Thread: I think its ready - suggestions comments please

I've decided to put the site up - please i need all the suggestions and comments I can get thanks ann
www.beadedcustomdesigns.com

LOL, I can tell Beth has been at work on your store. I dont have much to nitpick. I do have one suggestion tho. On your pages that you have done two pages for, also put the Page 2 at the top, cuz I might not get to the bottom, and it would be nice to know theres more just in case I decide to look further.

Karen

Built like a Trooper Ann .... great job .... I said a while ago when you posted your thought about doing it, it was gonna be great and it surely did turn out great .....

A couple things I just briefly noticed, the Links does not appear to be working, you may be aware of that .....

the other thing is some of the pics are still rather large, 100kbs or so and seem to cause a slight delay, I am wondering if you could reduce their resolution further yet, particularly where you have click for enlargement? Just a suggestion ....

Also on the earrings page, clicking the images for their enlargement does not appear to be working.

Great job Ann ... nice and inviting!!

many thanks - yes i have read and reread everything Beth says - good idea about page 2 - it crossed my mind then fell out my ear. just discovered the link thing and fixed it will fix earrings - guess I just forgot
and will work on the pictures little by little as they all have to be moved to a different file anyway. when will i have time to bead?
again thanks ann

I have made some of the corrections - changing the pictures will be a bear. have finished bracelets for today
ann

Ann,
You've done a wonderful job. And have some beautiful jewelry.

The one thing that I suggest needs some work - the first page under your home page is the "jewelry" page - and at first I thought I just got the same page again. They are too much alike - and I expected to be getting to products there. I think you might want to rename that page and move it in the navigation to under the products - maybe call it about the jewelry - but some how make it not feel like people didn't go anywhere!

I really like the site nice colors but for some reason your nav buttons want to load slow i have T-1 cable connection which is the fastest so far for a typical cable isp and it still loaded slow but then again cable some times runs slow to but i checked other sites and they pull up quick.

figured i'd let ya know.

Beth - thanks so much - that page bothers me too but haven't figured out what to do with it - will study on it today - maybe combine some of it on home and change it to about us - we'll seejim - thanks for input - the buttons load slow for me too and i have cable - i really like them though so will try again to fix that - weird.ann

Beth - i've made some changes with the index and next page - re arranged them and renamed the second one - better ? any other advice - will take all i can get. ann

have worked on the nav buttons - no great success - changed about us (formerly the jewelry) page and reduced size of most of the pictures - still a work in progress - ann

VERY NICE ANN! I love your desgins and workmanship! I went through each page and could find no wrong. All pictures loaded fast for me as did the nav buttons. Great Job!! I wish you much success!

Ann,
I just looked at your contact page - and don't know why you didn't keep the same website design for it? It lost your professional look.

AND, I will not order from any site that doesn't give me more/better contact information - including an address and phone number. I don't like not having an email address. And, in fact, I've been known to call the phone numbers on sites to confirm it really is who the website says, before ordering. You need to let people feel secure in ordering from you. I recommend some contact information in the footer of the page - but at the very least, you need more information in the contact us page. And that page has to have the feel of the rest of your site - not look like they landed somewhere else - including all the navigation.

I usually don't like navigation moving on different pages. And won't do that myself on my own pages - but it works on your site - and is easy to see and find on all the pages.

I can't remember what you had for your nav button before - but if you want to email it to me as a jpg - I'd be happy to look at it and see if there's a reason I can find why it would have been slow loading.

as always your advice will be taken right away - about the contact info - i really dont want to give out my home address and phone number on the web ... any suggestions for an alternative - the nav buttons are the same and will probalby stay that way as i like them

Your site is fantastic! Loads up nice and fast, the layout is really great and the jewelry is stunning! Really, really like this site!

*Bookmarks for future use*
Regards
Teri

How about getting a po box for the business? The phone situation can be worked out many ways - get a "virtual #" or a cell # that you use only for this, etc etc

i had thought about that but (dont hit me with a wet noodle) so far this is just a hobby and i cant justify the extra expense - if it takes off will do - but not doing it might keep it from taking off right? between a rock and a hard place here
ann

Ann,
Really like your site and the product. Hope you have great success with it. By the looks of it, there should a great response to all that work. Congrats.

thanks - it is stuff i've been working on for a couple of years - finally just too much of it piled up - need to do something with it - good to see you on line -
i've again just made a bunch of changes to the site - always one more thing to do
ann

Ann, Here's another reason you need an email address on your site - I just wanted to email you - couldn't - so was going to break my rules on forms - and yours doesn't work - so NO ONE can contact you even if they want to.

thank you so much - thought it was working - i need to quit playing with things ASirimarco****.com ann

contact page working now - all other pages have been reviewed - di i miss anything - they are starting to run together!
ann

Hi Ann, Firstly I would like to say that you have some really beautiful pieces of Jewellery, you are truly a gifted artist.

I do have some feedback in regards to your site though:

1. The colours Yellow and Brown together are my pet hate, so I am sorry, but I really don't like the colours you have chosen and I feel it does not give your art the professional look it truly deserves. It is beautiful jewellery that deserves a beautiful and elegant backdrop. But that is just my taste.

2. With each page, your navigation buttons jump from one side to the other which I found a bit annoying, but did not find anything to not function properly.

Well done and here's to your sucess with this, and sorry if I have offended in regards to my feedback as none is intended.

Mandy

thanks for your comments Mandy - all insites are helpful - did change the nav bar on the second page -
ann

Now - I feel I am almost ready to submit to search enginses - is it? ann

Ann, the se's have already found you. I checked Google and Yahoo - you're already being indexed by both.

Wow - I haven't checked cause I didnt think it would happen yet - May I extend my heartfelt thanks to you and all of your good advice - without it I would be in a deep dark void with this endeavor - really thanks a lot (now I want to do domething else - this is addictive.) any other suggestions (kind of waiting on address thing)

Ann, I'm not sure if it is a mistake or not, but on the Braclets page, you have a paypal banner right on top of the bracelet "Fireworks".

Mandy

hello,

me being a graphic designer, i must tell u this that u have to optimize the images in your website.

everything else is good.

Mandy thanks - i'll check that out - from computer to computer things move around
Sameer - and how do i go about that - are you talking about the focus - size ?? i just reduced the size so they would load faster - appreciate any help ann

hey ann,

by "size" i meant the actual file size of the images that you have used in ur site. i live in nepal and here the internet speed is quite slow than what u r using out there. now u don't want ur visitor to open ur site and then just close it because the site takes ages to open right? so u can use image optimizers to optimize the size of the images to be used in the internet.

by doing this u can reduce the image size as well as u have to be careful not to reduce the quality of the image too much.

Hi Ann

Here is a link to an on-line image optimizer .... http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/imageoptimizer/index.php

If you can reduce your images down to around 15 kbs each, that would work well ... the physical size of the image will remain the same. Your pages will load quicker yet, I just tried one of your photos that is about 40 kbs, that is still too big really, especially when you have more than one photo on a page ... anyway I tried it and was able to get it down around 15kbs without losing any quality. I know, I know, you have been optimizing and optimizing, but maybe you might go for a little more ....

sameer and LadyEye - your suggestions are my commands - later today will try to optimize again - what i needed to do in the first place was change my camera - live and learn i got spoiled using broadband
ann

Well it is done - except for adding new pieces as they are finished. I have changed settings on camera so that should take care of photo size. Beth is there anything else I can do?
ann