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A few little updates...


Guest 2Tall

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Guest 2Tall

Hi guys.

Some may remember me posting up about the site a few months ago. Have since done some minor modifications to the design.

http://www.letsopenabottle.com

The only thing we seem to be having problems with is generating traffic.

Anyone any tips on the best way to do this?

We have SEO mod installed.

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Guest offthehook

For one, your SEO mod doesn't appear to be generating search engine friendly urls.

However, there's no guarantees of getting traffic or sales (and the two are not mutually exclusive either) just because you have an online store. Searching for "spanish wine" on google brings up a lot of sites and yours wasn't in the first 8 pages of results.

There's no easy answer to this unfortunately (if there was we'd all be rich!).

Have you got any backlinks to your site, are you advertising, are you using adwords? If not then you should start thinking about it, and certainly start budgeting for some marketing if your business is relying on web sales.

I was quoted a five figure sum of money to run a 12 month pay per click campaign designed to get a site into the top echelon of google results. Thats probably out of the reach of most Cubecart store owners, and even then you'd have to start weighing up how much product you'd need to sell to afford that kind of advertising and make a profit (!), not to mention all the back end stuff of employing staff, monitoring orders, managing accounts etc.

If you don't advertise then you're not going to get much traffic, so one has to be realistic about returns if you can't afford to advertise. The sad truth is that there are a lot of online businesses and you'll need patience, luck, money and time to make yours compete and work, much like a tangible business really.

I should say that this post is not directed at 2tall, but more a general comment about getting traffic and sales through a Cubecart store.

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Guest 2Tall

thanks guys. We dont have any backlinks or anything as of yet, however ive registered with backlinks.com so im gonna get some on there now.

Stevie what do you mean about the right column being out of the body ?

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BTW - when you look at the 800 by 600 display - if your monitor is the increasingly common LCD, a setting of 800 by 600 may not look too nice. The elements, especially text, may appear distorted. Too many LCD monitors, by nature, don't do low-res very well.

To complicate matters further, laptops often have a wider aspect ratio (width to height) than desktop monitors. As a result, in that situation, the display, even if it fits within the display, will be "fat." Faces and objects will be stretched. Not by enough to make the display ugly or illegible. But definitely noticeable.

But CRTs, the big bulky monitors that many users still have in service - and will for years to come because many of them are a sturdy as an assault tank - do an excellent job of displaying 800 by 600. While my own daily computer is a laptop with the described issues, I still have a 21 inch Panasonic desktop sitting here in front of me that I bought as "remanufactured" about 12 years ago. It probably needs degaussing and recalibration of the colors but otherwise it is still doing so well that it would be silly to get rid of it.

Your web site will look good on those CRT screens even at 800 by 600, if you just do some adjustments.

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Guest 2Tall

[quote name='2Tall' date='May 23 2007, 06:45 AM' post='128219'

Stevie what do you mean about the right column being out of the body ?

I am am glad you asked because I no longer take the bait when I see a web site such as yours.

First of all, the design itself is excellent. The previous poster has well answered the traffic issue.

The "right column" thing is what gets me derisive email.

You have (unwittingly, is my guess) created your site on a high resolution display. Switch your monitor's display to 800 by 600 and look at the site again.

There are huge numbers of people whose monitors are set for 800 by 600. When a site designed for hi-resolution (such as yours) is tendered to an 800 by 600 monitor, the right side of the screen is lost from view until you scroll to the right. Aside from the large number of people who do not know how to do that, there's another larger number (like myself) who decline to because it's both annoying - and the issue implies that the designer either doesn't know or doesn't care.

One optional cure is to use a design that displays at any resolution without scroll to the right. The result may show some blank space on each side which you fill with a dark color.

An alternative was described somewhere here only a few days ago. Someone posted a message saying that he had written javascript for his CC installation. It detects the user's display and delivers an appropriate web page. I think a search of posting less than a week old using the key word "javascript" might find it. Perhaps he would be willing to share that script by posting it.

Bottom line, all properly complete tutorials and books on web design end with the same basic - and usally ignored - advice. Before you thnk your web site is complete, go look at it on various browsers AND different monitors with varying resolution settings. Adjust accordingly.

Hope that helps.

Joe

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Guest midwest

Your site is excellent. I love the colors and the feel.

But , jerseyjoe is correct. I changed my rez to 800 x 600 and it messed everything up. It actually works fine at my standard rez I use which is 1152 x 864. anything higher and your right side went off the monitor.

Although I don't know how anyone could view anything but games at 800 x 600. GOOD GOD that's large.

No offense, and this is ment teasingly, BUT ARE YOU BLIND Joe ?

Just for kicks I tried viewing my site at that rez as I designed mine at the rez I mentioned, and it was bad. nothing off the screen , but everything SCRUCHED together , :)

My to do list got an addition.

For now- just putting a "Best Viewed At" comment on the homepage :)

Thank's Joe for pointing this out, and Good luck 2tall with your site !

Salute'

midwest :)

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Guest offthehook

It would appear that it is primarily the homepage that is causing the site to go too wide and I would attribute that to the slideshow.

I could question the purpose of the slideshow as there is no information about the photographs displayed or why they would be of interest to a potential buyer.

Perhaps the space could be better used by adding some further information about your products and services, special deals, or why they should buy from you. That may help generate a few more sales.

And I was the one who had the javascript resize working!

You can see it on www.chocolatinkl.co.uk just resize your browser window down to 800 pixels and you'll see what happens.

Perhaps when I get a bit more time I'll post a tutorial, but in this case the letsopenabottle site is a flexible width site and just needs some minor tweaking to make it right.

As a related issue I would urge all web designers to download Firefox and install the web developer toolbar. It adds many great functions to your browser such as the ability to resize the window, css information, html and css validation, etc. I use it all the time test and retest my sites and I am a better designer for it.

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Guest offthehook

Oops just noticed something else.

You are using a transparent PNG file as the background logo at the top of the page. Explorer 6 (by far the most used web browser) does not display transparency in PNG files. What they see is a large light blue box wth the white writing in the centre of it.

Its fixable with a bit of javascript. Do a search in google for sleight or bgsleight.

Regards

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BUT ARE YOU BLIND Joe ?
While I know it is not malicious, that is exactly the derision that discorages me from offering unasked for advice on this point. HAd the question not been asked, I would have said nothing.

I am not the issue. My advice does not deserve ad hominem comments.

This is about what your site visitors (or enough of them to be of concern) are seeing. Web design is not about pretty pictures and handsome layouts. It is about maximizing the ability of the intended users to get your message in the format that they are able to get it, not the form in which you wish to send it.

The basic power of the Internet, universal unsupervised publication of content, is also its largest drawback. Anyone can publish anything in any form, even if large portions of the intended audience can't read it. The funny thing is that too many senders assume (yes, parse that, please) that just because they know what they publish, the intended recipient does too.

A fundamental rule of communication was stated long before the Internet because it applies to everything from slips of paper taped to a pigeons leg, on up to a 100 volume set of encyclopedia or even a chain of television stations.

"The effectiveness and efficient of any message is 100% dependent on the sender." I'm paraphrasing Marshal MacLuhan, the 20th Century expert on communication.

That means that if your intended audience is the entire population of Peapack, New Jersey and you send it a message written in Urdu, do not be surprised if no one there gives it attention, even if you personally put a copy in every hand. Likewise, if you are selling something on the Internet, do not be shocked that people with monitors set a different resolution than the one you used when you designed your web pages can't see what you think you are sending them and ignore it.

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Guest midwest

BUT ARE YOU BLIND Joe ?

While I know it is not malicious, that is exactly the derision that discorages me from offering unasked for advice on this point. HAd the question not been asked, I would have said nothing.

I am not the issue. My advice does not deserve ad hominem comments.

This is about what your site visitors (or enough of them to be of concern) are seeing. Web design is not about pretty pictures and handsome layouts. It is about maximizing the ability of the intended users to get your message in the format that they are able to get it, not the form in which you wish to send it.

The basic power of the Internet, universal unsupervised publication of content, is also its largest drawback. Anyone can publish anything in any form, even if large portions of the intended audience can't read it. The funny thing is that too many senders assume (yes, parse that, please) that just because they know what they publish, the intended recipient does too.

A fundamental rule of communication was stated long before the Internet because it applies to everything from slips of paper taped to a pigeons leg, on up to a 100 volume set of encyclopedia or even a chain of television stations.

"The effectiveness and efficient of any message is 100% dependent on the sender." I'm paraphrasing Marshal MacLuhan, the 20th Century expert on communication.

That means that if your intended audience is the entire population of Peapack, New Jersey and you send it a message written in Urdu, do not be surprised if no one there gives it attention, even if you personally put a copy in every hand. Likewise, if you are selling something on the Internet, do not be shocked that people with monitors set a different resolution than the one you used when you designed your web pages can't see what you think you are sending them and ignore it.

Joe-

My comments in these forums never contain derisiveness, either implied or intended, unless deserved.

If you found such in my comment I sincerely offer my appologies.

Did I not thank you for your suggestion ?

My site, humble as it is , is designed from the viewpoint of a customer. If I were shopping there what would I appriciate. I have asked many friends, etc., who shop online what they thought during various phases of design. However the rez issue was something I had NOT even considered. But now I most certainly will in the future, thanks to your post.

2tall-

Your site is awesome. Keep up the good work. One thing I have learned is that these things are ever evolving. I don't come to this forum often, but when I do, the creativeness of CC users always amazes me !

(I also have a suggestion for advertising and site optimization that I will send you later.)

midwest :)

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Guest 2Tall

again thank you all for the comments. Im working on fixing it as we speak, ive hooked up a spare monitor and have that running in 800x600 with ie on it.

:)

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Guest midwest

again thank you all for the comments. Im working on fixing it as we speak, ive hooked up a spare monitor and have that running in 800x600 with ie on it.

:)

Great Idea !! :)

midwest :)

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