I think i am ready for a review.

[Karen Mac]

Re: I think i am ready for a review.

R...

You probably arent going to like me and I am going to totally disagree with some of the above statements, but please take this as food for thought. Your way may very well work for you and I would sincerely wish the best for you, which is why I am going to point some things out.

The homey feel and cowboy jargon are ok. But heres the thing. On the internet nobody knows rather or not you are big business or mom and pop. Or even if you work in your garage. Most of what you have on the homepage would be best suited to an about us page. Your homepage needs to be your professional introduction to the world about what your are selling and the easiest way to navigate to more information about those products possible and not about you. While you will get a few folks who just love it, the majority of the people that hit your site really dont care about you, they are looking for what you sell, so thats what you need to present. You can keep the homey feel and some of the jargon, but beef up your professional image at the same time. Keep in mind too, that most of your lookers arent going to be into campfires and horses, but looking for leather gifts, or handtooled leather items.

Never imply you are just the little guy.
Never imply that your products are NOT the best
Never imply that your workmanship is "tried at", imply that its TOP QUALITY HANDTOOLED LEATHER by a quality leather worker.
Never imply that you hope they will buy...assume that they will and go from there.
Never imply that you arent in business or just doing a hobby and love it so much you just have extras for sale.

Your campfire feel and stories about your buddy and your horses would make excellent blog material pointing back to your store when you talk about wallets and leather and saddles etc....and is the place to garner your readers and followers and let them get to know you.

Make a tour of other leather sites and see how they present and BORROW ideas but dont copy them word for word or layout for layout. Pay attention to your top five or ten competitors and then base your strategy for how to get into your niche better than they do. IT can be done and you have lots of help and learning tools right here on this forum.

My first attempt was exactly like yours and fortunately I found guidance and learned some things and quickly seen the results. Took me a bit to let go of what I thought I was doing, and what actually needed to be done. So please take a look and rethink some strategies.

Karen Mac

[ez-ez]

Re: I think i am ready for a review.

G'day..

I've looked at this website on 3 occasions and my overall impression is that it a good website. It is good because it is motivated by a purpose, it contains all the elements that make a website, and it has a niche.

While some people may like the simle honest appraoch, others may be drawn more to aggrassive marketing and competing firociously. My view is neither is wrong or bad. It's always good to know the Do's and the Dont's, but often you'll find that the only thing that is going to achieve results is your ability to communicate your message to your target audience. Your knowledge of what your likely customers to relate to is what makes the difference.. The question here is: What makes people buy my products..?? Do people prefer to deal with good ole cowboy Ray, or prefer to have off the line Versacci wallets..?? Am I looking for 1000 orders of Cell phone cases per week, or am I better appreciated by a 100 lawyers who want custom made brief cases..?? Sometimes, your connection to your trade is what sells your product.. Think of a surgeon.. he wont tell you what tools he will use in surgery, but he will tell you how many times he performed that surgery.. I feel that if you work from a garage it's ok to let people know.. I prefer people know I operate from my study room at home, than give them the impression that I run a multimillion dollar operation from a high rise in the city.

At the same, I feel that the index page does indeed need to be more commercialized.. Perhaps more about the products, or perhaps more about marketing.. even credit card logos or pay pal badge may be a good idea.. The page must tell people that it is an E-Commerce website with a simle glance.

I guess, I am agreing with everyone and take the view that a moderate approach and finding the middle territory between conflicting opinions may be the way to go.

What Karen has said may be true, people may not care about you, they care about your products, but if thats the case, I awould as, if that's true, then talking about your experience and background should not be a problem.. because people don't react, negatively or positively to what they don't care for... so, if the argument is there is no benefit in it, I say, there is no harm in it either.

As for my own personal view on the topic, I would rather deal with you than go to a multi-national corporation.. I dont care much for horses, cowboy stuff or camp fire, but I know that the guys that are involved in that stuff have good skills in certain things I want to buy.. I did that on many occasions, I bought crocodile leather, and had a retired **** maker make me boots with it.

IslandCrazy made a good point above, she loved your website because it talks about you, that means you are passionate about what you do and that comes accross clearly.. That is a good thing.. If you can produce a website that convinces your audience that your passion and commitment to your work results in good looking quality products, then you made it big... No doubt.

[Bethers]

Re: I think i am ready for a review.

Making a store professional, as Karen was saying, does not mean that you can't still have a down home "hometown" feeling. I owned a brick and mortar business in a small town - very small town folks - under 300 people - and it was very successful. While people loved dealing with me and knowing us as neighbors, etc - they continued to buy from me because I ran a professional store.

On the internet - people search for a product and want to find it - many will not even see your home page - they'll be taken directly to the product. I like what's written - BUT - it's not going to help get anyone to your website to buy your products - you aren't using any of the terms on your home page that will send any of the se's traffic for you - which is another reason that would best fit on the about us page. And there is would be so vital - because many of us DO look at those pages - and that's how we decide whether we buy or not.

You could have a start of this info here - with it connecting to that page - just another way to do it! But you need to optimize your store if you want to sell - and this home page won't bring you traffic of people looking to buy your products, unfortunately. And, that, in the long run, is what the website needs to do.

Here is a great little article about what websites need:
http://www.entireweb.com/newsletter/.../ISSUE251.html

[mark6110]

Re: I think i am ready for a review.

Great link Beathers, thank you. Useful information for everyone.

[circuspet.com]

Re: I think i am ready for a review.

rayj:

I think your text could be at least 12 and if you make your page slightly wider the wallet image wouldn't be fighting the text for room. The biggest fault with the page is, I think your contact form dosen't work. When I used it I was answered with a verification with the message ment for you.
I will need to get off the forum to check the total message and if you got my message, then you need to work on the reply message.

going to check my mail; will let you know anything else I find

[circuspet.com]

Re: I think i am ready for a review.

OK I'm back and your form works fine on this end. Thought I saw a bugger, must have been on my nose.

[mercy1]

Re: I think i am ready for a review.

Very simple and nice. But seems to be very plain. Why dont you add some Flash in the homepage?

[davidundalicia]

Re: I think i am ready for a review.

Flash is NOT everything......plain and simple is king as long as it gets the message across.