www.dccoffeeproducts.com

hupp25 · #1 (**permalink**) 05-04-2004, 07:12 PM

I have put into practice your advice and strategies. Please kindly give it the once over again. I have just added some new features to some of the equipment but some companies marketing dept's do not care how you sell their products. Thanks again for all your time in helping me grow this past year.jlh.

cmarshall · #2 (**permalink**) 05-04-2004, 10:11 PM

The header graphic seems sketchy in comparison with your product. It seems to me if your are selling top of the line coffee equipment your header should be clean and crisp.

If I were you, I might also move my navigation from out of my header.

The main body of your index page seems crammed. Is there anyway to make the images a wee bit smaller? You could always make it so the user clicks on the image and goes to its product page for a larger size.

I looked at your product line page and that just sparkles a similar perhaps smaller version may go brilliantly on the index page.

Best of luck.

Conficio · #3 (**permalink**) 05-04-2004, 11:59 PM

Hi there,
this looks a little amateurish (I'm not sure if this is an english word ;-).

Sorry to say dude, but design is not your best of talents. I'd recommend not to doctor on the details (to much scrolling to see the pages, too much information - bad for search engines, bad color choices, little design elements, no coherence, ...), but rather go to a pro and get a complete design for your web site (may be even a corporate identity for your business - logo, color schema, letterhead, brochures, bills, etc.). A choice I could recommend is Very Creative Haus. You'll see the difference in color and desgin, when you go there.

Your competition whole latte love looks a little better. Many others are similarly boring. Look at some online store software like osCommerce to get a little better organized and more flexible.

Good luck

K<o>

hupp25 · #4 (**permalink**) 05-05-2004, 09:25 AM

conficio wrote:Sorry to say dude, but design is not your best of talents. I'd recommend not to doctor on the details (to much scrolling to see the pages, too much information - bad for search engines, bad color choices, little design elements, no coherence, ...), but rather go to a pro and get a complete design for your web site (may be even a corporate identity for your business - logo, color schema, letterhead, brochures, bills, etc.). A choice I could recommend is Very Cretive Haus. You'll see the difference in color and desgin, when you go there.

I did use a so called "professional" he is now in the federal prison. I have used other so called professional and they turned out to be crooks to. In the last year or so since I have taken it over my volume has way exceeded my expectations. Since joining this forum my pages have climbed in google and sales are growing. I do not want it to look like any other cookie cutter site. I have had help in the last year from some pretty tech savy folks in this forum. Thanks for the great ideas.

rocky1 · #5 (**permalink**) 05-05-2004, 07:13 PM

Having worked with John on a number of issues on his Website, I've probably got a little more extensive knowledge of the internal issues involved with the DC Coffee site, and thus in response to the above comments -

CMarshall - The products page that you suggests sparkles... that's John's work. The rest of it... a nightmare two "supposed" industry professionals left him with, that he is slowly but surely, picking away at and setting right. Given the sheer size of the site, and the problems with which he was left, it is a monumental undertaking, believe me.

Took a quick look at your site... that carousel you have running on the homepage would offer an excellent means of uncrowding the page, as you suggest. I assume "working page content" is not an issue click the picture, and load content to a cell or i-frame on the page, but how is it for SEO. Can he optimize that concept as effectively as the full page he has now? That might be something you want to play with John, if the page can be optimized.
Conficio - Right after you correct the spelling of "Creative" up there in your post, so that the company you recommend is accurately represented, you need to contact them and tell them that none of the links on their "clients" page are working for some reason. There appears to be a problem with their Internal Navigation!

As for "amateurisch", you might want to lighten up on that a little until you take time to understand John's situation better. John's got a lot of class! He's trying to fix this site in his spare time, which he hasn't had a great deal of that lately, because the first issues he targeted when I first started visiting with him here at WPW, were getting the site found and correcting some serious usability issues therein.

Were you to inquire in private, he might be kind enough to tell you in a manner less indignant than the attitude you appear to express above that his efforts are working very admirably, and whereas he may not have had the money to have the site overhauled last year when he first visited here, his problem is now a matter of finding time to work on the site even with an outside firm. There is also the issue of his wanting to pursue the interest in web work that has developed, as he has attempted to fix the problems he paid "supposed" professionals dearly to create!

He therefore has issues of being left with more than his share of headaches on the site, the mistrust of the industry created by those he paid to create the site, a rapidly growing business demanding time he should be committing to the web site to make the business grow rapidly, and a love of toying with code and watching it work on a web page! All the while, trying to find time to spend with his family. From what I've seen, he's doing 7 days a week 10 - 12 hours a day trying to make his business grow, and in my book that in itself commands respect. "Amateurisch?" I sort of doubt it dude! The word you're looking for would more appropriately be -"Committed"... to a fault.

Furthermore, if you read the rules up at the top of the Site Review forum, you'll find one therein, that suggests if you don't have anything good to say in a review, it's best to simply leave a topic alone!!

MsDetta · #6 (**permalink**) 05-05-2004, 10:48 PM

cmarshall:

Quote:

The main body of your index page seems crammed. Is there anyway to make the images a wee bit smaller? You could always make it so the user clicks on the image and goes to its product page for a larger size.

I agree with this, as the homepage takes a very long time to load on 56K dialup. It is recommended that a page loads in 10 seconds or less on a 56k dialup connection.

While the cup of coffee is a nice touch on the bean variety page, the image is too large. Making the image smaller and floating it to the right of the main heading for the page would have more impact.

Reducing the image sizes, will help to reduce the load time of the web page. Afterall, you don't want people to get bored and leave.

cmarshall · #7 (**permalink**) 05-05-2004, 11:32 PM

John - I think you need some help so here.

http://www.rememberwhenprod.com/john.html

I did this in a few hours and it still needs major work but if you like it, I can help you work on it in my spare time.

Maybe, between the two of us we can make you a rocking site. Don't worry I don't want anything I just know what it's like to be starting out and needing a hand.

ellar · #8 (**permalink**) 05-06-2004, 12:52 AM

Hi John

I have just checked out your site after reading all the other comments and I must say I was impressed.

It was all the things that a site needs to be but what really impressed me the most was the testimonials page .. normally I just skip over this page but what impressed me was the fact that you not only put up the good stuff but that you also put up the negative feedback and how you had tried to fix it. I'm impressed.

Keep up the good work and remember that we are all here when you need some help.

Cheers

hupp25 · #9 (**permalink**) 05-06-2004, 07:51 AM

Here is an example of what Rocky was kind enough to elude to: The only page that had meta tags was the home page- every other page had an include directory. several pages so they wanted easy adjustments as they went. That would be fine but none of the pages were being index! Now each page has the code and is keyword specific-thanks to this forum and I am now climbing on the search engines. As for the logo and colors those are set in stone-you may not like them but I do. We just redid the index page as so that it would be a little easier for folks in a hurry to shop. The equipment pictures at the beginning and their links are the main sellers in the industry of what I carry. Yes the images probably need to be redused in size but the equipment side of this industry is fickle. They need to see it. We just have the folks at Bunn get us the features, specs and parts manuals and we now have those up on the purchase isde of the equipment. The other manufactures have seen it and are falling over themselves to get me the info. Soon I will have all of those up-in my spare time. In the last year as Rocky stated- we opened up a retail shop with a coffee house and drive thru. We are open from 6a to 7p during the week and 6-6 on the weekends. No other coffee place is open our hours. As for the navigation it was just java script and images- the pages were not crawled-might of had something to do with the meta tags as well but when I search on the keywords related to my field I now have several of those pages index at or near the top. Last year I was not found. Thanks to all who have helped me get this far. As for coding not being my strong sut that is true. I learned to get this far out of necessity as I eluded to earlier. You folks have helped me grow to the point where I am encouraged by the results in the number of orders we are now receiving daily. Thank you. I will continue to work on the pointers and refine them, please do not stop your kind works, sincerely,jlh.

hupp25 · #10 (**permalink**) 05-06-2004, 04:14 PM

cmarshall-thank you- I implemented some of your ideas. Thanks, I have the home page up and redone. It is usually a challenge but I think I figured it out. I ran it by a few folks and now I am running it out here. Thanks again to all- as they say it is easy to criticize but harder to help. Thanks to all who are willing to help and show what you are referencing.

Conficio · #11 (**permalink**) 05-08-2004, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rocky1

Having worked with John on a number of issues on his Website, I've probably got a little more extensive knowledge of the internal issues involved with the DC Coffee site, and thus in response to the above comments -

Conficio - Right after you correct the spelling of "Creative" up there in your post, so that the company you recommend is accurately represented, you need to contact them and tell them that none of the links on their "clients" page are working for some reason. There appears to be a problem with their Internal Navigation!

As for "amateurisch", you might want to lighten up on that a little until you take time to understand John's situation better. John's got a lot of class! He's trying to fix this site in his spare time, which he hasn't had a great deal of that lately, because the first issues he targeted when I first started visiting with him here at WPW, were getting the site found and correcting some serious usability issues therein.

Were you to inquire in private, he might be kind enough to tell you in a manner less indignant than the attitude you appear to express above that his efforts are working very admirably, and whereas he may not have had the money to have the site overhauled last year when he first visited here, his problem is now a matter of finding time to work on the site even with an outside firm. There is also the issue of his wanting to pursue the interest in web work that has developed, as he has attempted to fix the problems he paid "supposed" professionals dearly to create!

He therefore has issues of being left with more than his share of headaches on the site, the mistrust of the industry created by those he paid to create the site, a rapidly growing business demanding time he should be committing to the web site to make the business grow rapidly, and a love of toying with code and watching it work on a web page! All the while, trying to find time to spend with his family. From what I've seen, he's doing 7 days a week 10 - 12 hours a day trying to make his business grow, and in my book that in itself commands respect. "Amateurisch?" I sort of doubt it dude! The word you're looking for would more appropriately be -"Committed"... to a fault.

Furthermore, if you read the rules up at the top of the Site Review forum, you'll find one therein, that suggests if you don't have anything good to say in a review, it's best to simply leave a topic alone!!

Hi Rocky,
thanks for standing up for John, he seems to have gone through some hard times and experienced the worst of this industry. I understand he needs some support.

I'm embarrassed by my own spelling! could you help me little more? I have difficulties following your suggestion, that the Very Creative Haus - links are broken. Can you help me with some pointers to specific pages. I can navigate it just fine. I'd like to point it out to them.

John,
I stand to my opinion (and it is only my personal opinion, not a final verdict of your site). It is obvious that you do manage your site by yourself and it does not show a professional look. I totally understand why. However, my recommendation would be to concentrate on fulfilling your customers orders and requests and seek out someone who does have a better talent in design. At least get a design made, you still can manage the implementation of the site itself, to ensure SEO etc. That is what I do on a small budget too, and I passed the Rocky test (at least he did not have to critic anything there ;-)

By the way, the changes you did to your home page in the last few days, were on the positive side.

I wish you good luck with your business, that is after all what really counts.

K<o>