Why is this site a flop?

In article
<45abebbb$0$27942$5a62ac22 (AT) per-qv1-newsreader-01 (DOT) iinet.net.au>,
"Murray R. Van Luyn" <vanluynm (AT) NOSPAM (DOT) iinet.net.au> wrote:

Yep, the JavaScript menu has to go. It seems that using HTML and CSS will be
the only way I'm going to get the site working properly for a large majority
of visitors.

I've heard talks about web sites by Russ Weakley, whose CSS menus you
have already found at http://css.maxdesign.com.au/

If I can find the notes I took, I'll write some of them up.

He seems to be promoting the idea that first of all you get the text
content to be the right mix of information and promotion. If someone
comes to your site wanting information about a specific known item, they
want quick access to that item - however if they have that much
knowledge, a search engine probably sent them to the right page for that
item in the first place. So some of your pages need informative material
about the gadgets that interest you. Review a few for real, pointing to
strengths and weaknesses (sure, you may not sell a model with
weaknesses, but it might get people into your site). Become trusted by
buyers for real information, not just sales blurbs. Write about things
that interest you about what you are selling. The search engines will
love you. Especially if other people interested in the same gadgets link
to your site.

Then get the HTML right. All the obvious things folks here will tell you
about.

Like the right Doctype. On a new site, that just about has to be HTML
4.01 Strict. XHTML served correctly isn't handled well by IE6 or 7, so
there is no point (yet) in moving to XML.

Valid HTML, so the browsers know what you were trying to write. Don't
make it hard for browsers with badly written HTML.

Make sure you have a title in the head of your HTML (it is required by
HTML). Not only do some search engines like it, but when people save
bookmarks, the title is usually what shows in their bookmarks. Don't
waste a title on a company name, or something vague like "Introduction"
Use something very specific like "Gadget XYX use and specifications -
company name" Not too many words.

Semantic use of headings. Search engines love h1. If the title says
Gadget XYZ specifications, then the h1 should have something very
similar. A single h1 only per page, thank you. A paragraph after it with
a bit more about Gadget XYZ.

If you run to a h2, then make it a relevant sub-topic, and have some
text after it about the h2. Consider a couple of h2 headigs. For
example:

h2 Using Gadget XYZ
Gadget XYZ is used in farnargling practice, by level three apprentice
padawars.

h2 Gadget XYX Specifications
Gadget XYZ specifications now include an advanced self sealing snorkel
for river crossings, plus optional dragon dropping containers to confuse
tracker dogs.

If you want the name of your site in big letters, just style something
else to display your company name in big letters. An h2 or h3 is often
appropriate, and can be displayed larger than the h1 by CSS.

You might want to also look up semantic web. Here is a quick outline
from someone just discovering it.
http://fadtastic.net/2006/10/19/the-semantic-code/
It works. Google likes it. I think a lot of readers like it also.

--
http://www.ericlindsay.com

Murray R. Van Luyn wrote:

Hi,

Since I have made changes to my website it's been a complete flop. According
to the logs, as soon as visitors have downloaded the index page they are
off. I can't figure out why?

http://www.review-a-gadget.com/

Is there anything obvious that I am missing? Are there problems with some
browsers? Please let me know if you notice anything.

Thanks very much for any help you might be able to offer.

Regards,
Murray R. Van Luyn.

Murray,

Hmmm, I just have to ask: are you sure your logs are accurate?

OK, I'll just look at the home page. Here's why I might leave without
going further:

- The domain name led me to think this would be a place where I could
review a gadget. Nothing on the home page shows me how I would do that.
If YOU are going to review the gadgets for me, then a better domain
name would be GadgetReviews.whatever.

- While everything in the navigation menu could be considered to be a
gadget (though I'm dubious about spy cameras), there are many types of
gadgets that are not present. All of the ones you have (again excepting
spy cameras) seem to qualify as Toys. Perhaps visitors were interested
in kitchen gadgets, or garden gadgets, or automotive gadgets...

- "FACT - you will save 30% to 50% by buying online." So? Assuming
this is true, why is it so prominent? My immediate response is, "This
isn't about gadgets or reviews, this guy is trying to sell me something,
not just inform me." Of course, looking at the rest of the page, I see
no evidence to support that impression (no cart, no 'Order here'), but
that just leaves me a bit puzzled.

- If many of your visitors are from the US, they may be confused by
'stockists'; 'merchants' would be better (unless that confuses Brits).

- The word 'Guaranteed!' is very prominent, but isn't a link to
anything. I'd expect it to link to your guarantee. I think most people
expect guarantee to mean some sort of contract, not just a warm
assurance. And what does a guarantee mean when applied to a review? "I
guarantee that the reviews on this site are my opinion and no one elses"?

- The navigation includes 'Bookmark'. I didn't click it. If it means
'Bookmark this site' it should say so. Or better, not be there at all.
If people want to bookmark your site, they know how to do it. If they
click here thinking it's something else, they won't be happy that you
messed with 'their' bookmarks.

- There's a big white space between the thumbnails and the 'site map'.
It looks like something was accidentally left out, hence unprofessional.

- The site map is just a list of currently-available reviews. What
would this page look like if you had 2000 of them? I'd move the site
map to its own page, with just a link on the home page.

- "This page visited xx times". That's of interest to YOU, but not
ME. Again, I view this as a sign of amateur work.

- If I increase the font size by one increment (FireFox), the
navigation text exceeds the size of the boxes it is in and gets clipped.
I seem to recall commenting on this in a prior review...

- You echo your URL (complete with http as part of your banner.
That seems redundant, since I won't see the page unless I already knew
the URL.

- I turned off JavaScript and loaded the page again. Oops, there's no
navigation at all! I could use the site map, I suppose, but that's at
the bottom of the page, below that big white space, so I won't see it
until I scroll. [Security folks often recommend that users turn off
JavaScript to avoid malicious scripts. Some users actually follow this
advice. On your site, such visitors will probably arrive at the home
page, see no way to navigate further, and leave. Hmmmm.]

And now some questions, on behalf of the group. You said, "Since I have
made changes to my website it's been a complete flop." What changes did
you make? Was the site a success before you made them? If so, why did
you change it? Have you tried removing the changes one at a time and
observing user response?

One problem here is that you've asked US to deduce why a bunch of OTHERS
don't stay on your site. It would be a bit of work, but you COULD put a
prominent box near the top of the home page that says something like:
"STOP! If you are leaving this site without looking into it further,
PLEASE take a moment and *let us know why*. We really want to do better."

The "let us know why" would, of course, link to a contact form, perhaps
tailored to repeat the same question and not requiring a user to provide
their email address. You might learn something that none of us will
ever catch.

Chris Beall

"Murray R. Van Luyn" <vanluynm (AT) NOSPAM (DOT) iinet.net.au> writes:

Hmm. The stuff I've been reading since doing the first site said focus on
text not graphics, and to specifically focus on the one goal of the site,
which is to sell.

Focusing on text does is not the same as providing no graphics at all. Some of
your most important early visitors are search engines, and they don't "see"
graphics at all, just your text. Whatever text content you provide is also what
blind visitors to your site will hear from their screen readers.

Some folks provide their "content" purely as images, and then try to compensate
for the lack of real text with keywords and other lame "SEO" techniques. That's
simply putting a band-aid on the symptom while ignoring the cause. If relevant
keywords don't appear in your site's textual content, you should ask yourself
why that is the case, instead of trying to "compensate" for that lack by adding
them back in via HTML meta elements.

I'm starting to think I've misunderstood all of that. My
interpretation just doesn't interest anyone. I'm starting to get an idea of
what I have to do on the opening page. It should be a 'Magazine Cover', and
use visually interesting content to do just that - interest people. Text and
cheesy sales pitches can wait.

You're acting as if this is an either/or situation, when it's really not. Text
*cannot* wait; it should come first. But, improving your site's appearance need
not imply replacing text with images either - generally it's a matter of adding
some images and/or styling your text with CSS.

It's a bit of a balancing act. We humans are very visual creatures, but search
engines are effectively blind and ignore layout and design in favor of indexing
pure HTML code. It's important to realize that providing good textual content
and a nice appearance are not mutually exclusive goals, and that you do need to
address both needs.

sherm--

--
Web Hosting by West Virginians, for West Virginians: http://wv-www.net
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net

On Mon, 15 Jan 2007 23:17:41 -0800, "Murray R. Van Luyn"
<vanluynm (AT) NOSPAM (DOT) iinet.net.au> wrote:

Hmm. The stuff I've been reading since doing the first site said focus on
text not graphics, and to specifically focus on the one goal of the site,
which is to sell. I'm starting to think I've misunderstood all of that. My
interpretation just doesn't interest anyone. I'm starting to get an idea of
what I have to do on the opening page. It should be a 'Magazine Cover', and
use visually interesting content to do just that - interest people. Text and
cheesy sales pitches can wait.

No, that's most definitely *not* the way to go. Splash screens are
spawn of satan and drive people away never to return. You need to serve
some of the real content of the site on that first page. Just don't try
to overload it. Leave some nice white space like the first page. Have
a nice big heading. Use 100% font sizing and em's for any different
font sizes. Decide what your site is for and focus it on that.

Hi Martin,

"Martin Clark" <martin (AT) spl (DOT) at> wrote

I agree with what others have said - that the old site makes a better
impression than the new one.

Three further comments on the new site:

There is a lot of white space after "Our reputation depends upon it." I
thought that this was the end of the page. It was only because you had
asked for opinions that I bothered to hang about and noticed that there
was more if I scrolled down. A casual visitor might not notice that the
page continues after the white space.

Yeah, that only happened later last night. I'm trying to hide that awful
sitemap for the moment.

I tried viewing the page in a 800px wide browser window, and the
navigation panel on the left overlapped the text on the right. This
starts to happen at around 900px width. Not everyone has their browser
occupying the whole screen. Some people still have 800 x 600 screens.

Oh dear. I setup the page to work with a maximised browser on an 800 x 600
screen. Obviously what works for me doesn't work for everyone else. Thanks
for pointing that out. I wouldn't have known this otherwise.

The text seems to put an emphasis on buying online rather that the site
offering reviews. I thought the text on the old site did better with
"find out about..." Okay, your interest is in people buying online
through the links on your site, but you have to give them a reason to
venture that far into the site.

Hmm. The stuff I've been reading since doing the first site said focus on
text not graphics, and to specifically focus on the one goal of the site,
which is to sell. I'm starting to think I've misunderstood all of that. My
interpretation just doesn't interest anyone. I'm starting to get an idea of
what I have to do on the opening page. It should be a 'Magazine Cover', and
use visually interesting content to do just that - interest people. Text and
cheesy sales pitches can wait.

I'm really glad I asked you guy's about this. I can fix this. I wont have
this problem of people bailing out in the first 3 seconds anymore. Cool!

Regards,
Murray R. Van Luyn.
--
http://www.review-a-gadget.com/
http://members.iinet.net.au/~vanluynm/

Hi Martin,

"Martin Clark" <martin (AT) spl (DOT) at> wrote

See http://www.auluk.freeserve.co.uk/pictures/reviewagadget.jpg to see
what I see at 800px width.

Why is the javascript navigation box not further to the left?
I see it is given a fixed position on the screen:
"menus[0] = new menu(150, "vertical", 160, 190, -2, -2, etc..."
I don't know about javascript menus as I have never used one, but would
the positioning work better if you changed the horizontal position to a
% of the screen width?
Something like "vertical", 10%, 190, -2, -2, ?

Gosh, thanks so much for going to all that trouble of uploading the
screenshot for me. I can see that there is definitely a problem. What
browser does this affect? Is it very popular?

You're right, the menu is initially located at a fixed position in a browser
running at 1024 x 768. The line that appears later in the script
menus[0].floatMenu(1024, 768, 10, 0); is supposed to reposition the menu at
a proportionate distance from the top and left of the window as the size of
the window changes. It seems that it's not going to do that for everyone by
the looks of it. Crumbs, that's a shame.

Someone sent me a super-duper link to a page that shows you how to do menus
in CSS. Here it is http://css.maxdesign.com.au/listamatic/ If I can't get
this JavaScript menu to work right, then I'll take everybody's good advice
and get rid of the JavaScript in favour of some CSS. I might be able to lose
the amateurish site look, especially in the tables, if I can manage to pick
up a bit of this style sheet stuff as well.

Thanks again for uploading the screenshot Martin. I really appreciate it.

Regards,
Murray R. Van Luyn.
--
http://www.review-a-gadget.com/
http://members.iinet.net.au/~vanluynm/

Hi David,

"David E. Ross" <nobody (AT) nowhere (DOT) not> wrote

Create a Web page with content people want to see. Then you don't have
to bother with PageRank.

Yes, I think I'll give PageRank a rest for a while. A lot of people seem to
be saying the same thing. Just focus on providing good content and the rest
will follow.

You might want to read all of my
http://www.rossde.com/internet/web_design.html>, not just the part
about "Counters and Other Scripts". Although the focus is on the design
of personal, non-commercial Web pages, some of the information might
also be appropriate for commercial pages.

Thanks for the link David. Hmm, I was just starting to think of resorting to
Flash animations to get peoples attention. Probably not a good idea. They
are distracting. You're article has many good tips for a website newby like
me.

Good luck with the gardening.

Regards,
Murray R. Van Luyn.
--
http://www.review-a-gadget.com/
http://members.iinet.net.au/~vanluynm/

Hi Martin,

"Martin Clark" <martin (AT) spl (DOT) at> wrote

What browser does this affect? Is it very popular?

Firefox, which is fairly popular. The same problem does not seem to
happen when I looked in IE6.

Oh no. That's just about everyone using Linux, plus a whole bunch of others.
This is embarassing. It probably accounts for a large percentage of those
visitors bailing out in under 3 seconds.

Well, I didn't like to say it before, but javascript menus are not
usually considered to be good things. You can probably create something
very similar to what you have got using CSS. Then you can place it
inside the empty <td> that you have and it will always appear to the
left of the other text.

Yep, the JavaScript menu has to go. It seems that using HTML and CSS will be
the only way I'm going to get the site working properly for a large majority
of visitors.

Thanks very much for that Martin. I had it reported that it worked okay with
FireFox previously, But I guess that was only at 1024 x 768. Thanks for
going the extra step for me.

Regards,
Murray R. Van Luyn.
--
http://www.review-a-gadget.com/
http://members.iinet.net.au/~vanluynm/

Hi Dan,

"Dan" <dan (AT) tobias (DOT) name> wrote

Stuff you read (whether online, in books, or anywhere else) needs to be
taken with a large grain of salt. Usually it will focus exclusively on
whatever the author happened to be obsessed with at the moment, and
following it in an overly literal way will cause a lack of balanced
priorities in what you do.

Come to think of it, it was a very different type of product that the author
had most of his experience in selling. It was Ken Evoy's 'Make Your Site
Sell'. The text based sales pitch approach he outlined in his book had
worked very well for him in his efforts to sell a stock tracking software
program. He has a lot of very good advice to offer, but I think I have
actually mis-applied it in an overly literal way.

Never mind. I know where I went wrong now, and I think I'm back on track
now. I'm going to have to rethink the text on the opening page. It's still a
sales pitch. A quick look at the magazine rack at the local newsagent should
yield a few useful ideas I hope.

Regards,
Murray R. Van Luyn.
--
http://www.review-a-gadget.com/
http://members.iinet.net.au/~vanluynm/

Hi Martin,

"Martin Clark" <martin (AT) spl (DOT) at> wrote

Well, I didn't like to say it before, but javascript menus are not
usually considered to be good things. You can probably create something
very similar to what you have got using CSS. Then you can place it
inside the empty <td> that you have and it will always appear to the
left of the other text.

You're right Martin. I found a cross browser CSS only, flyout menu template
that promises to do everything that the JavaScript version did, only as a
much smaller download. Hopefully that will be the 3 second bail-out problem
fully solved.

Thanks again everyone. Much appreciated.

Regards,
Murray R. Van Luyn.
--
http://www.review-a-gadget.com/
http://members.iinet.net.au/~vanluynm/