Hi all, I have been trying to figure out ways to drive traffic to my sites and create more sales. I actually got over 100,000 hits in July, but my sales did not reflect the jump in traffic. Does anyone have anymore ideas? I have tried to create a ton of links with people, bu my sales have not jumped significantly. I am probably impatient, but.... What I sell cna be seen as unique and one-of-a-kind, but I am finding it extremely difficult to sell any of those products. I have also created the database for Froogle and have gotten a couple of orders from there, but again sales are down. I even created coupons and sent them out to all people who had purchased before offering a disount.
Would someone be willing to look and tell me what they think if it is prices, or images or something? I would be eternally grateful. Thank you.

www.InteriorDecoratingShop.com

Blog www.InteriorDecoratingShop.net

and for Real Gems at Real Low Prices try us at www.RealGems.biz

Hi fauxdecorator. Welcome to the forum! :)

I'll check in later today and have a look at your site to see if I have any comments/suggestions.

Hi Luana ~

I took some time to browse through and really look at your site. Here are some things I noticed, but this is just from a shopper's point of view. I am in no way a website designer or guru like some other members here...

1) The home page does not totally fit on the screen...I have to scroll sideways to see everything (would like to get some other opinions on that)

2) Clicking on some items will open up a new browser window while others just move the page. I'm not sure if this effects the search engine spiders or not...(this is where others need to chime in and help me out here!!! ;) )

3) When looking through your wall hangings, I couldn't read the text of all of them. Is there anyway you could list what it says underneath or in the product number area?

4) I tried adding something to the shopping cart to see how easy your checkout was. Adding was easy, but when going to check out I had to look around for the Check Out link at the bottom. It is the same color & font as your email address and Home link. It was easier to see the Remove and Update which it bolder and right next to the order.

These are a few things that I saw...I know others will jump on this thread soon. :)

Take care,

Let me start by saying that the products you offer are beautiful and your services are wonderful. I bet it will just take some fine tuning to get things rolling.

Some Errors I Noticed

1. I'm having the same problem as Lisa with the need to scroll to the right to see everything on the screen.

2. I also have a problem with some items opening in a new window and others not. Depending on how it is set up, this shouldn't be a problem for spiders, but it is annoying for me as a shopper. I'd at least provide the option to "Open In A New Window" instead of having it occur by default.

3. In paragraph two of the home page, two changes need to be made:

"We give each and every one of our interior design customers help in determine what interior decorating modifications and design enhancements would best suit their needs, working within the customers established budget to accomplish the desired results."

Changes needed:

"We give each and every one of our interior design customers help in determining what interior decorating modifications and design enhancements would best suit their needs, working within the customer's established budget to accomplish the desired results."

4. In the "Wedding Planning" section of this page - http://www.interiordecoratingshop.com/services.cfm - incur is spelled wrong in this sentence:

"This service is charged on an hourly basis and of course we include any expense we incurr on your behalf."

I'd go over the whole site with a fine-toothed comb to be sure there are no other spelling/grammar errors because those are just the ones I happened to catch. (I'm not the best at spelling/grammar)

5. There is a major problem with your navigation menu. Starting from the home page I clicked on "About Us" and it dropped down the options "Contact Us" and "Our Policies". No problems. Then I clicked on "Contact Us" and it brought up your contact info page. Still no problems. But, when I then try to click "Our Catalog" the navigation menu breaks down and becomes a jumbled mess of words overlapping. This happens using both Internet Explorer 6.0.2 and Opera 7.2 browsers.


Further Info Needed

You mentioned that you had 100,000 hits in July. Hits are a poor (meaningless) way to judge the amount of traffic you are receiving because when a page is visited, each item that is loaded as part of that page is counted as a hit. For example, a page with 20 pictures adds 20 extra hits to your hit count.

I think what we need to know is the number of unique visitors arrive each month and how many of those convert to sales. That will provide baseline numbers. Then it will be a matter of tweaking elements of the site to see if a change increases or decreases the percentage of visitors that purchase something.

Do you have any type of log analysis software to start pulling those numbers?

i have forwarded your suggestions to my web designer to have them changed. As for the open in new window page, I would have thought it would have somewhat been easier to have a window open and leave the main page behind in case they want to come back and look at different products. But then I have trouble looking at it clearly as I am to close to it. Again thank you very much and all comments were taken very seriously.

Once you put an item in your shopping cart, it puts a view shopping cart at the top of the detail list. There is also a shopping cart at the top right hand of the page you are on, so that you may go to the cart at any time. Thanks

The site design is beautiful and the products are unique. However, from a copywriting standpoint, your focus should shift from the company to the customer.

Right now all your copy is "we... us... our..." I don't think I saw any "you" or "your"s in the copy.

Also, there is no "connection" being made with the visitors. The copy is rather a nuts and bolts list of what you offer and what you do. It needs to be inviting, intriquing, more emotional. Romance the visitor a bit, describe your vision of what their home/office will look like once you're done with it.

That way you get your visitors in the "mood" for interior decorating :)