forestcountryfood.co.uk - Forest of Dean Country Food

paulfromwales · #1 (**permalink**) 07-02-2003, 04:58 PM

[http://www.forestcountryfood.co.uk]

A simple concept - a friend had set up a web site for the small food producers of the Forest of Dean, but was finding it very difficult to get customers, as the site had few visitors.

I'll sort it out I cry - turn it into a portal and list everybody in the locality. Add populist features such as tourist attractions, hotels, guest houses, camping sites etc etc. So I did my best, but I still feel despite achieving a considerable increase in visitors, its not a success. A few more customers have joined, but not many.

Layout - colour scheme - navigation all can probably be improved, but in the main I think it is a failure of content. Any ideas as to what direction I can now go and still be connected to the original theme?

nazwiz · #2 (**permalink**) 07-04-2003, 12:18 AM

Hello Paul From Wales

I found this to be an interesting site.

It looks like you have a frameset on the home page. I've heard this is a bad idea for search engine placement.

I thnk you are not using the words "Forest Of Dean" to advantage. If you had a domain like "ForestDeanFoods" it would be more specific to your venture. Maybe "ForDeanFoods" would work. Or "FDFoods"

I've read recently that it's good for search engine placement to have the name of the site in text in one of the three bigger heading tags (I forget if 1 is biggest or 5 is biggest) as the title. You have the title in a graphic. I think it would be better to have a title like "Forest of Dean Online", or "Forest of Dean Foods." Something with the words Forest of Dean as the title of the online business.

Your print tends to be on the big side, and the pages don't all fit 1024x768. Smaller print would fit better, and it usually looks more business-like and professional.

At any rate, I like your site. The pictures are great. Let me know if these suggestion seem relevant.

hannahkabana · #3 (**permalink**) 02-14-2005, 05:02 AM

Hello,

Your idea is good but there is still updating needed. I found the menu at the top quite confusing - how about menus that are placed and are functioned in a more common format, embedded onto the page so visitors don't get confused.
The directory contains a lot of entries.. there's a lot of scrolling to be done and i think it would be better to have a smaller font.
As for the entries that have websites, keep these at the size that they are so they stand right out from the others.
This makes sense to me.

Hannah
http://www.luxury-leather-goods.com