please -I am at your mercy friendly fellow Actinicers!

[mypalchris]

Hello there,

Not knowing any HTML or CSS, I thought I was ideally placed to design, code and run an actinic webshop for our company........ :rolleyes:

Anyway, I have learnt pretty fast over the last month or so and I have managed to cobble together something workable.

It would be fantastic recieve any feedback, no matter how small or petty, as I long ago lost any objectivity!

I'm no coder and certainly no graphic designer and this is my first stab at anything like this, so please don't pull any punches as I am really keen to improve.

Any advice on getting traffic on to the site would also be very usefull as we are in an ultra competitve field with many larger sites with much larger adwords budgets elbowing us aside.

The site is here: www.alittlegift.co.uk

Thanks a million,

Chris

[acompton]

Looks very nice; I could only find a few little things.

- by convention, the header should be a link to the home page
- <days> turns up in the T&C
- lots of little spelling errors
- why does the email use a different URL to the website?

Made from fine lama textured chocolate brown leather with an lime green grossgrain lining

The item pictured was black leather with an purple lining.

[mypalchris]

Looks very nice; I could only find a few little things.

- by convention, the header should be a link to the home page
- <days> turns up in the T&C
- lots of little spelling errors
- why does the email use a different URL to the website?

Made from fine lama textured chocolate brown leather with an lime green grossgrain lining

The item pictured was black leather with an purple lining.

Thanks a million Alan. Spelling really is the bain (sic?) of my life....... :)

[RuralWeb]

A simple actinic theme based site that works well IMO.

Points:

Move your product sections on the left to the top of the column so people can see them without having to scroll down - its the bits you want people to see.

Some of your text is underlining when hovered over eg product titles - this makes it look like they are links and will really anoy people when they try and click them.

You have used the ext info pages as your SPP which is not good for SEO - have a look at other methods which are a bit better in terms of SEO.

Some of your product images are a bit big both physically and file size - use a 300pix image and a popup or multi-images to show the product better while keeping download times small.

Get your buy button further up the page

Very good though for just a month;)

[mypalchris]

Thanks Mal for the really helpfull critique- I'll certainly look into the points you have raised. I have a few follow ups to some of your points though....


You have used the ext info pages as your SPP which is not good for SEO - have a look at other methods which are a bit better in terms of SEO.


Would you mind going into a bit of detail about this. Like I say, I'm kind of new to this. Could you point me in the direction of and explination of what SEO and SSP actually are?

What other methods would you recomend?


Some of your product images are a bit big both physically and file size - use a 300pix image and a popup or multi-images to show the product better while keeping download times small.


I have Normans Multi image addon to impliment, so hopefully this should solve that problem to some extent. What would be the upper limit (in kilobytes) of a product image? I realise that different people have different ideas about this, but are there guideline figures?

[mypalchris]

Could you point me in the direction of and explination of what SEO and SSP actually are?


Doh! SEO is Search engine optimisation? right?

Too many all nighters working on the site has affected my mental process a bit :)

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

Your first five sections from Games, Cards and Toys" through to "Photo & Memory Boxes" have missing section images which have been replaced by actinic with a dot.

Another small problem was with the dropdown section list on the top menu. It dropsdown on hover but if you bring the mouse down the list and off the side the menu stays expanded and partially hides the left navigation menus.

Nice looking site for something cobbled together in a month.

[mypalchris]

Thanks very much for your help guys. Looks like I need to make a few minor aesthetic changes here and there.

But now for the important bit...... Traffic!

In your opinions, what is the number one thing I should focus on in driving traffic to my site?

Sorry, if I seem a bit relentless, it's just I'm determined to get this site right first time and it makes sence to mine the depth and breadth of knowledge that you guys obviously posses.

You have been a great help so far. Cheers!

[pinbrook]

The site would benefit from single product pages.

eg at the mo you have multiple products per section, with an extended info page

do a forum search for more info on this.

for immediate listings in google you will have to resort to adwords.

[mypalchris]

The site would benefit from single product pages.

eg at the mo you have multiple products per section, with an extended info page

do a forum search for more info on this.

for immediate listings in google you will have to resort to adwords.

:eek:

Sounds like a lot of work! I'll get working on it when I get home tonight and I'll certainly read related threads on the forum for info.

Seems a bit odd that actinic by default requires such an humungous rejigging to get it and google to be friends.

Is this down to the way that actinic works, or the way google works, or both?

Is this going to be as hellish a rewrite as it first appears? :eek:

[leehack]

It's more your approach on using Actinic to build things in the best way for the web really. Have a read of this - http://www.websitedesigned.co.uk/actinic-spp.htm - should help you a bit.

[mypalchris]

It's more your approach on using Actinic to build things in the best way for the web really. Have a read of this - http://www.websitedesigned.co.uk/actinic-spp.htm - should help you a bit.

Outstanding - thanks very much. I'm delighted I went with actinic an other ecommerce solution. The level of support and the helpfulness of the community is second to none.

[bamboo]

But now for the important bit...... Traffic!


This shouldn't be your primary concern IMO. Attracting converting customers is where you should focus your efforts. Traffic is dead easy, some may say way to easy, to get with a well crafted Adwords campaign.
I know there are different points of view on here but there is no easier source of instant targeted traffic.
If you cannot get Adwords customers to buy from your site you are facing an uphill struggle to get organic search customers to buy because it is much more difficult and takes much longer to get high organic rankings even with tightly focussed keyword strings.

I will presume that in common with almost every other start up, me included, you haven't actually proved to yourself that a market exists for your products let alone a profitable one. You say you are in a competitive market and already have a downer on your efforts by thinking that larger sites with a bigger Adwords budget are working against you, again a common failing in thinking IMO.

Just because a site is larger than yours or advertises everywhere it doesn't mean that they convert their Adwords customers into buying customers you simply assume this to be the case.

LESSON ONE
'Assumption is the mother of all f8*k ups'

I would recommend you spend your time analysing which keyword strings your competition is advertising on and take a close look at the landing pages the ads send you to.
If there is a disconnect, in other words the ad advertises gold jewellery boxes and the link takes you to a homepage or a page with silver jewellery boxes or best of all a 404 page you can kill the opposition simply by making your ad more relevant and getting the connection right.

Also 'just in' is meaningless clutter that needs to be removed.
10% off if you spend £50 simply screams 'built in discount pricing at work' to me and isn't a good enough reason to buy from you over your opposition.

There are quite a few typos, says he whose posts are full of the flaming things :p but on an e-commerce site there is no excuse for them.

Finally by all mean tell me I'm wrong but most people do not see fire blankets as 'gifts' so you are making an instant top left disconnect with your customers IMO.

Please remember these are just my opinions based on a five minute run through your site.

[mypalchris]

Please remember these are just my opinions based on a five minute run through your site.

Thanks for your points - very constructive and informative.

The one thing I am certain about is my market...... I've been running an eBay shop and an Amazon shop for the last 2 years (Oddly enough, Fire Blankets saftey Gift sets sell as gifts far more often than you would think -surprised me too!) and both have been doing really very well indeed. I get around 1000 sales a week, but I'm desperate not to give 15% to either company as they really don't deserve it!

So in away, two of my major competitors are, er, me. :o

I think that the strategy you recommend, sounds like a lot of leg work, but will ultimately be highly rewarding. Perhaps my larger competitors would not have the inclination or time to do something similar.

I also concur about the 10% off deal - as an insentive it probably sends the wrong message. I simply assumed that it'd make a good case for people to choose me over my competitors, but I'd be interested to hear other forum members views though....

Spelling is something I know I really need to sort out. I think I'll run my heirarchical file through the spell checker when I start work on the site again tonight. That should sort out the worst of it.

[bamboo]

I get around 1000 sales a week, but I'm desperate not to give 15% to either company as they really don't deserve it!

Excellent and deserving or not of their 15% they are providing you with all of your buying customers at present. Competing with yourself is a good thing IME as the true competition in the form of other retailers have no idea how to combat such a strategy even if they realise this is what you are actually doing.

Doing it on Adwords can be expensive but only if you don't keep a close eye on it. Doing it in the organic search pays big dividends if done well.

Fire blankets eh! Makes my lesson about assumption appear to be bang on the money.

Perhaps there is the opportunity to completely dominate the security/fire gift market with another Actinic store which features just security and fire related gifts.
I'll bet no other Giftware retailer is going down this road, more research I'm afraid but may well be worth the effort.
The big benefit is that there would be a lot of 'natural' upsells, cross sells and bundling to increase the added value of each sale along with the profitably of each sale.

If this approach works then simply build out another focussed site and rinse, wash and repeat.

[mypalchris]

Perhaps there is the opportunity to completely dominate the security/fire gift market with another Actinic store which features just security and fire related gifts.
.

To be honest, this was an idea that I had been bouncing around, only for my boss to shoot me down in flames, so it's nice to hear it vindicated! If only I was paid by the site and not saleried! :o

[mypalchris]

Right. I've been trawling the forum and reading various posts about SPP and SEO all day and now my head hurts.

A lot.

But I think I now understand the "why" part using SPP, now I just need to understand the "how" part. As have said I am new to all of this coding and website design lark, and I've been getting a bit lost following a lot of the forum posts, but these are my thoughts so far:


1) The bottom level subsection replaces the extended info page. I need this section page to have the same look and layout as my current extended info page.

so this:

Top Level section : Extended Info Page (with product info)

Needs to become this

Top Level section : New Section (with product info - as per current extended info page)


2) Is there a quick and easy way to convert and create all of the product sections? After my reading the answer appears to be no. Someone mentioned that you could export a heirarchical file and use excel to do it quickly, but I'm afraid I didn't quite follow all of the logic.

3) Is there a quick and easy way in maintaining the overall layout of the site exactly as I have it at the moment? Would I still be able to get my bottom level subsections to look as they do now?

I'm begining to think this problem has left me a little out of my depth!

[Rich Brady]

Chris,

Essentially you need to put every Product into it's own Section. Then have all of the info that you have on the Ext. Info Page within said Product.

See right hand image in Lee's tutorial;

http://www.websitedesigned.co.uk/actinic-spp.htm

If you don't want to do this by hand you could use a plug in to speed things up:

http://www.codepath.co.uk/actinic_plugins.htm

[NormanRouxel]

Many people recommend putting a product into it's own Section, each Section containing one product.

However I cannot see any difference between this and having a compact list of products (say 4 across the page) where each uses the Extended Info page (opening in same page as the product and with a full layout, add-to-cart, etc) to display the full product details and Cart button.

This way it's easy to display things like price on the compact list and you don't have to fill in Section Details for each product - everything can be done on the Product Details and its assorted tabs. And you don't have to re-do the Section details if you change the product name, image, etc.

[mypalchris]

Many people recommend putting a product into it's own Section, each Section containing one product.

However I cannot see any difference between this and having a compact list of products (say 4 across the page) where each uses the Extended Info page (opening in same page as the product and with a full layout, add-to-cart, etc) to display the full product details and Cart button.

This way it's easy to display things like price on the compact list and you don't have to fill in Section Details for each product - everything can be done on the Product Details and its assorted tabs. And you don't have to re-do the Section details if you change the product name, image, etc.

Thanks Norman,

Would you recommend then keeping my site "as is" ?

[leehack]

Automatic page naming to something useful, the ability to add individual titles and META info so not farmed from a parent page and easy to have same page design throughout site with no technical know how. Those would be the first 3 that spring to mind. There is also a considerable performance improvement with a page using sections and not products and extended info pages, particularly when working within the software.

I've been told that extended info pages are looking to be improved in this area, to present the same functions and fields as a section. If that and improvement on speed happen, then multi product pages can duly return and would be an equal to the SPP solution.

[NormanRouxel]

Automatic page naming to something useful, the ability to add individual titles and META info so not farmed from a parent page and easy to have same page design throughout site with no technical know how. Those would be the first 3 that spring to mind.Ah.... It's the "no technical know how" that's probably the stumbling block.

It's not difficult to make the Extended Info page name include the product name. However, even though the Extended Info page is unique there are no Meta Fields available. Again easy to do with custom variables but a bit of a pain.

[leehack]

Ah.... It's the "no technical know how" that's probably the stumbling block.
Definitely only the technical side as the stumbling block, it can all be done using variables and/or know how (particularly if you was involved), although a little clunky or lacking user friendliness at times. With a bit of focus on this area, Actinic can easily make extended info pages the equal of a section. Maintaining important (what should be standard) fields via variables given the current way we have such little space in these areas, is not great either I guess.

The solution to duplicates I created, uses products on the duplicates to mimic the section layout, so I am not against using products, much of the decision is based on giving a client something as easy to manage as possible.

[mypalchris]

it can all be done using variables and/or know how (particularly if you was involved), although a little clunky or lacking user friendliness at times.


So is it possible to embed a meta description variable into the ext info layout, thereby solving one of the problems? Or is that oversimplistic?

[leehack]

No, that is entirely possible and simple. You'd just need to know how to create a variable and use it, which the help covers very well.

[mypalchris]

No, that is entirely possible and simple. You'd just need to know how to create a variable and use it, which the help covers very well.

Nope - I can handle that. Thats one problem down! Now all that needs addressing is the page naming thing (no idea how to do that!) and, er, anything else?

[NormanRouxel]

is it possible to embed a meta description variable into the ext info layoutSure. Just create a Variable to hold this info (see Help and Starter guide for info). Then, in your Extended Info layout put something like

<meta name="description" content="<actinic:variable name="MyDescription" />" />

Or you could use the Product Description:

<meta name="description" content="<Actinic:Variable Name="ProductName" />" />

[NormanRouxel]

Now all that needs addressing is the page naming thing
That'll need a bit of PHP to strip out any funny characters (like : / etc) and replace spaces with "_".

I'm not at my test system but will have a go later.

[NormanRouxel]

Here's how to customise the Extended Info pages to use a filename based on the product name.


First we change the file name used when creating the Extended Info pages:

Go to Design / Library / Layouts / Extended Info Layout.

Open each layout there.

In the Layout Code window click Edit Layout Details.

In the Extended Info Page File Name field, replace all contents with

x_<actinic:block php="true">echo preg_replace('/\W/','_','<actinic:variable name="ProductName" encoding="perl" selectable="false"/>_<actinic:variable name="ProductID" encoding="perl" selectable="false"/>');</actinic:block>.html

OK out.

Repeat for all layouts in Extended Info Layout.


Now we have to replace all ExtendedInfoPageName and ExtendedInfoPageEncoded variables with that page name in all other layouts:

Right-click the top item in the Layouts tab of the Library. Choose Find.

In the Find In Design window, set the Search for Text to be ExtendedInfoPageName.
Check the Code checkbox.
Click Find Next Item.

The library will scroll down to the first layout containing that text.

CHANGING PAGENAME1
Leave the Find In Design window open.
Open the library layout that you've scrolled to (also note down its layout name so you know what you've changed).

In that layout, replace all ExtendedInfoPageName with

x_<actinic:block php="true">echo preg_replace('/\W/','_','<actinic:variable name="ProductName" encoding="perl" selectable="false"/>_<actinic:variable name="ProductID" encoding="perl" selectable="false"/>');</actinic:block>.html

OK out of that Edit Layout code window.

Back in the Find In Design window, click Find Next Item. This will take you to the next layout to change.
Go to CHANGING PAGENAME1 above.

When all layouts are done, close the Find In Design window.

Right-click the top item in the Layouts tab of the Library again. Choose Find.
In the Find In Design window, set the Search for Text to be ExtendedInfoPageEncoded.
Check the Code checkbox.
Click Find Next Item.


CHANGING PAGENAME2
Leave the Find In Design window open.
Open the library layout that you've scrolled to (also note down its layout name so you know what you've changed).

In that layout, replace all ExtendedInfoPageEncoded with

x_<actinic:block php="true">echo preg_replace('/\W/','_','<actinic:variable name="ProductName" encoding="perl" selectable="false"/>_<actinic:variable name="ProductID" encoding="perl" selectable="false"/>');</actinic:block>.html

OK out of that Edit Layout code window.

Back in the Find In Design window, click Find Next Item. This will take you to the next layout to change.
Go to CHANGING PAGENAME2 above.

OK out of the library.

It's a good idea to go back into the library and do the two Finds above again, just in case you missed something.

[AndyBorrett]

After all the good advice you have been given my tip seems somewhat trivial.

If you have a copy of Access you can use that to spell check.
Open up ActinicCatalog.MDB and you will see all the tables containing your data.

[mypalchris]

Here's how to customise the Extended Info pages to use a filename based on the product name.


Outstanding Norman - Thanks a million. After trawling these forums for a day or two it is apparent that you are a gentleman of considerable reputation in the Actinic community - and I can see why!

I'm also going to have a bash today it implimenting your multiple image ad-on (Which my colleague bought from you before his attempt on the site was abandoned), so double thanks!

After all the good advice you have been given my tip seems somewhat trivial.

If you have a copy of Access you can use that to spell check.
Open up ActinicCatalog.MDB and you will see all the tables containing your data.

Not trivial at all - fantastic. I'll give that a crack as well.

[Mark H]

Be very careful with AdWords. If you are not, you will probably find yourself spending somewhat more than the 15% you are currently spending with Amazon.......:)

[Darren B]

Chris

MPP's have there place, SPP's would not suit all, this page shows you what i mean http://www.casupply.co.uk/acatalog/9mm-Cappit-Board.html

although i use SPP's extensively this is one http://www.kitesrus.co.uk/acatalog/HQ_Symphony_1.4.html I use prioduct duplicates on MPP's so the customer can see the various sizes all on one page and the SPP's to keep google base happy

I have styled the extended info page so that if indexed by a search engine and the customer finds the site then they have a navigation to other pages http://www.kitesrus.co.uk/acatalog/info_117691.html the H2 description at the top comes from the product description not the text in the extinfo page i have also added a breadcrumb trail and simple menu bar to get people back to the main site but still keeping a similar look and feel

there is loads of info on the forum, but you have been given 99% of the advice needed. These are just some examples of what can be done

[mypalchris]

Here's how to customise the Extended Info pages to use a filename based on the product name.

I can now confirm that Norman's solution worked a treat (first time!). All I need to do now is embed the meta description and thats (at least a small part of) my SEO nightmareover!

Thanks a million
Chris

[mypalchris]

After a slight problem, I have just reimplemented this solution, but now actinic doesn't seem to be generating or publishing my extended information pages.

I'm not sure if this is a result of the above process or another problem that one of you may have experianced before. Either way, some help would be enormously appreciated.

Which part of the software is reponsible for generating the ext info pages and how have I knackered it?