Site review please

[peter_h]

Hello

Could I get a site review please? http://www.fakebake.co.uk

Thanks in advance

[Advisor]

It would be helpful for people who want a site review to give us an overview of their site. Who the target market is, what sorts of keyword phrases they are targeting, what questions they have about their site and why they want it reviewed.

Otherwise, it just looks like you want a free links from the forums...

Jill

[peter_h]

Hi Jill,

It most certainly was not my intention to get “free links” from this forum. If I was looking for links this is probably the last place I would look, I can see no value of a link from here. Perhaps you would be kind enough to explain what, if any benefit this link would bring.

The keyword phrases the site is targeting are :

fake bake
sunless tanning
self tanning
sunless self tanning
self tanner

Our target market is predominantly but not exclusively the professional woman, models, dancers, body Builders and individuals who want a tan without potentially dangerous and ageing effects of the sun.

[Advisor]

Hi Peter,

Didn't mean to sound like I was accusing you of simply wanting a free link. Just that there are many people who are simply out for a backlink, and don't care where they're from and how they get it. We have people here who spend a lot of time on reviews, and it helps to have some information about the site first. When people just say "review please" or whatever, it looks a bit suspicious to me, at least. But perhaps I'm just jaded!

With just a quick look at your site, I think the overall design looks nice. I would personally put information as to what fake back actually is closer to the top so that one doesn't need to scroll to find out. If someone gets to this site from the search engines, they need to see right away what you're all about.

You do have good information, but it's "beneath the fold" and instead you have the order buttons at the top. People will probably want to learn more about the products and your company before they will add the product to their cart. You might not even need those right on the main page, in fact.

I'm sure others will have other ideas for you.

Jill

[WebSavvy]

You had your site designed and developed by an outside company (oyster-web) who also does SEO.

So, apparently you already have done the necessary checks to make sure things go as you planned.

The whole point of the review process here is to help persons who have designed the site themselves NOT hired a design/SEO team.

I really don't see the point in your asking for a review. Just doesn't add up. Sorry.

[peter_h]

Boy this is hard work,

I am a designer and owner of oyster web, and although I do have a web design / seo site I am still relatively inexperienced, as far as seo goes, in comparison to the regulars in this forum.

Your opinion should you wish to give it would be helpfull.

[WebSavvy]

OK Peter, so you are the designer. Bravo. The site is very well done. :)

My only suggestion would be this, the order links for products really should not be the main page. The main page should have more information there, and then links to a page containing products for the user to follow through to.

Most people are put off by the feeling of having eCommerce shoved in their face so to speak.

There's been some studies done on website credibility that you might want to read up on. We covered them in a chat area thread here a while back. I'll find the links and post them for you.

Overall, you've done a really nice job with the design, the color, the layout, and the theme. :)

I hope this helps you in some way.

Cheers,
:cheers:

[robwatts]

nice job :)
typo on http://www.fakebake.co.uk/faq.htm (ingredtients)

would be a good idea to get it proof read.

I agree with savvys points re ecommerce too.

Home page needs to introduce things, rather than scream buy me spend money straight off.

good luck:cheers:

[peter_h]

I appreciate what you are all saying about the ecommerce on the front page.

A great many visitors to the site are repeat purchasers or diverted from the shopping cart on main US site. (our client has the sole rights for the uk) The ratio of visits to purchases is very high.

The brand is becoming well known and although “fake bake” is a generic term as well as a brand, the majority of visitors have previously used the product or that of a competitor.

Thus the decision was made to bring the ecommerce up front.

That being said do you still thik it a bad idea.

The typo is fixed, thanks.

[WebSavvy]

Peter, you could run a market test with it. Leave the site as it currently is for a determined period of time (say 2 months) and then try the other design approach with it, and follow it this way for a determined period of time (2 months) then do a comparison of the before and after as far as traffic-to-sales ratio and this might be a better guide for you to use in factoring of this decision.

Read this study Stanford Web Credibility Project (http://www.webcredibility.org) which has been a 5 year on-going research project by Stanford University. It may have more answers for you than I could possibly hope to help you with.

[scottiecl]

Hi Peter!

Some comments for you:

Voted the best self tanner in the New York Times. I would be impressed if this was a link to the article in the NYT or other credible source backing up this claim.

I'm having trouble getting the pictures to load- it is taking a long time. That may be me, not you, as my DSL provider is in the process of shutting down and my service is sporadic at best. Anyone else have a slow load time?

Links at the bottom of the page- would be nice if they were a different color to stand out a little more and be more obvious as links. Possibly spaced a little wider too as they are sort of hard to read at first glance with the double colon in there. I like the double colon- just needs a tad more space between the spacers and the words.

Usability tip and SEO- right now, I am looking at a nose and 4 broken images in your header image because they didn't load. There is a alt tag in the first image but nothing to tell me what should have loaded in the other 4 image holders. Add descriptive alt tags so I can see something in those empty holders. The link image to 3steps.htm didn't load either and there is no alt tag to tell me where that link goes.

Alt text is particularly important for images being used as a link- if someone is surfing without images on they still know where they are headed if they click in that area. Also it replaces the (very important) anchor text that would be available to spiders if the link were text-based.

You also might want to make your "web design by" link smaller and grey ( or some other subdued color). Right now it has the same emphasis as the site links.

Personally, I don't mind the "buy-now" push on the front page, especially if the purpose of the site is to take orders generated by other marketing. I imagine if I wanted this product (and I might, being a Model- Dancer-Body Builder myself :lol:) I would know what I was looking for and be ready to purchase.

Best of Luck and Welcome! :hi:

[Blue]

Hi Peter,

I'm with scottiecl. I didn't mind the ecomm on the front page, but what I didn't like was the lack of a stand-out link that takes me to more information. I would have expected either a link next to each product (more info or some such), to be able to click on the product pic, or best of all, both.

I would be more apt (as a new customer) to purchase if I could see some before and after photos.

I looked all over your links page trying to find the links. Maybe they (well, it at this time) needs to stand out from the rest of the text in that section (a different color or font?). Or maybe this is just due to the fact that there's only the one lonely link right now.

If you're just pushing UK sales, then only having the UK price is fine, but if you're including the USA, maybe add the equivelant price in $.

Hope this helps! :cheers:

[peter_h]

Alt text has been added to navigation. That was a silly mistake. Regarding the images not downloading, I can see no reason other than a flakey service provider.

The graphics are sliced images from a photoshop image. I am using blank alt tags in images that have no purpose other than eye candy. If I alt text every slice I would have text popping up all over the place.

Alt text was used on the top left image for the search engines

I am trying to sort out the NYT link now.

I agree that the links were not distinctive and understand this could be a problem, so the color has been changed and the text made bold. I will add another style to the css to make the link to my site less obvious.

There is no intention to sell to the US. The UK packaging has been redesigned for uk spelling, trading standards etc...

[scottiecl]

Originally posted by peter_h
Alt text has been added to navigation. That was a silly mistake. Regarding the images not downloading, I can see no reason other than a flakey service provider.

The graphics are sliced images from a photoshop image. I am using blank alt tags in images that have no purpose other than eye candy. If I alt text every slice I would have text popping up all over the place.

Alt text was used on the top left image for the search engines
Alt text is not for spiders- it is for humans! I'm sure the service provider was the reason for the images not loading but there are people who surf with no images on. You are missing the point- as a user, I had no idea what should have been appearing in those empty boxes. A short description would be nice.

I agree with Blue- a before-after pic would help to sell me. The celeb pictures are nice- but the chick in the pink hat looks pretty pale, not tan. A few "real people" testimonials wouldn't hurt either. Maybe even one from a guy! (Some men do use this stuff too! Whether they admit it or not...)

Best of luck with it!

[peter_h]

>>alt text is not for spiders- it is for humans!

Yes it goes without saying that alt text is primarily for humans, but it is also read by spiders. The point I was trying to make was the reason I had added alt text to that particular image.

If I put alt text in every image can you imagine what would happen if a visually impaired visitor using a browser that converted the text to speech would hear.

Is the blank alt text not the accepted way to solve that problem and at the same time allow the page to validate correctly?

I could put the images in as background images, which require no alt text, but this causes validation problems. The problem is easily got round using css.

An instance of this is the background image, which is part of the css, and lies underneath the company address. It was done this way to allow the text over the image to editable, to be spidered and have the page still validate properly. I want that address spidered which it couldn’t if it was part of the image.

There is an audio testimonial from a guy Mark Kubr on the faq page. I know ist only one but more will added soon.

I am puting together a set of further info pages for each prodect.

[Advisor]

You really only need alt text for clickable images. That is, you'd want to describe the page you're pointing to.

You really don't need alt tags for most images on the page that aren't clickable, unless there's some reason the image needs to be described for those with images turned off or those with text-to-speech readers.

Jill

[sytemaker]

The graphics are too heavy and cause the page to download too slowly.

The attached image of britney is 75 % slimmer than the original from the site. Imagine how much you could speed it up if you'd slim down all your graphics that much.

[peter_h]

I am not overly bothered with the download time, takes about 12 sec on a 56K modem.

Because of the nature of the design and the product I would rather keep the quality high.

[peter_h]

Have a closer look at the uploaded image and you will see

Color banding on the grey background
“artifacts” and color leaching all around Britney’s body outline

Not the effect I was after or want

[scottiecl]

I would tend to agree that if you are asking people to purchase something over the internet, sight unseen, that your pictures should be as good as possible without being overly heavy.

Britney is a bit pixel-y in the optimized version on this page.

My provider has fixed whatever the connectivity problem was and I no longer have any trouble loading your page, Peter.

[WebSavvy]

Peter, I'm on a 56K modem with a dialup (AOL) and did not have any trouble getting your page to load ... even the first time going there.

It loaded pretty fast for me, and the graphics looked great. :)

[peter_h]

Deb, managed to read through the stuff at Stanford Web Credibility Project. Thank for pointing it out to me.

The survey results are revealing, a very well thought out document.

Thanks

[peter_h]

Blue,

I have more info links for each product. The new pages include before and after images.

[Blue]

Looks great peter_h!

Now it just remains to be seen if it increases sales.