Hello all,
Looking for your detailed reviews on my store. Just rebuilt through Abel Commerce and will be publishing in a few more days. I have a little more work to do on the fly tyers forum. I invite any and ALL available feedback.
The temporary domain for your review is:
http://64.49.236.146/index.aspx?SID=1&ClearCache=1
Thanks you in advance!
_________________
Mark Boname
Platte River Fly Shop
flyshop@wyomingflyfishing.com
critique this site before I go live
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NC Software
- AbleCommerce Partner
- Posts: 4620
- Joined: Mon Sep 13, 2004 6:06 pm
- Contact:
Hi Mark,
Well...umm...don't take this wrong, but it's pretty basic "out of the box" AbleCommerce. Sure, it will work to get you a store up and running, but not much as far as personalized character for your business. Some of your specials boxes have a blue border (like a hyperlinked image without its border set to 0). I'm also confused why you have Google adsense and other google type systems built into your store? Aren't you trying to get people to come to your store but not LEAVE it based off of an ad they may see in the google system? IMHO, the goal is to get people to your site, represent your business and instill confidence such that they will feel secure they are buying from a sound reputable company.
So that's just my $.02...pretty basic, out of the box, will do the job, but would be nice to see this personalized and designed to fit your business model.
Good luck...welcome to AC.
Well...umm...don't take this wrong, but it's pretty basic "out of the box" AbleCommerce. Sure, it will work to get you a store up and running, but not much as far as personalized character for your business. Some of your specials boxes have a blue border (like a hyperlinked image without its border set to 0). I'm also confused why you have Google adsense and other google type systems built into your store? Aren't you trying to get people to come to your store but not LEAVE it based off of an ad they may see in the google system? IMHO, the goal is to get people to your site, represent your business and instill confidence such that they will feel secure they are buying from a sound reputable company.
So that's just my $.02...pretty basic, out of the box, will do the job, but would be nice to see this personalized and designed to fit your business model.
Good luck...welcome to AC.
Neal Culiner
NC Software, Inc.
NC Software, Inc.
-
gjaros
- AbleCommerce Partner
- Posts: 1717
- Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 2:20 pm
- Location: Illinois
- Contact:
I completely agree with Neal. All the advertisements and logos on your home page give the impression of an unprofessional company. Advertisements on a site give the impression that the company can't afford to purchase their own web site and need to use ad supported services, a sign that the company is either not reputable, or not professional.
Unless you have a strong affiliation with one of the advertisers on your site (like a parent or sister company or membership with a larger organization, like BBB, etc.) any links to other sites should be included on a separate page, not on your home page.
Also, you should not have any advertisements on your site at all. Especially the Google Ads and the links at the bottom of your page. The purpose of your site should be to bring customers to you and keep them there so they can purchase items, not send them to your competitors.
Also, I agree with Neal about your site design. The design is pretty much straight AC defaults. By just playing around with the Stylsheet you can acheive an entirely unique look and feel. Add a few custom graphics and you'll be amazed at how easy it is to create a custom looking professional site.
One other thing to mention is the length of your home page. A good rule of thumb is that customers should not have to scroll down more than two to three times the height of the page. If your page is longer than that, then it's a good idea to separate it into multiple pages. For example, you could easily put a link to Customer Reviews and About Us for the information below the Google Ads. And I'd put all the Top Ranked and webring icons at the bottom of the page on their own page also. All the animated gifs are distracting and tacky looking.
And finally, none of the pages in the IP address you posted can't be easily browsed because all the links within the page content redirect to your live site (http://www.wyomingflyfishing.com).
Good luck with the new site. It just takes a little practice and a lot of work. With AbleCommerce as your foundation you'll have a great looking professional e-commerce site in no time.
Unless you have a strong affiliation with one of the advertisers on your site (like a parent or sister company or membership with a larger organization, like BBB, etc.) any links to other sites should be included on a separate page, not on your home page.
Also, you should not have any advertisements on your site at all. Especially the Google Ads and the links at the bottom of your page. The purpose of your site should be to bring customers to you and keep them there so they can purchase items, not send them to your competitors.
Also, I agree with Neal about your site design. The design is pretty much straight AC defaults. By just playing around with the Stylsheet you can acheive an entirely unique look and feel. Add a few custom graphics and you'll be amazed at how easy it is to create a custom looking professional site.
One other thing to mention is the length of your home page. A good rule of thumb is that customers should not have to scroll down more than two to three times the height of the page. If your page is longer than that, then it's a good idea to separate it into multiple pages. For example, you could easily put a link to Customer Reviews and About Us for the information below the Google Ads. And I'd put all the Top Ranked and webring icons at the bottom of the page on their own page also. All the animated gifs are distracting and tacky looking.
And finally, none of the pages in the IP address you posted can't be easily browsed because all the links within the page content redirect to your live site (http://www.wyomingflyfishing.com).
Good luck with the new site. It just takes a little practice and a lot of work. With AbleCommerce as your foundation you'll have a great looking professional e-commerce site in no time.
THANKS!
Thanks for the critiques. I have already adjusted the site with your ideas. Although, I do not understand how to play with the style sheets provided for me. The only edit I have in style sheets is in html code?? Any suggestions on how making the site look more professional or unique would be appreciated.
Mark
Platte River Fly Shop
Mark
Platte River Fly Shop
Mark
-
jmestep
- AbleCommerce Angel
- Posts: 8164
- Joined: Sun Feb 29, 2004 8:04 pm
- Location: Dayton, OH
- Contact:
This really brings back bad memories of when I was trying to figure out the style sheet. Here's what helped me the most.
Look at the style sheet you're using- bluegray.css? Make a copy of it in case you mess up.
Find all the given colors, like #666, which is a gray, and put them in a graphics program or a table cell of a test html document so you can see what colors they are.
Then open one of your pages on the site in view source mode. Look for code that writes a particular portion of the store. For example, on your index page, the source says <td class="StoreHeaderButton"> for the line of nav buttons horizontally near the top of the page.
That line in the style sheet that controls that says
TD.StoreHeaderButton {background-color:#666 2px 0 4px;white-space:nowrap}.
If you change from #666 to #BBBB9E, then those buttons will change to the olive color used in your menus.
And so on.
Look at the style sheet you're using- bluegray.css? Make a copy of it in case you mess up.
Find all the given colors, like #666, which is a gray, and put them in a graphics program or a table cell of a test html document so you can see what colors they are.
Then open one of your pages on the site in view source mode. Look for code that writes a particular portion of the store. For example, on your index page, the source says <td class="StoreHeaderButton"> for the line of nav buttons horizontally near the top of the page.
That line in the style sheet that controls that says
TD.StoreHeaderButton {background-color:#666 2px 0 4px;white-space:nowrap}.
If you change from #666 to #BBBB9E, then those buttons will change to the olive color used in your menus.
And so on.
-
NC Software
- AbleCommerce Partner
- Posts: 4620
- Joined: Mon Sep 13, 2004 6:06 pm
- Contact:
I suggest picking up a copy of TopStyle Pro (google it) and it will help you learn/design styles via CSS. I can't live without it! 
Neal Culiner
NC Software, Inc.
NC Software, Inc.
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gjaros
- AbleCommerce Partner
- Posts: 1717
- Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2004 2:20 pm
- Location: Illinois
- Contact:
I agree with both Neal and Judy. CSS can be a big pain to learn, especially when the AC stylesheets are your teacher. The AC Stylesheets are not the best constructed or cleanest stylesheets around.
I'd suggest playing around with some simple HTML pages outside of AC first so that you can learn how styles and style classes can be assigned to different components. As Neal said, Topstyle Pro is indespensible here. There's also a Lite version that is free, but it's not quite as helpful as Pro. It is what I used for a few years while I was learning though.
Another great resource is the web. Do a search for CSS Tutorial and you'll find a whole bunch of information. W3Schools has a pretty good tutorial ( http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp ) and the Web Design Group has a nice one, too ( http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/css/ ), but there are a ton of others, too.
When you're using CSS though, keep in mind that IE displays styles differently than other browsers. IE also has a number of CSS properties that are non-standard and therefore not supported by other browsers. It's a good idea to check your styles on both IE and Firefox (or another Mozilla based browser). Opera is good, too, but that has a very small market share. It'll usually display sites OK if they display ok in Firefox.
Good luck!
I'd suggest playing around with some simple HTML pages outside of AC first so that you can learn how styles and style classes can be assigned to different components. As Neal said, Topstyle Pro is indespensible here. There's also a Lite version that is free, but it's not quite as helpful as Pro. It is what I used for a few years while I was learning though.
Another great resource is the web. Do a search for CSS Tutorial and you'll find a whole bunch of information. W3Schools has a pretty good tutorial ( http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp ) and the Web Design Group has a nice one, too ( http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/css/ ), but there are a ton of others, too.
When you're using CSS though, keep in mind that IE displays styles differently than other browsers. IE also has a number of CSS properties that are non-standard and therefore not supported by other browsers. It's a good idea to check your styles on both IE and Firefox (or another Mozilla based browser). Opera is good, too, but that has a very small market share. It'll usually display sites OK if they display ok in Firefox.
Good luck!