Effective Critique on the entire website

FeeFee

My name is Felicha Martin and my business is Especially Cards. I have a home-based greeting card business. My company`s vision is to provide greeting cards and gifts that touch the hearts and lives of people. Mission is that we are committed to providing the best products and services of highest quality and value. The website`s goal is to inform and persuade customers . We want to educate customers about who we are and show them products that we offer for purchase. My issue is that my site has been running since September 2007 and it`s not generating much business. People are visiting the site but not purchasing. I want people to purchase when they visit the site. I had the site created by a web service. I am thinking whether or not the problem is the site itself. I would appreciate all the help that I can get.
Thank you,
Felicha Martin

www.especiallycards.com


[email protected]

TSDonnely

Felicha, your website and cards look great!
Best of luck to you and your card business.

Webline

Nice looking pages, and products. You clarify quickly what your product is. However, you really don`t state why your products benefit your visitors. What are the benefits to me of ordering $3.00 cards through your site vs. stopping by the local drugstore to pick one up? The local store has thousands to choose from, and I can pick them up for a better view, whereas all I see on your site are small thumbnails, nothing I can see a close up of.You have an "About Us" page; there really isn`t a purpose of stating much of the same on the main page. Instead, use this area for something more beneficial.... why I should want it, contact information, special deals, anything to help sell me on you and your product.I don`t see any information on shipping policies, returns, general guarantees, etc.Do you only ship the products to the person making the purchase? What about direct sending to the person that will be receiving it? Allow the buyer to include a message, addresses, etc., then mail it directly to the person they intended it for, saving mailing time and postage for your buyer. Just an option that may help.What about specials? Like, buy 2 and get a third free. Bulk pricing. Something that lets your potential buyers feel like they are getting a truly good bargain that encourages them to purchase.Your pages could use some SEO help. Add alt tags to the images. create unique titles for every page, and add meta descriptions. You also have an excessive amount of tables that increase your page code, many of which you could eliminate ( your address in the left column of the main page, for example ). That alone isn`t a big deal, but when everything is wrapped in a lot of tables, your code to content ratio often suffers.
Web Page Size : 14337 Bytes = 14 KB Code Size : 12936 Bytes = 13 KB Text Size : 1401 Bytes = 1 KB Code to Text Ratio : 9.77 %Work on getting inbound links from related sites, i.e., gift sites, to help build traffic.

Rich

felicha,
 
i have an additional recommendation: personally, i believe quality images/photography are a key element to pushing people over the edge to actually do a transaction.
 
your photos/images are very high quality. however, i wanted to be able to click on them to enlarge them to see them in better detail. can you add a simple "enlarge" or "+" option? or did i miss it?!
 
rich

Webline

I agree with the idea of being able to get a larger view of the images. It is pretty simple to add JS or CSS scripts for a "Lightbox" type of effect, like what you can see on this page by clicking on the images.http://www.rv-sinks.com/Undermount-Kitchen-Sinks.php( Thats not trying to promote a website, just showing a sample using a site I`m familiar with ).

KidQubie

Hi,
 
   I think your website looks nice, but I agree with the points others have made.  There is no "reason" why I should purchase the cards from your website. 
 
   I think an excellent service you could provide would be for people to be able to enter their friends and family member, birth dates, anniversary, etc. and pre pay for the year or be billed monthly for you to send the cards out to who they specify.  You could do holidays and special occasions.  Maybe even offer some kind of gift card they could include.  You could say that you "remember for them"  You make sure it gets there on time with a nice message inside.   What do you think?
 
Good Luck,
Nellie