please review my website

[anna723]

I am having a really hard time enticing customers to click on my shopping links. Would it help if I put shopping links with graphics, such as Jeans, Dresses, etc with a testimonial on my home page? Any input is much appreciated.

[BuildAWebsiteTonight]

Hi there Anna 723,

First of all congratulations on all the hard work you've put in to build your site.

As per your request, I'd like to make a suggestion or two, but please don't be offended by any of them - this is given in the spirit of friendliness and assistance, and you only have to make changes which you personally want to make to your site.

You could get 10 people make 10 suggestions each, and you might choose to only use one suggestion - it is your site, after all.

Now, my first impressions ...

You have a section of links at the top of the screen, which go to other pages, but when the visitor sees this as the first part of your page, it might not appear to be very appealing. Have you thought of making the top part of the page more attractive and friendly [with photos perhaps?], not just links which take up a lot of space?

You might consider one of these options.

OPTION 1:

Move this bank of links below the photo [the photo is the interesting part of the home page, draws the visitors in to read more about what your site is all about].

OPTION 2:

Perhaps you could close up the space between the lines of the links - make it more like a menu of links rather than take up a lot of your real estate [space on your pages].

OPTION 3:

Consider making this list of links into a Menu List down either side of your site or across the top, which will tempt people to click, because then they'll realise these are each pages, not just links to take them to other websites.

Humans are creatures of habit, and we do expect to see a menu of links which is like many other websites.

Other suggestions:

You have affiliate images across the top of your page, and your website name appears a wee bit too far down the page - people tend to expect to see the name of the site towards the top or in a prominent position.

To avoid your site looking like an affiliate farm, you could consider placing your website name at the very top, bring the photo up close to it on each page, and move the links to either side in a long menu list.

HTML suggestion:

When you want to tweak the home page, don't just overwrite it - you could make a copy of it first so you can be playing around with the copy to get it just right before you rename it as your home page.

On the home page where you explain what your site is about, perhaps you could spread out the text by starting new paragraphs, rather than having it as one paragraph with too many sentences, which can make it slightly harder to read.

It's obvious you've done a lot of hard work to set up all those affiliate links, and with a bit of tweaking, you can make minor improvements to your pages to make them even more friendlier to the visitor.

I wish you much luck with your website and your online business, keep us posted as to your progress,

Have a delightful weekend,
Cheers
Teena

[boysbach]

Hi Anna

Great work on the site. As far as people clicking on the links, it really does take patience and then suddenly they do. If you are collecting your logs, check them out to see where people are entering and exiting from and also how many people return. Even if it is a few to start with that is better than nothing. The day will come when you have your first sale and then your second and then nothing will stop you.

A couple of things. You have an affiliates link above your header, I would move it below. Also drop the .com from your words and use Curvy and Chic as 3 seperate words. Maybe you could create a logo for your site.

This is personal preference here, but I always like it when a website is centred, purely because that is where my eyes natually look. Also you information about the site is a little hard to read (maybe it is my age) but move it up the page and space it across using the same font that you have used in the navigation details.

Keep up the good work and keep developing the site. One final thought which is personal preference here, but what age group are you aiming at? To me (again maybe I am getting too old) but the colours shout young people and that might deter older people looking. If it is across the board and who knows we need this type of board then maybe a more neutral (not boring) colour would be better.

Be encouraged by what you have done and then go and tweak it to make the changes.

Bev

[elizabeth]

Hi Anna,

I like your site and the concept but I would have to say the top portion of your site is way too busy. At first glance it just looks like a lot of ads and doesn't really direct you anywhere. I think viewers might get turned off and leave before they get to the rest of your site.

I would place the name of your site across the top of the page and underneath that put your best keywords. Something like:

Curvy and Chic
Plus size fashions for Women that will fit and flatter!

Then under that put your "featured articles' and 'Plus Size shopping' line.

If you want to keep the ads then put them towards the bottom.

Hope that helps,
Elizabeth