Changed Design of Tapestry Cottage Site

jasse · #1 (**permalink**) 01-20-2004, 03:29 PM

Hi everyone, I am trying so hard to get traffic to my site. I decided to change the design and go for a more contemporary look. Any suggestions,comments, and criticisms, about this site would be greatly appreciated!!!! Thanks
website address: http://www.cottagetapestry.com

EJRS.COM · #2 (**permalink**) 01-20-2004, 03:43 PM

I prefer the other look.
If you want to use this one I suggest put the links at the top and put your logo below the top links. But you gotta lose the image of the women with theh handbags. Maybe use that elsewhere on the page. Just use the text part of the logo.

This can comfortably go just above

You can afford to drop that pic size (Laura's handbag/original pic I optimized for you) to a quarter of it's current size and still get the message across. Your customers will be happy they did not have to wait too long.

http://www.cottagetapestry.com/site/615059/page/181995
on this page, the size ofthe prints are ok if you could standardize the width.
You can compress the images at http://ejrs.com/optimizers.html

voodooboy · #3 (**permalink**) 01-20-2004, 03:54 PM

There are many great elements I like about this site. Unfortunately, I am only going to talk to you about the issues that may hamper your progress.

1) Even though the drawing in the upper left corner is cute, it is far from a logo that can be branded. Try working with a graphic designer in coming up with a logo that is simple yet conveys the message properly. I would rather see you use the illustration as an accent piece than a logo element.

2) While the tab effect is still popular, your use of it considerably slows down your load time. Simply due to the fact that it has to completely reload for every page. (And the fact that it bounces from top to bottom nav. based upon your selection is one of the dumbest and most confusing things Microsoft ever did with their windows tabs. Please don't make their mistake as well.) I would suggest one of two options. Either, reduce the size of the tabs so they fit on one line, or move the navigation to the left hand column. It would make more sense to have the order tracking and shopping cart links at the top with the search and browse functions (which seem to be the same thing to me) than to the side. The most common layout is to have main navigation on the left side with sub navigation at the top. Keep it simple for your visitors.

3) To get traffic to your site, you need to optimize your site completely. Half of your pages do not have Meta tags for keywords or descriptions. Your title tags are not being used to your advantage. And the pages that have Meta tags do not seem to be set-up properly. (Keywords should be on one line separated by commas, not by returns with one word on each code line) I would suggest this site for help with optimizing your site http://www.instantposition.com/seo_doctor.cfm

Other than that, I like the site. I even like the products. (No I don't use purses) Best of luck.

jasse · #4 (**permalink**) 01-20-2004, 04:23 PM

thank you for your suggestions. The reason the site is set up the way that it is, is because i am using a website company that provides the templates. I will work to optimize it....

quote="ghstdrgns"]There are many great elements I like about this site. Unfortunately, I am only going to talk to you about the issues that may hamper your progress.

1) Even though the drawing in the upper left corner is cute, it is far from a logo that can be branded. Try working with a graphic designer in coming up with a logo that is simple yet conveys the message properly. I would rather see you use the illustration as an accent piece than a logo element.

2) While the tab effect is still popular, your use of it considerably slows down your load time. Simply due to the fact that it has to completely reload for every page. (And the fact that it bounces from top to bottom nav. based upon your selection is one of the dumbest and most confusing things Microsoft ever did with their windows tabs. Please don't make their mistake as well.) I would suggest one of two options. Either, reduce the size of the tabs so they fit on one line, or move the navigation to the left hand column. It would make more sense to have the order tracking and shopping cart links at the top with the search and browse functions (which seem to be the same thing to me) than to the side. The most common layout is to have main navigation on the left side with sub navigation at the top. Keep it simple for your visitors.

3) To get traffic to your site, you need to optimize your site completely. Half of your pages do not have Meta tags for keywords or descriptions. Your title tags are not being used to your advantage. And the pages that have Meta tags do not seem to be set-up properly. (Keywords should be on one line separated by commas, not by returns with one word on each code line) I would suggest this site for help with optimizing your site http://www.instantposition.com/seo_doctor.cfm

Other than that, I like the site. I even like the products. (No I don't use purses) Best of luck.[/quote]

jasse · #5 (**permalink**) 01-20-2004, 04:30 PM

ejrsdotcom,
okay if i want to optimize the pics, i just add the pic and press "crunch disk", which one do i use, Jpeg or the other one?
nav

Quote:

Originally Posted by ejrsdotcom

I prefer the other look.
If you want to use this one I suggest put the links at the top and put your logo below the top links. But you gotta lose the image of the women with theh handbags. Maybe use that elsewhere on the page. Just use the text part of the logo.

This can comfortably go just above

You can afford to drop that pic size (Laura's handbag/original pic I optimized for you) to a quarter of it's current size and still get the message across. Your customers will be happy they did not have to wait too long.

http://www.cottagetapestry.com/site/615059/page/181995
on this page, the size ofthe prints are ok if you could standardize the width.
You can compress the images at http://ejrs.com/optimizers.html

EJRS.COM · #6 (**permalink**) 01-20-2004, 07:07 PM

Crunch a Gif with Gif Cruncher
Crunch a Jpeg with Jpeg Cruncher

To see if your image is a gif or jpeg,
rightclick on image and look at PROPERTIES. There it will say if it's gif or jpeg.

If you are going to use lots of optimizing on your pics I suggest you purchase a lifetime membership for crunching http://ejrs.com/optimizers.html

It will speed up your wait time and you can optimize a whole lot of them together.

jasse · #7 (**permalink**) 01-21-2004, 12:03 PM

Hi there ghstdrgns,
question for you, when you say Half of your pages do not have Meta tags for keywords or descriptions. Your title tags are not being used to your advantage. And the pages that have Meta tags do not seem to be set-up properly. (Keywords should be on one line separated by commas, not by returns with one word on each code line)
can you tell me more specifically about the title tags; i am going to do what i can myself because of budget contstaints; and how do you tell exactly what my meta tags are? I am going to change the meta tags right now...as for the logo, i cannot do much because thats my distributor uses; once again, your advice was very helpful. thank you

Quote:

Originally Posted by ghstdrgns

There are many great elements I like about this site. Unfortunately, I am only going to talk to you about the issues that may hamper your progress.

1) Even though the drawing in the upper left corner is cute, it is far from a logo that can be branded. Try working with a graphic designer in coming up with a logo that is simple yet conveys the message properly. I would rather see you use the illustration as an accent piece than a logo element.

2) While the tab effect is still popular, your use of it considerably slows down your load time. Simply due to the fact that it has to completely reload for every page. (And the fact that it bounces from top to bottom nav. based upon your selection is one of the dumbest and most confusing things Microsoft ever did with their windows tabs. Please don't make their mistake as well.) I would suggest one of two options. Either, reduce the size of the tabs so they fit on one line, or move the navigation to the left hand column. It would make more sense to have the order tracking and shopping cart links at the top with the search and browse functions (which seem to be the same thing to me) than to the side. The most common layout is to have main navigation on the left side with sub navigation at the top. Keep it simple for your visitors.

3) To get traffic to your site, you need to optimize your site completely. Half of your pages do not have Meta tags for keywords or descriptions. Your title tags are not being used to your advantage. And the pages that have Meta tags do not seem to be set-up properly. (Keywords should be on one line separated by commas, not by returns with one word on each code line) I would suggest this site for help with optimizing your site http://www.instantposition.com/seo_doctor.cfm

Other than that, I like the site. I even like the products. (No I don't use purses) Best of luck.

voodooboy · #8 (**permalink**) 01-21-2004, 12:46 PM

There are three major tags that can help in online search engine placement. The title tag, keywords tag and description tag.

They run as follows:
<title>Title of page</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="word, word, word">
<meta name="description" content="This is my page.">

And these tags need to be located within the <head></head> tags of you page code.

Now every page on you site could be an opening point to the rest of your site. Meaning that if someone does a search for, say "Fashion Books", they will more than likely see your books page first before the main page. That being said, for placement within a search engine your "Fashion Books" page would have tags something like this:

<title>Fashion Books for the production of hand bags - Tapestry Cottage</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="fashion books, tapestry books, handbag books, Tapestry Cottage">
<meta name="description" content="Tapestry Cottage offers a wide selection of Fashion Books on the handbag industry and design.">

All pages should have some body copy describing the content within the page and the purpose of that page. Within that content should try to include your major keywords at least once if not more. And because each page covers different topics (within the same blanket topic) then each major page should have its own title, keywords and description.

For example, looking at your site, I would have the same title, keywords and description for the "home, about us, policies, and contact us" pages. But the "fashion books, products, links and fabrics" pages would each have their own separate, and specific to their content, tag sets.

Now when I mentioned the keywords tag as being used improperly (ie. separated by a return instead of a comma) I don't necessarily know that the way you did it would effect the keywords themselves. (I would check with Janeth possibly on that.) The reason I mentioned it is because bots look at the length of coding as well as the content. The farther down within the code your keywords are within the body copy, the less important the search engines rank those as keywords. (Unless it has changed which I don't think it has.) But if you have say 20 keywords, that is either one line of code (using commas) or 22 lines of code. (using returns) I would rather pull my body copy 21 lines closer to the top of my page, wouldn't you?

Now this might be a discussion better handled in the search engine section of the forums, but I think I covered the gist of it. Hope this helps.

And to look at your tags and page code for that fact, just request view source within your browser, by selecting either “view>source” or right clicking on the page and selecting source in the pop-up menu. (Dependent on browser type.)

janeth · #9 (**permalink**) 01-21-2004, 01:07 PM

I agree I would work on the logo some more. The site looks good but the logo you have clashes with the real picture under it.

But it is a nice looking site.

EJRS.COM · #10 (**permalink**) 01-21-2004, 01:07 PM

Hope this might help. Change it to what suits your site best, but here's an idea of what it should be like.

Code:

<META 
content="tapestry bag, tapestry tote, tapestry accessories, tapestry, free handbag, the manchester brief, the salem evening purse" name=keywords>
<META 
content="The Tapestry Cottage sells fine handbags, totes, and accessories. All made from beautiful tapestry that is machine washable. Choose CLASSIC pieces such as the CHESTER HANDBAG, NEW LONDON SATCHEL, DUBLIN POCKETBOOK, or CONTEMPORARY styles as the CONCORD COACH, DUNBARTON VALISE and PORTSMOUTH ATTACHE.Visit us soon at The Tapestry Cottage where handbags are made fresh daily."
name=description>
<META 
content="No part of this website may be reproduced in any manner without prior consent of the author." 
name=copyright>
<META NAME="robots" CONTENT="index, follow">
<META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="INDEX, FOLLOW">

voodooboy · #11 (**permalink**) 01-21-2004, 01:30 PM

Just as reference, here is the report I got from the link I gave you previously in this post:

I used the word tapestry as the keyword to search:

Title:
Your title is fair, but it could be better. Your title has an optimum 6 to 12 words. Your keyword appears 1 time in the title tag, but your keyword density is too low. Increase the keywords (or decrease other words) and aim for a density of 20-35%. Regardless of the keyword density, always make certain the title is relevant and inviting to the human eye.

Keywords:
Your keyword appears at least 1 time in the meta tag and the number of keywords falls within the optimum range of 7 and 48 words. Your keyword appears to be repeated more than 3 times, consider revising.

Description:
Your keyword appears at least 1 time in the meta tag but the number of words in the description is high. Optimally, you should have between 12 and 24 words.

As for the body text report, you will need to read it on their site, as it is too long to post here. The basic problem with the text part of the report is that it starts at the <body> tag. Unfortunately, you have half a page of javascript within the body of the site which should really be a separate file. And there is so much blank space you body copy doesn't start until line 771 of the code, when it could be up around line 80 if corrected. I understand you got this as a template. But they really screwed up the coding on this template. It would be better in the long run to have someone create an original site for you.

That last part is just a thought, if the site works for you as it is, then disregard.

EJRS.COM · #12 (**permalink**) 01-21-2004, 01:35 PM

Code:

<META 
content="tapestry bag, tote bags, accessories, tapestry, free handbag, the manchester brief, the salem evening purse" name=keywords>

and i'd stick a few more in there.