Bobs Internet Mart

[Nite Producer]

Re: Bobs Internet Mart

What naghosthunter did was brilliant, I appreciate the move you did man.

Robert, you still can add more of your creativity to make it more attractive, I didn't say that the sample wasn't good, what jim did is so good, but still need a little bit of retouches. I'll be back later for more details, I need to get out from this computer, I'm just a computer abuser.

[Rwatsonsr]

Re: Bobs Internet Mart

Hi NiteProducer,

Thanks for all your assistance. You guys are fantastic, and you are right - What Jim did was brilliant. I love it! I plan to take Jims example and use it to redo my home page.

Like yourself though, I need to break from this computer for the rest of today and tonight - my small peabrain is about to go on overload. lol.

I appreciate all of you - I have learned a lot today.

Thanks,

Robert L. (Bob) Watson, Sr.
Bobs Internet Mart

http://www.bobsinternetmart.com

[Rwatsonsr]

Re: Bobs Internet Mart

Hello Jim,

Thanks my friend - you have helped me tremendously. I am going to use your example and redo my home page. Will be in touch tomorrow to let you know when I have finished reworking it. Have a great night.

Thanks,

Bob

http://www.bobsinternetmart.com

[Karen Mac]

Re: Bobs Internet Mart

oh and try to keep photos with description on it if you want it on main page then create another page that has your products on it with everything from photo to description to checkout or buy noiw button. try not to sell on your main page.

Jim.. hes building in SOHO not bv, so he wont be able to paste MOST of that in there.

I agree totally with no BUY now buttons. You need to sell on the main page, just not with the SOHO shopping cart buttons. You definitely need product pictures and text to the products. If you need help with putting products in a table and pasting it into soho text element let me know which products youd like and ill run up the codes for you. If you want to have an internet STORE every page needs to sell for you!

Karen

[Bethers]

Re: Bobs Internet Mart

I don't know what your home page looked like before - but right now I wouldn't buy from you. I'm bored looking at it and have absolutely NO CLUE from any text "above the fold" what you carry - nothing in your name, headline or title on the page to tell me. I'd be long gone.

I also believe in the power of pictures. I don't believe in overdoing them - but EVERY page of your website needs to be selling for you - just as Karen stated above. If you think not - then you aren't looking at any of the big stores. Look at best buy - look at smartbargains.com - look at ANY of the major forces - and they are SELLING the minute you get to their page - and you also know exactly what they have to offer.

You have a store that is NOT going to sell for you - and customers aren't going to be able to find it.

You have a policies page with shipping information - but you don't tell me what shipping will cost me - just that I'm responsible for shipping. The policies have to answer the questions - not make more questions.

Your 2nd navigation is to a page called products - and it's a useless page as it is now. I expected you to have some other type of navigation to your products from this page. If anything - this information is what should be on the home page - cuz know I know you're really a store.

Now, about your writing - you need to completely rethink how you're writing - cuz no one shopping wants to hear about you - they want to hear why the product you have is right for THEM. Emphasis on you, your, etc - not I, we, our.

The copy has to be inviting and SELL them- on EVERY page.

I just put in a link to SEO that is necessary for ALL websites - will add it here - because it's VITAL for a store:

SEO Basics - free ebook

I know you want to make some money on line - but what you have right now will never get a single referral from search engines - and the few people who do find your store will not buy - except friends and possibly some forum members.

You can do this - but you need to do major tweaking.

[naghosthunter]

Re: Bobs Internet Mart

Jim.. hes building in SOHO not bv, so he wont be able to paste MOST of that in there.

I agree totally with no BUY now buttons. You need to sell on the main page, just not with the SOHO shopping cart buttons. You definitely need product pictures and text to the products. If you need help with putting products in a table and pasting it into soho text element let me know which products youd like and ill run up the codes for you. If you want to have an internet STORE every page needs to sell for you!

Karen

ahhh now that explains it soho hmmm sorry can't tell the difference between soho and bv :) i promise not to say nothing when it come to soho sorry bob misunderstood as i said i consider myself as an apprentice in traing was just trying to help. my baaaaaadddddddd. :)

thanks karen for letting me know about soho not bv.

[Karen Mac]

Re: Bobs Internet Mart

Jim

Youre not bad, and Im not spanking you. I was just letting you know he was going to have issues pasting that into his site cuz its soho, and not a bv template! Your logo was great!

Karen

[Rwatsonsr]

Re: Bobs Internet Mart

Hello Bethers,

I appreciate your honesty and frankness. I know I have a long way to go before this site is ready for business and that is why I asked for suggestions and help from you guys. I am not even trying to promote this site at the present time and won't start promoting it until I have tweaked it to the point that you guys tell me that it looks like it might be ready to do business.

I realize that all of you know what it takes for a site to be successful on the internet in todays business world and that is why I have asked for assistance and suggestions from fellow website owners here at BV.

I am taking notes and honestly trying to make changes based on your suggestions.

Thanks,

Robert L. (Bob) Watson, Sr.
Bobs Internet Mart

http://www.bobsinternetmart.com

[Rwatsonsr]

Re: Bobs Internet Mart

Hello Karen,

First of all, thanks for your help, suggestions, assistance, etc., so far. I do have one favor to ask. You are right, I am building this site with SoHo and copying & pasting is sorta difficult. I have looked at your site and would like to know how you got clicking on the pictures on your home page to direct the user to a description, price, etc. for those items.

I am going to completely change my home page and would like to add at least one picture from each catagory to the home page and have it link to that catagory when someone clicked on it. Can I do that using SoHo?

I am also going to completely change the heading to somehow include the words shopping and gifts and will be incorporating the current product page text into the home page text and will be deleting the product page completely.

Any suggestions and/or assistance you can pass along to me regarding the above would be greatly appreciated.

I would actually like to include a changing feed with pictures of products on the home page and if someone clicked on one of the pics in the feed, I would love to be able to have it link to that page catagory. Can this be done with SoHo?

Thanks and Regards,

Robert L. (Bob) Watson, Sr.
Bobs Internet Mart

http://www.bobsinternetmart.com

[naghosthunter]

Re: Bobs Internet Mart

looks much better to me bob but you are missing an image all the way at the bottom for bravenet. sorry also didn't know you were using soho and i have no idea about that thingy. :) but at least i steered ya in right direction.

[Bethers]

Re: Bobs Internet Mart

Bob,
Please realize, everything I say is to help you improve it - I know it's new - and I want to see you be successful. I could sit all day on here and tell everyone there pages are wonderful - but it wouldn't do them any good even though they might feel better but never understand why they aren't getting sales.

You keep plugging away, and we'll keep helping you.

[Dream Lady]

Re: Bobs Internet Mart

Bob: If you take Beth and Karen's suggestions, there is no doubt in my mind that you will be succesful! The only tip I have, is to try and have fun with it. I know it can get frustrating, but just keep an optimistic outlook and know that every step is a learning experience. That's what gets me through "life".
Beth; thanks for the link to your ebook. Great info!

[Karen Mac]

Re: Bobs Internet Mart

Bob,

Im currently killing my back and cleaning house so i can get the Christmas thing going on, but when I sit down tonite, Im not gonna wanna move for several hours, so .. ill go peek at your site and post you some codes and explain to you how to get them into soho. I cant promise you ill hit every category, but you can also do that with text. A text link is like this.

<a href="http://www.yoursite.com/yourcategory.php?id=whatever">Your Text Goes Here</a>.

I dont know if soho has tutorials for this specifically, but you can type in your text in the soho text box. Hilight it, and hit the link button, and then use the drop down to find product pages or pages within the store, categories i believe, but maybe not individual products. I dont use it cuz I am so used to doing my own coding, that its just faster to do so. I believe you might be able to do the same with images, if you know the image name exactly.

Anyway.. i will catch up with this a little later.

Karen

[MandyN]

Re: Bobs Internet Mart

Hi Robert, I checked out your site, and have read all the replies about it... It doesn't seem that your link is linking to the same place everyone else has been looking at. The page I see has only a small amount of text.

Each of the pages you selected in the Wizard have been created and are now ready for you to edit. In many cases, pages have been populated with generic text and styles to help give you a head-start on formatting your content.
If this will be your first website, now is the perfect time to experiment and get acquainted with the various features at your disposal.

So I am not sure what the others are referring to. From what I see, I can say to you that I really like the look of the page especially your choice of colours... really nice. I guessed from reading the text that this page would display after using a wizard to create a website, so I clicked on the "HomePage" link, but it only refreshed the same page. I can only comment on your site as to how it looks cosmetically, as there is nothing on this page for me to use or try for being user-friendly.

So I guess all I can say, is that I really like the look of the page, and it has a good feel to me. Sorry I cannot be helpful.

Regards,
Mandy

[Karen Mac]

Re: Bobs Internet Mart

LOL.. BOB what did you do? You reset the whole site, no categories or anything LOLOL.

Karen