Hello Everyone,

It has been a while since I last posted. I have created a new website at Brix House Wine: Home Page. I appreciate everyone taking time to look at the site. I tried the site report card and the only issue left is download speed, but I'm not sure the best way to correct this. Please let me know if you see any other areas that need to be corrected.

Thank you!

Downloaded quite fast for me (3Mbps DSL).
I see the physical, postal contact info on the About Us page, but it should also be on the Contact Us page. It is a trust issue thing.
I find the overall look slightly tacky.

__________________
Dave Barnes
+1.303.744.9024
http://www.marketingtactics.com

First, Thank you for reviewing the website. Now when you say it looks slightly tacky. Is this because of the grapes and leaves or because there are too many banners/ animations? If it is just too many animations I can remove a few and add some other content while keeping the same overall look.

Yea, you've got too many banners/images going on. Since many of them are moving I don't know where I'm supposed to be looking... plus I feel an epileptic seizure coming on...

You have almost no text on your site... which is just bad for SEO. If you're at all concerned about that, add a lot of text about your products.

You want to improve your download time? Move the javascript to the bottom of the page. That way, the rest of the page will load before the browser starts executing script code.

Personally, I think your flash image is way too big. But that's just my opinion.

__________________
Art
Downtown Chicago Attractions | Bad Landlords | Exercise Blog

You've obviously worked hard on the site, however there are a few issues which are likely to have a negative effect on your rankings.

• Too much embedded javascript (slows down page loading and increases server load).
• Your meta keywords repeat the word "wine" six times. (That's five times too many.)
• Your meta description well written but too long (Try to keep it under 160 characters).
• Poor use of title text (You're passing up on a great opportunity to use keywords). The words "Home Page" and "Shopping Cart" do nothing for you in terms of rankings in the SERPs. At best, your site name should be at the end of the title if at all.
• The layout is almost entirely graphic based. (Not enough white space, the pages look cluttered).
• Your lacking content and text links (There's very little SE's can index other than alt attributes).
• User account required to check out (lots of users don't like being forced to create an account).
• Your enourmous "featured wines" graphic takes up the entire "above the fold" area of the page.
• Error text which appears after validating form submissions should be a different colour than regular paragraph text.
  
  Quote:

  Password length minimum: 5. Non-alphanumeric characters required: 0.

• After form validation, some fields containing errors are marked with red asterisks, others aren't
• Runtime error on submission of shipping details on the following page results in lost cart contents:
  https://www.brixhousewine.com/cartshipping.aspx
  
  Quote:

  Server Error in '/' Application. Runtime Error Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons). It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine. Details: To enable the details of this specific error message to be viewable on remote machines, please create a <customErrors> tag within a "web.config" configuration file located in the root directory of the current web application. This <customErrors> tag should then have its "mode" attribute set to "Off". <!-- Web.Config Configuration File --> <configuration> <system.web> <customErrors mode="Off"/> </system.web> </configuration> Notes: The current error page you are seeing can be replaced by a custom error page by modifying the "defaultRedirect" attribute of the application's <customErrors> configuration tag to point to a custom error page URL. <!-- Web.Config Configuration File --> <configuration> <system.web> <customErrors mode="RemoteOnly" defaultRedirect="mycustompage.htm"/> </system.web> </configuration>

.02

__________________
Printer ink, inkjet & toner cartridges in Canada
"Price-wise printing supplies"
inkjetOasis.ca

There are a lot of great suggestions there. I will work on making those changes. I am glad you caught that error before it was up there for too long. It was a change that was made today. I fixed the problem.

Thank you.

Design is somewhat busy - perhaps some whitespace?

__________________
Los Angeles Web Design
Medical Website Design
Law Firm Web Design

Personally Mr. Wine Guy...I enjoyed browsing your web site, I think it is beautiful and unique, and I love the way you can break down the information by price etc. It is worth the wait. I am not saying don't optomize your site via the pro's advice, I am saying you are bookmarked!

Thanks!

__________________
www.how2homestage.com

I have read the various posts written on your site and all seem to be concerned with the optimisation and promotion of the site. I would like to know what the objective of your site is and what you want to achieve for your business with the site? Who are your customers? do they like it and can they engage with the site and go through the purchase process without any barriers.

Have you spoken to your potential customers or done some user testing? Get a few people, not family and friends, and ask them to carry out a few simple tasks on the site such as 'get the contact details and phone the company'. 'Find and purchase a particular bottle of wine'. Do not help them just watch them use the site for the first time.

I have researched and just finished writing a book on the subject of How to get a website that works for your business and it covers an important aspect of web development which is make the site right before driving traffic to it.

I hope this helps

Nigel T Packer

__________________
Working with customers - making a difference! Internet Consultant and Author
http://www.businessforbusiness.co.uk

Thank you so much! I can't ask for a better review than that. I will be working on lots of improvements as I go, but I am so glad that you enjoyed the website.

Thank you.

Brix House Wine: Shipping Policy

I would say that you should find out which states you can ship to and post it right in there. No sense not to pre-qualify sales inquiries. (or if it makes more sense, post the states that you CAN'T ship to)

Get your phone number prominently on top, you want to invite telephone calls.

The shopping cart is a little bit weird. You're going to see a lot of abandoned carts.

It asks for the zip code, I put it in and hit 'change zip code' but after hitting that the zip code still reported back 'missing' - I then hit 'checkout' and the shopping cart circled me back.....

__________________

A little too busy for my taste.

I really like the "featured vintages" animation and the depth perception with the vine overlays.

Try to think more simple and elegant to fit the product better.

__________________
MTheory - Liquid Flash Design - http://mtheoryit.com/
Full screen Yahoo Map - My Branford - http://mybranford.com/

By and large I agree with the other comments here - the site is a little too "busy". For instance the image links running down the left hand side contribute little to the site and result in a slower download. I would much prefer having a simple menu running down the l.h.s. with all those items - Rare Wines, French Wines etc.

Speaking with my wine hat on - it was nice to find that I could browse wines by varietal, country and price.