Please could we get some feedback on our site

[looptheloop]

Hi there
We have a website selling vintage and contemporary style homeware called www.looptheloop.org.uk. We have designed most of it ourselves but this is the first time we have done anything like this and we would really appreciate any feedback on the layout, look and whether it is user friendly. We seem to get a good stream of daily traffic but not as many sale conversions at the moment, so we are keen to iron out any problems that may be causing this.

Thank you for any help, we look forward to hearing back from people,

Laura and Adam

[Andrew]

Just an initial observation, you have no SSL Certificate, so that could very well put people off buying.

Very nice site though.

[hirstandhirst]

Hi looptheloop - I feel very underqualified to give feedback as we are relative newcomers ourselves. Just to say that the site looks lovely, is easy to navigate and I love the lifestyle photography.

Joanne

[icegems]

Love the site but there isn't a big inventory of products which means that unless this is exactly what someone is looking for they will move on to ponder other sites. The only other thing is that your category pictures all cover the top of the fold and look lovely BUT if I didn't know better I wouldn't know to scroll down for the actual products - it looks like a complete page.

It is a lovely looking site and I wish you every success with it.

[Neil]

Content, content and more content................

[john]

It looks very nice but there are so few products available it looks what it is, a hobby rather than a business. Using the .org.uk name when a domain squatter is sitting on the co.uk is dangerous, if you did become popular he could put affiliate links, porn or whatever on a site that would inevitably get a lot of your traffic.
It happens and I have had to ditch domains because of this.

[Red Devil]

Your Products URLs are not SEO friendly. By default they show the SKU number instead of the product title. This will not help people to find your products.

e.g. http://www.looptheloop.org.uk/bath_time/CS100.html


To fix this, in each Product in the Properties page there is a box under Product Title called "URL text" - TICK this.

You can do this in bulk via a CSV import (Import Product Date) of just your SKU numbers (nothing else) and on the File Format tab of the import template (create your own template for this purpose) TICK "Generate URL text".

Remember to do a Complete Export as a backup before any Imports as a safeguard.

The same goes for your categories

e.g. http://www.looptheloop.org.uk/category-12.html

To fix this, in the category manager for a given category on the Properties tab there is a box under Category Title called "URL text" - TICK this.

Unfortunately you can't do these en masse via a CSV import so you will have to go into each category/sub category one by one.

Important: Now that you ahve changed your URLs (for the better) you will get 404 Page Not Found errors for any old links in Google. To combat this you could set up 301 redirects from your old URLs to your new URLs or perhaps simplest is to set your 404 Error Page (URL) (Site / Configuration / Site) to be your home page (index.html) so any 404 errors will redirect people to your home page and you won't lose that visitor.

Resubmit you sitemap.xml to Google if you haven't got your Google account automatically set up to retrieve it and resubmit your product feed to Googlebase (set one up if you haven't got one as that's a good way of getting on Page 1 of Google in a niche market).

An SSL cerificate from Bluepark would give your potential buyers more confidence that the site is secure but I can undersatnd if funds are limited to start off with.

Driving customers to your site should be your priority.

I agree that having a dot org dot uk domain name is probably losing you business as well. Dot co dot uk or dot com are the ones you should go for even if it means rebranding your site.

[Gillf]

Hi
Its a very attractive site. A lot has already been said. The key to success is SEO... more and more and more, so that your site is on page one for lots of keywords and phrases and you get lots of free but targeted traffic. It might seem that the work has finished with the launch of a lovely site but it has only just begun. Good luck.

[jimmyservis]

Hi Both!

It does look great!!
I have been trying to achieve the borders around products for ages - but can't seem to get them to activate!!!?

Good luck!

[looptheloop]

Hi Everyone
Thank you for all your feedback so far, the advice and information you have given us is great and we can now start making the changes that should hopefully make a difference. We can see that we still have a long way to go but it's such a help to have others in our situation or who have been there sharing their wisdom.

Thank you again
Laura and Adam