Website finished, err is it ok ?

Flukester

Flukester

Flukester

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Posted a thread ages ago about site I been working on.. just after final opinions really.

http://www.bikevis.com

Would love some constructive critique, things to improve etc. a lot of the fine tuning done was based on what people said here.

Aim of site is to attract potential buyers and get the word / purpose of products across fast, I think this is the key to a niche product website (basically a online brochure)

I'm not a web designer or graphic designer in any shape or form so please be gentle :).

Just to add, never been happy with the front page content, i find this the hardest part of a site.. the product page itself is easy in comparison. Always in back of mind is how 'google sees' the site, that I think is almost as important as your potential visitors.

ATM I'm marketing the site with Adwords, which is expensive but helps drive visitors and in turn google rankings.. keeping a very careful eye on everything with google analytics. Ebay is also pushing traffic via auctions.

Cheers in advance.
 
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Flukester said:
Posted a thread ages ago about site I been working on.. just after final opinions really.

http://www.bikevis.com

Would love some constructive critique, things to improve etc. a lot of the fine tuning done was based on what people said here.

Aim of site is to attract potential buyers and get the word / purpose of products across fast, I think this is the key to a niche product website (basically a online brochure)

I'm not a web designer or graphic designer in any shape or form so please be gentle :).

Just to add, never been happy with the front page content, i find this the hardest part of a site.. the product page itself is easy in comparison. Always in back of mind is how 'google sees' the site, that I think is almost as important as your potential visitors.

ATM I'm marketing the site with Adwords, which is expensive but helps drive visitors and in turn google rankings.. keeping a very careful eye on everything with google analytics. Ebay is also pushing traffic via auctions.

Cheers in advance.
Click to expand...

Here a few things that stuck out straight away, some are personal so feel free to ignore :)

- The top menu seems to high imo, I think cropping it slightly and removing ther padding below it would improve the sites look.
- The product detail page url could be improved to include more keywords in the actual url E.g. domain.com/keyword1-keyword2-bikevis.html.
- Also on the product page you have links to youtube videos. Personally I'd embed these into the page (you can copy this code from the youtube page for that video), this way people can still view the video and stay on your site.
- The cart seems a bit odd to me. Ideally you'd want to allow customers to add things to their cart without leaving your site and definately not require them to log into anything to add to their basket. So instead of having a paypal add to cart button going to the paypal site, have a link to a scriopt adding it to your basket. - from the basket page they can then choose shipping options, you can work out discounts etc. and then send all this to paypal in one go - customers can still see what's in their cart from the paypal site too. If you do a bit of reading up on simple php arrays then you can make a basket, as it really isn't hard.
- As you're using paypal for checking out, I'd include some of their graphics in your about page and in the footer.


:)
 
Nice clean site, easy on the eye and easy to navigate.
Within 3 seconds I know exactly what your site is selling.

Also my eye is very quickly drawn to the user gallery, which would be of great interest to me if I still had my bike, its great to see a product fitted to a similar bike/car/pc as your own so you get a good idea of what to expect.

The only small thing that "personally" I don't like is the little yellow diagonal banner across your header. Don't mean for this to come across rude but it just seems maybe a little bit "tacky" for what otherwise is a really well presented website.

Edit:
Agree with Suarve about the basket/checkout (its something I didn't actually check myself until reading his post)
Integrating paypal is a much better system.

Also video'ing and photographing lights is not the easiest thing to do and make them look professional without dulling down (which is obviously what you don't want to do).. not sure if there may be a photoshop tutorial or a camera tutorial for maybe removing some of the glare which can make the images look a bit hazy.
 
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Can I suggest a section about how legal they are? Recall back in the day you used to see all sorts of lights on the back of cars but not any more (or maybe I moved to an area where people can't afford them? :D)
 
If you want visits (rather than just browsing for sales) you need to regularly add content blog-wise about things that your intended audience find interesting.

One option is to look at customers, visit them and show their installation. Giving ideas to others etc. More effort but a static site isn't going to maintain interest for long. Or - cover the current government issues that are going on in this area.
 
suarve said:
Here a few things that stuck out straight away, some are personal so feel free to ignore :)

- The top menu seems to high imo, I think cropping it slightly and removing ther padding below it would improve the sites look.
- The product detail page url could be improved to include more keywords in the actual url E.g. domain.com/keyword1-keyword2-bikevis.html.
- Also on the product page you have links to youtube videos. Personally I'd embed these into the page (you can copy this code from the youtube page for that video), this way people can still view the video and stay on your site.
- The cart seems a bit odd to me. Ideally you'd want to allow customers to add things to their cart without leaving your site and definately not require them to log into anything to add to their basket. So instead of having a paypal add to cart button going to the paypal site, have a link to a scriopt adding it to your basket. - from the basket page they can then choose shipping options, you can work out discounts etc. and then send all this to paypal in one go - customers can still see what's in their cart from the paypal site too. If you do a bit of reading up on simple php arrays then you can make a basket, as it really isn't hard.
- As you're using paypal for checking out, I'd include some of their graphics in your about page and in the footer.


:)
Click to expand...

Thanks for all the ideas, and the integration of paypal does need sorting properly. One thing has held me back is I will be concentrating on the reseller market so the site isn't going to be main portal for sales. Will look into some scripts to handle it for sure as you suggested...

Never thought of more descriptive URLs, does that help with google ranks etc ?

Will have a jig around with padding also :)
 
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NathanT said:
Nice clean site, easy on the eye and easy to navigate.
Within 3 seconds I know exactly what your site is selling.

Also my eye is very quickly drawn to the user gallery, which would be of great interest to me if I still had my bike, its great to see a product fitted to a similar bike/car/pc as your own so you get a good idea of what to expect.

The only small thing that "personally" I don't like is the little yellow diagonal banner across your header. Don't mean for this to come across rude but it just seems maybe a little bit "tacky" for what otherwise is a really well presented website.

Edit:
Agree with Suarve about the basket/checkout (its something I didn't actually check myself until reading his post)
Integrating paypal is a much better system.

Also video'ing and photographing lights is not the easiest thing to do and make them look professional without dulling down (which is obviously what you don't want to do).. not sure if there may be a photoshop tutorial or a camera tutorial for maybe removing some of the glare which can make the images look a bit hazy.
Click to expand...

Thanks for comments, you could be right about the 'get seen' banner, I must admit main purpose was to break up the logo abit without actually thinking, thats abit naff :)

All the photography on site was actually bodged with my omnia phone, amazing it looks okish.. will at some point redo everything with a good SLR. Kinda like the lens flare on shots though that lights create.
 
rsatd said:
Can I suggest a section about how legal they are? Recall back in the day you used to see all sorts of lights on the back of cars but not any more (or maybe I moved to an area where people can't afford them? :D)
Click to expand...

They probably are not legal but I want to steer clear of the subject. TBH no copper is going to pull a biker whos made a effort to be seen better, we even have a paramedic running one on his bike :)

When the product ships the first thing cust reads is a very comprehensive deisclaimer regarding legalitys, same as most aftermaket bike parts.

Will have to look into this further no doubt with a solicitor :(
 
NickK said:
If you want visits (rather than just browsing for sales) you need to regularly add content blog-wise about things that your intended audience find interesting.

One option is to look at customers, visit them and show their installation. Giving ideas to others etc. More effort but a static site isn't going to maintain interest for long. Or - cover the current government issues that are going on in this area.
Click to expand...

Thanks, yeah it's a problem.. there is a forum installed which provides some community aspect to the product and dynamic content which I can easily update. At least google can trawl away on this sucking up new keywords.

Thing is, you can't build a community based on a single product, and a simple one at that... hopefully as I get more things on the site it will get more use though. It's quite lonely posting on a board where 95% of posts are my own lol

Quite happy with a single visit atm rather than returning people.. but it never will be a community site :(
 
When I first seen this picture I thought the lights were the size of a small torch!!

brites_pair_small.jpg


I would add some sort of size comparison object or show an image of them fitted to a bike with the lights turned off so you can see how small they really are! And id have this as one of the first images you see on the website, I had to go through quite a lot of customer photo's before I realised how small they were

On the legality issue, the BMW R1200 GS has something similar, you could get in touch with a helpful bmw dealer and ask what the legals are about using the "fog lights" and use a similar approach yoursel ;)
 
Flukester said:
Thanks for all the ideas, and the integration of paypal does need sorting properly. One thing has held me back is I will be concentrating on the reseller market so the site isn't going to be main portal for sales. Will look into some scripts to handle it for sure as you suggested...

Never thought of more descriptive URLs, does that help with google ranks etc ?

Will have a jig around with padding also :)
Click to expand...

Yer, more descriptive URLs will help a little - http://www.seoconsultants.com/articles/1000/urls.asp - first google result. Would take long to implement on your site as you could rename the files manually. However, if you're going to do this make sure you do a 301 redirect from the original links to preserve ranking and to avoid 404 errors (if you have apache, you can do this via mod rewrite).

I found a load of tutorial files for the paypal cart and sending the whole basket to paypal. I'll try to dig em out.
 
jaxon said:
When I first seen this picture I thought the lights were the size of a small torch!!

brites_pair_small.jpg


I would add some sort of size comparison object or show an image of them fitted to a bike with the lights turned off so you can see how small they really are! And id have this as one of the first images you see on the website, I had to go through quite a lot of customer photo's before I realised how small they were

On the legality issue, the BMW R1200 GS has something similar, you could get in touch with a helpful bmw dealer and ask what the legals are about using the "fog lights" and use a similar approach yoursel ;)
Click to expand...

Thanks, yes I do need a better scale guide, on the product page is the following piccy, by might be better with a shot in hand or something..and shots with lights off (dont know why I didn't think of that one heh)

brites_scale2.jpg


The problem with lights to be legal as such is down to the lens used, though these have no lens it would be a problem, though the brightness is not designed to a level where it blinds people at all.
 
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suarve said:
Yer, more descriptive URLs will help a little - http://www.seoconsultants.com/articles/1000/urls.asp - first google result. Would take long to implement on your site as you could rename the files manually. However, if you're going to do this make sure you do a 301 redirect from the original links to preserve ranking and to avoid 404 errors (if you have apache, you can do this via mod rewrite).

I found a load of tutorial files for the paypal cart and sending the whole basket to paypal. I'll try to dig em out.
Click to expand...

thanks, will do that... I could do redirects or just leave old files in place I guess for simplicity.
 
Wondering how useful would it be to point the lights on the bike body work rather then away from it as to avoid blinding other motorists? I am thinking its all good and well having forward lights, but then the worst accidents are when you get hit for the side, seeing as you already have a headlight, would it really help to have the lights pointing straight ahead?

Its a good idea and ironically just a couple of days ago I was thinking about adding something like that to my bike as well :o
 
rsatd said:
Wondering how useful would it be to point the lights on the bike body work rather then away from it as to avoid blinding other motorists? I am thinking its all good and well having forward lights, but then the worst accidents are when you get hit for the side, seeing as you already have a headlight, would it really help to have the lights pointing straight ahead?

Its a good idea and ironically just a couple of days ago I was thinking about adding something like that to my bike as well :o
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hi m8, mounted on the side of fairing helps a lot, not only does it widen your bike, but becuase they are not directional if anyone is forward of that position they see the light...

I set mine back about 8 inches, even further back would increase side visibility and generally people hit bikes in the 'front' half rather than ramming them from rear.
 
I am interested in this, only problem is this month's disposable income has dried up... a while back :D, but we will see about next month, planning to get a few other things for the bike in a vague attempt to make it look a bit newer, like adding a bit of paint to here and there. So something like that is right up the street, seeing as I love night time riding!
 
rsatd said:
I am interested in this, only problem is this month's disposable income has dried up... a while back :D, but we will see about next month, planning to get a few other things for the bike in a vague attempt to make it look a bit newer, like adding a bit of paint to here and there. So something like that is right up the street, seeing as I love night time riding!
Click to expand...

drop me an email with your postal addy in and I'll get a set sent out for free m8, only condition is you get some nice photos of install :)

the set I'll send is a sample kit with very small 1mm defect in, but they look just fine.

improved the photo to show scale abit, taking a photo of your own hand is dam hard.. will have to work more on this as it looks abit pants tbh

brites_pair2.jpg
 
Thanks for the offer, but I would prefer to buy them next month instead, outside of being busy with other things now, I would like to help you out. It was thanks to your post that I didn't bin my bike when it surprise snowed around here this winter ;). Went out in the wet, only to find out it started to snow, by the time I had to go back!
 
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