Website Reviews

**Tim01** · 28-11-11

Hi All

I have recently joined A4U and would welcome peoples opinions/advice regarding my website.

It has been running for a few years now but has undergone many changes (and am sure many more to come).

bagsofonlineshopping dot co uk.

Would also welcome any advice on driving traffic to site as well.

Look forward to speaking to you all

**whiteknight** · 30-11-11

Hi Tim,

Few things I'd suggest after my initial review:

1. Maybe tone down the header background image of all the coloured bags. It was a bit in my face. A more simplistic single image of the coloured bags with a nice, clean text logo might look a little more appealing.

2. Get your category images higher up the page so that they are some of the first images I'd see when I first log onto your site. Get rid of the adsense bar at the top and move all your categories up. You're selling your traffic cheaply if you're pushing them to adsense rather than your merchants.

For instance, just remove everything above your 'Start your Christmas Shopping here, hassle free, no hustle and bustle. ' title.

3. Move the twitter/G+ to the sidebar. They're destracting me away from the product categories.

4. On your category pages, change the style to the same style as your homepage with the merchants in a grid as opposed to the images all down the left and instead of just having the logo plus a generic description of each merchant, have the logo and then beneath the logo details of the latest promotion - if theyres no promotion, make up something catchy (FREE delivery if you order before X date etc.) and then beneath that a strong call to action button with something like 'Shop Now' or 'Visit Now' etc.

Finally - do all of this now and get the best out of Christmas traffic.

Good luck!

**Tim01** · 30-11-11

Hi Whiteknight,

Many thanks for the pointers, have made some changes to the home page (hope thats better) lol.

Once again thank you for your help.

**whiteknight** · 30-11-11

Looks much better! Make sure you track your visitors to see if the change makes a difference. You should see a higher volume of traffic coming into your category pages now.

So your next job is to maximise that traffic and send them to your merchants!

**Tim01** · 30-11-11

Traffic - thats like gold dust lol - hopefully now will have more visits to merchants.

**Tim01** · 21-02-12

Hi to All

I have made many changes to website so would welcome some new feedback on website

all the w's bagsofonlineshopping dot co dot uk.

look forward to your comments

many thanks

**Lee_K_00** · 21-02-12

First off you've spelt bargains wrong, it's missing the 2nd 'a'. So you might want to run your text through a quick spell checker.

Secondly, all your links on the front page, below your header, all open up into new tabs. That can be quite annoying for some people. If I want to open it in a new tab i'd right click the link. But at least i'd have a choice.

I'm guessing it's your first website? It's not a bad effort but to be honest, it's not great either. Personally it's not something i'd return to. It doesn't really offer me anything. It's all links to other websites.

Also, I think your setting your sights too high for a first attempt. Start small, choose one subject to concentrate on like Travel for example and try working on bringing traffic to it, building some good links and some good reviews or whatever else. Right now I think you'll struggle trying to get this off the ground because it's just too much!

One more thing, a lot of your images just seem to be something you've grabbed off Google images or something similar, and it shows...
You don't need to be an expert to create a great layout, try picking up a book or 2 on HTML, CSS and maybe get a trial copy of Photoshop and have a play around. You'll be surprised at what you can actually do with so little effort!

Sorry if any of that sounds harsh in any way, that's not my intentions. Just a bit of constructive criticism, sort of cruel to be kind.

**Tim01** · 21-02-12

Thank you for the feedback Lee

1) The spelling mistake has been corrected.
2) The tabs under header, in my browser open in that tab and don't open in new tabs, maybe this is a personally preference setting in the browser that your using? or even the browser itself?
3) The idea behind site is an online shopping directory, bringing as many retailers into one place, known and unknown so that the user doesnt't have to keep searching for different sites its all in one place.
3) The images are not ones that have been taken off google, they are the ones formed from the html code that the merchants supply you with.

Thanks for the advice though - will welcome anyone elses thoughts as well

**Fitness Coupons** · 21-02-12

Originally Posted by Tim01

3) The idea behind site is an online shopping directory, bringing as many retailers into one place, known and unknown so that the user doesnt't have to keep searching for different sites its all in one place.

There's about 300 of these type of sites and most look very professional and have clearly been done by knowledgable web designers or people with money to splash on high end software packages. You should look to do something in more of a niche area as Lee said and build it up where there is low competiton on keywords and products. Ask yourself why would someone use your site when they can find a more professional design at MyVoucherCodes for instance?

**Tim01** · 21-02-12

sorry that the site doesn't look professional enough for you Fitness

**Fitness Coupons** · 21-02-12

Some pointers from me:

Menu - this needs to be reduced in size. Use dropdown menus for the categories. Use a different font and colour.

Header - can you make this look more professional? You can get a web designer to make a header for you for £60-80 or if you don't want to pay that maybe consider a change of font? I can also see what looks like hidden images under the menu?

I see you're using Create. Have a look at a website I made for a friend using Create for some ideas - nice simple layout (although forget the copy as he has edited it since I finished the design!) - www dot chancelloroftheformchecker dot co dot uk

My main criticism is the font and the use of 'red'. Not sure what the 'latest news' area is doing either.

The content - I believe you've used tables on the pages. They need cellpadding and some images aren't showing (e.g. Best Buy and OYYY). Also I don't think the descriptions work under the logos. Dixons picture also doesn't centre align by the way.

**Tim01** · 21-02-12

Thank you for your feedback

I have made some changes based upon what you have said, hopefully the site looks more professional?

Would still welcome any more feedback.

**Lee_K_00** · 21-02-12

Wow that actually looks a lot better!

I see what the idea of your site is now, and what it offers. Not really a bad idea, but still has room for improvement.

The links that open up in a new tab are the images below your header. Also you should make the text linkable to the same location of the images.

One more thing, what font are you using? Personally I think Arial might look a bit better, that's just my opinion though, I find it easier on the eye's. Other people might disagree.

I definitely think you should look into HTML and CSS, you'd definitely benefit from using divs rather than tables for your layouts. And you'll be really surprised how much you can pick up in such a short time. It's a bit stressful at times but isn't everything when your a beginner.

I'd love to help you out more but have quite a big project of my own that i'm working on and not a great deal of time to do it . But feel free to give me a PM.

**bradentaylor** · 22-02-12

I don't like the header at all. Very amateur looking. I have found that the header is SO important on the initial opinion of your site. Definitely outsource this if you don't know how to do it. There are good designers over at fiverr, so no excuse for an amateur looking header. I'd spend about 5 seconds on this site, then hit the back button.