Please review http://www.natco-online.com

spiceboy · #1 (**permalink**) 06-05-2007, 09:16 PM

Hi

Just almost completed a site update so please go ahead and tear me to bits. All contributions welcomed!

url is Indian Food, Indian Spices and Indian Cooking Ingredients from Natco Online.

**mjtaylor** · #2 (**permalink**) 06-05-2007, 10:23 PM

Well, I think the site is beautiful - and the colors truly evoke India for me! If your market is other Indians I would imagine the look is great! I am not so sure about the general British market, though ... I think of that population as fairly conservative and I wonder about that but take my question with a grain of salt please. While I did live in the UK for many years, I don't feel qualified on marketing to that population ... and personally, I love the colors. When you get to items, the white background on the item images makes that work.

I will also say (and I do feel qualified on this ;D) that you seem to have done a great job of creating plenty of HTML merchandise pages for spiders rather than shopping cart payments and interlinking them well. Well done. (What cart are you using?)

It seems easy to navigate and I also like the recipe section.

Can't find anything wrong ... and it's made me hungry now, so I will sign off to get a snack.

Cheers, MJ

davebarnes · #3 (**permalink**) 06-06-2007, 12:04 AM

I like it except for the bright purple colors.
Blinding.

spiceboy · #4 (**permalink**) 06-06-2007, 01:43 PM

Thanks guys, I was expecting a bit more of a roasting!

The colours are to relate to Indian customers as well as anyone looking for an "Indian experience", adventurous cooks etc rather than a mainstream UK customer, we are selling exotic, spicy goods after all. There are lots of Indian grocers so we needed something that made us memorable.

MJ, the shopping cart is Actinic 8.

Any views on the site from an SEO perspective?

FreeDesignQuote · #5 (**permalink**) 06-06-2007, 02:13 PM

Unlike Dave, I like the colors as well. I think it stands out. The site provides information on a niche market. The only suggestion I have is to make your navagation a little more friendly. You have several buttons on the left and several of them could be combined or use a pop-out JAVA style navagation system.

I would also recommend creating a US version of the site as well. Promote it in the US with USD purchase prices. Typically, I will never buy from a company that is overseas or doesn’t display USD in their prices. Some try to have both on one site, but PERSONALLY I would separate them. Just my 2-cents!

[Link deleted by Mod Webnauts]

**mjtaylor** · #6 (**permalink**) 06-06-2007, 03:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spiceboy

Thanks guys, I was expecting a bit more of a roasting!

Any views on the site from an SEO perspective?

Roasting? As in Tandoori Chicken?

Yeah, yeah, I know ... very weak ...

Well, as I said, I think you've done a great job SEO-wise with creating HTML product pages ... many ecommerce sites use the cart pages to present products and while they *can* be optimized, HTML pages are easier to make search friendly.

1. Minor weight item, but helpful for SEO: On the home page, your images could be named with keywords -- CLICK3.jpe could be indian-spices-jpg, for example ... same with the logo graphic.

2. Is 'Indian Food' your most searched term?

MJ

spiceboy · #7 (**permalink**) 06-06-2007, 03:44 PM

Hi MJ

Any attempt at humour makes my day lighter, not that I'm trying to curry favour or anything...

Good point on the alt tags, I have started doing that, just too lazy to get round to the others yet.

Most searched GENERAL terms (lots of specific/by product terms) are, in order

1 Indian Food(s)
2 Indian Spices
3 Indian Cooking

Regards

**mjtaylor** · #8 (**permalink**) 06-07-2007, 12:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spiceboy

Any attempt at humour makes my day lighter, not that I'm trying to curry favour or anything...

Good groaner!

Quote:

Originally Posted by spiceboy

Good point on the alt tags, I have started doing that, just too lazy to get round to the others yet.

It wasn't the alt tags I was referring to ... but the image names.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spiceboy

Most searched GENERAL terms (lots of specific/by product terms) are, in order

1 Indian Food(s)
2 Indian Spices
3 Indian Cooking

Okay, fine ... well, I see that you are #21 in Google UK for Indian foods, so let's look at how to boost that.

Somewhere at the top put a headline Indian Foods and Spices in h1 tags.

Here's an SEO edited version of your text. Make the font smaller if you need to to fit ...

Welcome to one of the world's best sites for Indian cooking enthusiasts. With more than 2000 authentic Indian foods, spices and cooking ingredients in store, we offer the widest range of Indian food ingredients from the UK's leading Asian food brand. [want your main keyword phrase in the first paragraph].

Rich in complex, yet subtle, flavours, Indian food and cooking [keywords in bold] is defined by the adventurous use of herbs and spices in almost every dish. For centuries traders brought these rare and exotic spices to the spice bazaars of the world. Now we bring these same Indian spices and cooking [keywords in italic] ingredients direct from India [use keyword stems] to your door.

Indian cooks [keyword stem] the world around agree Natco sells the very highest quality, spices and ingredients.

Change anchor text in your link here to read: Link Simply click the link to visit our online Indian Food and Spice shop.

Add text links at the bottom using your keywords and link from the home page to the home page with an absolute link using primary phrase. Add the same sort of link to every HTML page back to the home page and to your main spices page, and 2-3 others … You can vary the anchor text to the home page to match that page’s content.

Get a few more external links to your home page using similar anchor text and you will be in the top ten in a short time ... betcha!

If I tell you any more I will have to charge you ... ;D

No, wait .. you have *way* too many keywords in the index meta tag ... I would reduce that to just your major kws - and use the more specific wods on specific product pages ...

MJ

**mjtaylor** · #9 (**permalink**) 06-07-2007, 12:21 AM

Oh, yeah, one more thing - get Google analytics, put it on every page and study your traffic ...

MJ

spiceboy · #10 (**permalink**) 06-09-2007, 03:40 PM

Dear MJ

Thanks for your advice, I have incorporated most of your suggestions. Oddly enough I had previously used these techniques on the old site which crashed in the rankings some months ago hence the redesign. (Previously No 1 - 3 on Google UK for all keywords)

However, rankings have only marginally improved so no harm in trying these again I guess.

I appreciate your detailed help, particularly your copy suggestions, so I have added a brand new Tandoori Chicken recipe page dedicated in your honour with a backlink to your site. Theres no rank yet but the recipe pages usually score well eventually.

You can check your link here:

Murgh Tandoori Whole Tandoori Chicken Recipe

Very best wishes
Derek Martin

**mjtaylor** · #11 (**permalink**) 06-11-2007, 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spiceboy

Dear MJ

Thanks for your advice, I have incorporated most of your suggestions. Oddly enough I had previously used these techniques on the old site which crashed in the rankings some months ago hence the redesign. (Previously No 1 - 3 on Google UK for all keywords)

However, rankings have only marginally improved so no harm in trying these again I guess.

I appreciate your detailed help, particularly your copy suggestions, so I have added a brand new Tandoori Chicken recipe page dedicated in your honour with a backlink to your site. Theres no rank yet but the recipe pages usually score well eventually.

You can check your link here:

Murgh Tandoori Whole Tandoori Chicken Recipe

Very best wishes
Derek Martin

Well, thank you very much. I have never had a page dedicated to me before ... a poem, yes, a song, yes, but a web page is a new honor.

Cheers, MJ