Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2003 5:23 pm Post subject: What can i improve in this site ?
Hi all,
My site www.1-stop-free-cell-phones.com was indexed by google recently. Not all pages were indexed. I expect it to be done in a few days. But before that, i would like to know what changes can be made in the site to make it more useful to the visitors.
Can you please check out the site and suggest some changes that can be done to make it more useful ? Please feel free to post your opinions.
Did you find it useful ? Do i have to improve the content ? What can i do to make it better ?
I am actually planning to change some of the pages there. But i think it is better to get your opinions first. Feel free to post whatever you think.
You will only be helping me. Thank you for your time.
You have a well-designed and thought out site, easy and clear navigation. The content is the one area that may need some work.
Insofar as the "manner of speech" for want of a better word, the only thing I really noticed was the constant use of "we" as in we need to be careful ... we need to this ... when you spoke about what the consumer should do. My feeling is perhaps you should reflect more on talking to them in the first person to make it more personal.
The other thing I noticed was your recommendation for certain providers. All you say is they are the best price, or whatever, in one very short paragraph. You don't really go into detail on comparing plans, options, accessories so I don't know why I should believe your recommendation.
I was only able to view the first 5 or 6 items on your navbar. I had a very hard time getting pages to load, seemed to take forever and I have cable. The header table loaded fast, but the rest of it was awful long, if it loaded at all. I even reloaded different pages and it still took a long time.
This page was really bad:http://www.1-stop-free-cell-phones.com/compare-cell-phones.php but once it loaded I noticed you had what appeared to be an error in coding on the left.
You might want to break out your one large table to several smaller ones to see if that helps, or remove some of the javascript and see if that makes a difference. If you have a call to a stats program or site, that could be the reason.
One thing I absolutely loved was the ability to compare the actual cell phones side by side. I would really play that up, make it prominent on the home page, and top of the navbar. That is one awesome feature. Also, give more explanation about how to use it the comparison feature. I just played with it and figured it out myself. If you could also provide your opinions on what features are more important, or better, and which particular phones you recommend and why I think this would be a great asset.
If you could provide the same on the cell plan portion, you would have a site that really delivers the goods.
Hope this helps,
Debs _________________ Learn how to turn keyphrases into quality, well-targeted articles your visitors and SE's will love with Gary Antosh's new ebook "Web Content Made Easy!"
You have a well-designed and thought out site, easy and clear navigation.
I like the navigation, but I'm not too keen on the dark brown as the dominant colour in the header. Maybe this is just opinion, but maybe a brighter, more optimistic colour might be better.
Debs wrote:
I was only able to view the first 5 or 6 items on your navbar.
I could see them all, but the onmouseover background colour changes took several seconds to work in most cases. I have a slow PC, but that was a bit extreme. How much javascript have you got running in there?
Debs wrote:
I had a very hard time getting pages to load, seemed to take forever and I have cable. The header table loaded fast, but the rest of it was awful long, if it loaded at all. I even reloaded different pages and it still took a long time.
Debs wrote:
This page was really bad:http://www.1-stop-free-cell-phones.com/compare-cell-phones.php
I have a 28k dial up, as I live in a rural area. I timed the loading...
10 secs before anything appeared;
14 secs before the header graphic appeared (but still nothing to read);
26secs for whole page to load.
Debs wrote:
You might want to break out your one large table to several smaller ones to see if that helps
Whatever you do, get something to read (even if it's just a "page loading" pop up) to the client inside a couple of seconds.
I was obviously patient in this case, but under normal surfing conditions, I wouldn't hang around 10 secs with a blank screen, unless desperate for the information.
It's not so much how long a page loads that matters, but how long it seems to take to load... Amazon are good at this. Their pages are large, but don't seem to take long to load, since something to read quickly appears.
I realise I have a slower PC and connection than most users, but I am sure you can at least make things seem to load more quickly than this.
Sorry if I seem to have dwelt on the negative. I like the site, generally.
All the best,
Charlie. _________________ "Before I speak, I have something important to say."
- Groucho Marx
Nice site. Easy navigation. Loved the cell phone compare page - a few directions will definitely help.
Everything loaded, but it was slow - and I have cable access as well.
Here are some content ideas:
Cell Phones:
- do list the features that are necessary and those that are not
- ones that are standard and ones that are extras (like caller id - every
cell phone has it and every provider makes it available as part of the
basic plan with no extra charge)
- Show your visitor how to make an informed decision.
- Maybe a section for the latest - BREW capable phones (access to the web), camera phones....
Cell Plans:
- show your visitors how to choose the cell plan that is best for them
- local vs regional vs national plans.
- The inclusive minutes vs overage minutes. The cost of overage minutes
is what increases most peoples cell phone bills.
Todays wall street journal has a whole section on the telecommunications industry in general - check it out, very informative. In the last month or so, the wall street journal has had a lot of articles on the wireless industry - look there for more content ideas.
Hi debs,charlie and khushee,
Thanks for your feedback. I will work on them. Actually i was a bit surprised that the pages load slow. I tried it now and it loads up pretty fast(around 10 seconds). I never thought it would be slow. I am not using heavy javascript. It is SSI and access to database that takes time. I think its time to optimize things. How would the site be if i removed the navbar images and replaced them with plain link text ?
As debs said i think it would be better if i change everything to first person. I will be doing that. Also i plan to have a page through which you can choose options that would be important to the visitors(like camera,wireless internet and so on) and only phones that have them will be listed. This helps to narrow down the comparison page. What do you think about it ?
As for the plans, i have been getting the database done. It is obviously taking time . Soon there will be compare options for plans also. Currently i have around 43 plans in database. I just have to put up a page as the interface.
Also i am planning on another feature. For all the phones, that you compare, there will be a new paragraph that lists any special offers available. For eg, if you compare Nokia 3300 and Sony Ericsson T226, then the special offers section will list any offers available for those phones. Of course they will have my affiliate id. Will this be good to visitors or irritating ?
Thank you for your comments and time.
Your upcoming plans are great, and the tip on specials with your links too. A great way to go in my opinion on all three of those items.
I wouldn't wait until you have "all" the plans in ... get your page up and running, then add more plans as you go along. That way your site has a more complete look. I think 43 plans is pretty darn good lol
Any reduction in graphics will help your pages load faster, and the spiders to travel your site so I think that would be good. But the delay I saw was more than graphics, believe me. I would check out a good forum on php such as Sitepointforums (they have written popular books on php) and ask for feedback on the loading of the pages and coding to be sure you don't have problems there.
Also, check out the webceo coding at the bottom, that's a remote call which can seriously delay page loading, particularly during high traffic times on the internet, not necessarily traffic on your site.
Remote calls are notorious for slow page loading. This can be a problem with your host, or with the remote call service. Sometimes it can even be a problem within the page itself.
It's now 1 am here and I notice your pages are loading faster than they were earlier. I would keep an eye on it during the next few days, particularly during heavy WWW traffic periods, and see if it changes.
I have heavy javascript on my site right now, and it loads fast. I had SSI on a site last year and had no loading problems. How good is your host? The manner in which they setup the server has a lot to do with how these things are handled, and how quickly they are processed for the web.
Hope this helps,
Debs _________________ Learn how to turn keyphrases into quality, well-targeted articles your visitors and SE's will love with Gary Antosh's new ebook "Web Content Made Easy!"
As debs said i think it would be better if i change everything to first person.
Although the first person (I) is fine for describing your experience, remember that the second person (you) is traditionally supposed to get better copywriting results. The reader wants to know "what's in it for them".
gana wrote:
As for the plans, i have been getting the database done. It is obviously taking time . Soon there will be compare options for plans also. Currently i have around 43 plans in database. I just have to put up a page as the interface.
That is a very good thing about your site - and quite a DIY achievement, if you ask me. Just make sure you put equal emphasis on getting the traffic to the page, so people appreciate the functionality. I would have thought this is a pretty competitive niche.
Debs wrote:
I had SSI on a site last year and had no loading problems. How good is your host? The manner in which they setup the server has a lot to do with how these things are handled, and how quickly they are processed for the web.
I agree. SSI should not make any where near this much difference with a good host.
Is there a problem with database design, slowing down the searching, I wonder? Have you specified a unique numeric primary key field and appropriate indexes? Could the relational aspects be fine tuned? Just a thought.
All the best,
Charlie. _________________ "Before I speak, I have something important to say."
- Groucho Marx
Although the first person (I) is fine for describing your experience, remember that the second person (you) is traditionally supposed to get better copywriting results. The reader wants to know "what's in it for them".
Thank you Charlie for the clarification. I used the wrong term when I said first person ... I meant 2nd, and the emphasis on you and 'what's in it for them' one of my favorite themes if you've read my posts.
Charlie also offers a great point about relational database design. Sitepointforums is a great place for that too.
I tried doing my own database in MySQL ... it was fun, interesting and eventually quite frustrating. I fear I have little patience for programming but it was worth learning the basics just for understanding how it works.
Best wishes,
Debs _________________ Learn how to turn keyphrases into quality, well-targeted articles your visitors and SE's will love with Gary Antosh's new ebook "Web Content Made Easy!"
Hi charlie and debs,
I think i must have clarified too. I meant first person from my point of view. Anyway i have made some changes to the website including changing image links to text links. Can you please look at that and comment on them. Also please post the time it takes to load the pages. Thanks for all your comments and feedback.
I tried doing my own database in MySQL ... it was fun, interesting and eventually quite frustrating. I fear I have little patience for programming but it was worth learning the basics just for understanding how it works.
I think it is always worth learning the basics of any "programming" technology, even if you decide to use tools to do the "real" job, in the end.
Gana...
I reloaded the page (without cached graphics) to check the loading times and they are much quicker now, Gana. About 4 secs then much of the page appears. Max 12 for the whole page. I'm 28K remember - and it's the same page I looked at yesterday (about this time).
The text links look fine to me, too.
Cheers,
Charlie. _________________ "Before I speak, I have something important to say."
- Groucho Marx
Looks good and loads much faster for me too. I went through all the main pages, and the different phone reviews as well.
One thought for balance, and navigation segregation, though, how about the same box on the left with the menu, that you have on the right? Not necessary, just an aesthetic thing.
Debs _________________ Learn how to turn keyphrases into quality, well-targeted articles your visitors and SE's will love with Gary Antosh's new ebook "Web Content Made Easy!"
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but it was worth learning the basics just for understanding how it works.