help - need advise on site

[imie]

hello everyone, I don't exactly know how i stumbled here but i am glad i did. I am looking for some answers.

I am looking at changing my site, and maybe adding a forum to increase my google ranking. Points and opinions are welcome and thank you!

[ipxxx]

Unless I'm blind...you didn't post a site for us to look at and offer pointers/opinions about...

hello everyone, I don't exactly know how i stumbled here but i am glad i did. I am looking for some answers.

I am looking at changing my site, and maybe adding a forum to increase my google ranking. Points and opinions are welcome and thank you!

[wheel]

I'm blind

Comes from too much 'internet surfing' there, young fella.

The site in your profile? Interesting, has potential (perhaps you're already realizing that potential?).

A forum won't help your ranking, what gave you that idea? Forums are a real nasty thing to get up and going. Most - almost all - fail miserably. And the few that make it are difficult to make any money from. You however may have the right site to get a forum going.

Unless I'm just replying to forum spam. Anything's possible I guess. Tough to give decent answers on a site like that without more information. Drive by looks like you're doing something right.

[imie]

sorry guys, my site is www.ishopathome.ca

the forum would just be for members to exchange ideas and whatever they want to. By the way, that's what my webmaster said, "its going to cost you and lots of work!"


i had this site since 2003 and have grown tired of the look... any suggestion?

thank you kindly!

[wheel]

Yeah, don't change the look because you're bored with it. Change = bad.

A forum shouldn't cost much - an install of vbulletin is like $75 a year and really shouldn't cost much to install and maintain. However you'll find that keeping the forum lively is far more work over a far longer period of time than you anticipated.

[ullyeus]

sorry guys, my site is www.ishopathome.ca

the forum would just be for members to exchange ideas and whatever they want to. By the way, that's what my webmaster said, "its going to cost you and lots of work!"


i had this site since 2003 and have grown tired of the look... any suggestion?

thank you kindly!

there isn't really much cost from a technical point of view, it's getting people to post there and making it a community thats the hard part.

Technically a forum could cost as little as nothing (depending on your current package) and be setup within minutes.

[ullyeus]

i had this site since 2003 and have grown tired of the look... any suggestion?

the site would have looked dated in 03, more like 97.

I think it needs an entire revamp, the fonts choosen for the menu's are atrocious and almost impossible to read, no idea why you have a link on how to become a real estate agent at the bottom...

[george benjamin]

Font is extremely horrible.

I dont really know what your site is about.

Your title says "The Canadian Girl's Shopping Network", but in your explanation about the site you have:

"IShopAtHome.ca is borne from the idea that shopping can be convenient & fun! We want to give you easy access to all your favourite direct sales companies under one roof. Shop with us online, join us at our parties & home shows or contact us for free catalogues. Any way you do it, we know you will save time, money and have wonderful experience! "

Oh look! No mention of girls there.

So now we go down to click on something, what do we find?

"FIND A HOME PARTY DEALER"

What the heck is that?

[wheel]

i had this site since 2003 and have grown tired of the look... any suggestion?

Tired of the look isnt' a reason to change. Useability and higher conversions are reasons to change. What if you update the look and your sales/conversions plummet?

I agree that the fonts in the menu are hard to read. That's not a complete site redesign. That's a small technical change.

What you might consider is posting your question not in a forum full of critics, but in a forum where it's full of people who actually do this for a living. I believe there you'll find that the advice matches what I've told you. You won't hear this around here, but the fact is, ugly sells. That's why there's so many sales and affiliate sites that are ugly and old looking. They work. They're not pretty, but they make money.

[cdnNick]

The menu font is really hard to read, if I can't read the menu how am I going to navigate your site? The rollover effect is hideous.

The right hand column is basically empty, either add more content or switch to a two-column layout. Let the middle column take up the extra space.

You have a lot of broken images that do not display, you'll want to correct that. (I noticed these while looking at the site in IE)

You can give your site a fresh look by just changing some of the colours and updating your header/logo a bit. Drop the pink glow behind the newsletter subscribe area.

[sjweyman]

I'm not expert on matters but your site frustrated me right away. I'm a guy though so maybe I just don't understand.

I entered your site and immediately started to read the small description in the middle and got bored because it didn't answer my questions about what the site was about right away. I then did what I naturally do at almost all sites and tried to browse the menu at the top. I could barely read them because of the script.

After checking out the main page, if I still don't understand what the site or business is about I immediately look for an "abous us" page and sometimes a "contact us" page. I saw neither on your site.

Similar to what Wheel was saying, I don't care if the site is perfect style wise ... although I do like and uncluttered and organized layout that is easy to read. My suggestion is make the description of the site more attention grabbing (use a larger font or something sleeker) and make sure it truly describes what the site is about for those who may not know. Stick to the basics but make it clear. Have a prominent "about us" page that gives a lot of extra specifics for those who want more info. Also ... just changing your tagline would probably be better. Change it to something like "The Candian Home Shopping Party Network" or something. If you want to specify that it is primarily for women ... do so in your main description or your about us page.

[imie]

Thank you everyone! all points taken! it's good to get multiple viewpoints.

Now i am starting to understand why I am bored with it. I didn't pay much attention to when i first launched it because i know my primary objective is to make it pay itself and it has. Now i am looking at making it user friendly.

Again, I appreciate all the inputs, and WHEELS, i definitely keep your points in mind

Imie

[wheel]

You've got a nice site there with quite a bit of potential. Just make one change at a time, stop and measure it and see what happens before you change something else. You'll do fine.

If you're tinkering with the site and not actively mining your logs, now might be a good time to do that as well - some heaving research into your log files can give you some insight into things to change on the site, things to focus on, etc. For example, I've got log analysis software that tells me where visitors come from, what pages they enter on, the path through the site and where they exit. If they hit the home page and go deeper, you likely don't have a nav problem despite appearances that you do. If they don't go deeper, a nav issue is a possible problem (and a likely one give the nav design, as noted by others).

[cdnNick]

Get a free account at www.getclicky.com and add the code to your site. It will help you track some of the things wheel was talking about.