I published my new site yesterday. Spent some time fixing things today. I still need to finish the links page and add more testimonials. I would appreciate any feedback. Thank you.

www.foodgradede.com

Your mouse over effect is still the default setting.

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Best Regards,
Jeremy

Thank you, Jeremy. How do I change that?

Double click it in BlueVoda and all your properties are there.

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Best Regards,
Jeremy

I like the layout. Its very easy to navigate, but some of your text over lap each other. Do you know what I mean? Also, I like to see a little more white space at the top half of your text. Everything seems too crowed, but that's just my preference. The navigation and pictures are great.

Let me rephrase, The picture of the customer service girl seems too crowded to me.

Hi, nice fast loading site, Little bit of text over lap with fire fox on the home page. Just need a little bit more vertical spacing between the paragraphs.

Good luck.


Diatomaceous Earth. Only 4 sources of over 600 deposits can be called food grade. OVERLAP Freshwater diatomite is mined from dry lakebeds and is mostly hydrated amorphous silica.

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Regards Chris,
Sites are view in FF & IE, with res @ 1024 x 768 on 19” screens.

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Thank you Chris. Is there a way to view sites in other browsers? I have IE only. I hope I fixed it.

Hi, that looks fine. The only way is to put FF on your machine.
LINK TO FIRE FOX

Good luck.

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Regards Chris,
Sites are view in FF & IE, with res @ 1024 x 768 on 19” screens.

Barnet walks
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Collectables, Collecting

Fascinating!

But, rather than be something of a scholastic site, I suppose it is all about selling the product, right? And....if that is the main purpose, you need to overcome it in the first or second sentence if not to lose the visitor's interest forever!

I expected to see something of a slogan, or introductory "headline" that provided a heads-up to what the site was all about.
Something like "The Purest Pet Food Additive" or "Earth's Own Supplement For Your Pet" or "Purest Pet Food Supplements" or "Keep Your Pet Healthy With Earth's Purest Supplement" or even something like "Ancient Secret For Healthy Pets" ........ then maybe it would be better to dive into your "story" (which I think should be edited to be about 1/5 of what it is now on the Main page (which should be your intro page, right?), and either continued on an interior page or re-written with sectional headlines.

In my opinion, and from my perspective. As it is now, your main page simply has too much information and not enough "compelling" points to pique interest to look further according to particular area of interest (like reading the long labels on prescriptions, not like looking at the table of contents of a book - which an "index" page is supposed to be, right?).

You are right, it reads more like an informational site than one which has products for sale. I will redo my home page. Thank you very much.

Diatomaceous Earth, also known as DE and Fossil Shell Flour, is the fossilized remains of a hard shelled, one celled plants called Diatoms

Hey, this opening sentence has a grammatical error: you need to get rid of the 'a' or the 's' from 'plants'. You have an interesting product and I think you could attract more attention by breaking up the text (information) into smaller chunks. You know, all that TVhas nuked peoples' attention spans! Good work.

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Marcie
www.redtractorfarm.com

Thank you Peter. I made the operator smaller along with the credit card logo. I need to redo the home page and will leave more open space. Trying to make it look like a template and not leaving enough space is the problem.
Marcie, thank you for catching the wording. I fixed it.

You are making good efforts!

You are starting to see the benefits of using short, compelling text to link to interior information/explanations rather than overload the Main, but sometimes this can be easily accomplished by using more 'engaging' visuals (since people are becoming cognizantly lazy as it is anyway, and visual stimulation on the net is 10x more effective).

Ever think of your Main page as a series of tidy "info-bits"?
Sometimes the use of 'banners' or larger buttons/boxes/images to direct drill-ins to the pages you "present" work very well. This could work to your advantage too....

For instance ..... being the old ad man that I am, I would experiment with a caricature/logo to link the two most important concepts for your potential clients ... my first idea would be to use a cartoon-like dinosaur (like Dino in the Flintstones) to be a "Trademark" of sorts, thus linking the "ancient" source with "happy/healthy pets" .... and this 'block' to be where you introduce your slogan (the next marketable mini-step in your product description). The remainder of your page can be a series of visually appealing blocks/banners that introduce one aspect of all you have to say (which would then link to that next page for the depth of your abbreviated content: Reasons To Buy, Facts, Guidelines for All Pets, Products lineup, Suggested Uses/Programs, Veterinary Info/Support, etc. Basically, each of these banner/links are your "Content Headings" broken down to make them much more accessible and navigable ..... as you see in just about every mainline shopping cart website, understand?

The benefits of "white space" only are seen when import is transferred to the elements that are anchored, and this is the way to accomplish that.

By organizing your layout more visually than contextually, you will best "solve" the dilemma that you now perceive, and will definitely "snazz up" your entire theme (which you are trying to build and express). The use of a Trademark logo, or 'personalization' of your company and product is one of the best tools out there as many times people recognize the characterizations even before they remember the name! (Same goes for certain color schemes too)

If you try to market to 9 year olds, you will be in the right groove (colors, simplicity, and definitely not so "corporate").....not a comment on the general web audience, but the premise of using visuals and engaging themes generally works best to reach the point of converting visits to transactions >> Keep it fun, light, universally understandable, and above all to the point (brief).
People do not have the patience as they might were they standing in line at the neighborhood store.


Just some suggestions....IMO

I agree with the General entirely, especially about the use of more visuals to create the interaction you are looking for without compromising anything.

I can see this happening by chopping your text to read like this, which tells the whole story is dramatically fewer sentences (you should recognize the difference since you wrote it):
"Diatomaceous Earth, also known as DE and Fossil Shell Flour, is the fossilized remains of hard shelled, one celled plants that thousands of animal owners and breeders have discovered incredible benefits of adding DE to their animal's food."
After this, you can have some links like "The Whole Story of DE" or something, but editing your text in this way means you are keeping the essential info and not losing anything!

This is what it USED to be like, so you can see for yourself the difference:

Diatomaceous Earth, also known as DE and Fossil Shell Flour, is the fossilized remains of hard shelled, one celled plants called Diatoms. These plants lived in the oceans and other bodies of water that once covered the western part of the United States. The Diatoms served as a food source for aquatic life. When they died, their shells drifted to the bottom of the body of water. Millions of years later, huge deposits of Diatomaceous Earth were discovered after the water receded.

There are hundreds of sources of Diatomaceous Earth and most deposits are from salt water sources. The ones found in fresh water sources are of extremely high purity. It is so pure it is called food grade Diatomaceous Earth. Only 4 sources of over 600 deposits can be called food grade.

Freshwater diatomite is mined from dry lakebeds and is mostly hydrated amorphous silica. Perma-Guard food grade Diatomaceous Earth contains less than .5% crystalline. The saltwater form contains a highly crystalline form of silica that can be dangerous if inhaled. When you purchase Perma-Guard food grade Diatomaceous Earth, you are assured you are getting the finest quality Diatomaceous Earth available.

Perma-Guard uses only Diatomaceous Earth from fresh water deposits. Perma-Guard held the original patents in 1962 for use as a food additive. Thousands of animal owners and breeders have discovered incredible benefits [by] adding <DE> food grade Diatomaceous Earth or Fossil Shell Flour to their animal's food.



Don't you think all that good info belongs in an area more appropriate as "the full story" instead of up-front?

I like the idea of using some characterization as a logo, one with some "happy pet" nature to it (the dinosaur is clever!).

Grammatical error -- should read:
Diatomaceous Earth, also known as DE and Fossil Shell Flour, is the fossilized remains of hard shelled, single-cell plants that thousands of animal owners and breeders have discovered incredibly beneficial additive to their animal's food.

I have made a test page to see if I am on the right track with the suggestions.
http://www.foodgradede.com/testpage.html

I would appreciate feedback before I change the site. The original index page is www.foodgradede.com . If the page above is better, I will make it the index page and change my other pages to match. Thank you.

I got back from visiting family to find I have 2 sales from my site already! I'm so excited! Seems it is on the first page of Google for "food grade de" already. I thought it would take longer.