Help w/ my business website

CardMinger · #1 07-19-2006, 05:08 PM

Hello all,

I have a small importing business going and was hoping I could get some critiques/comments on my website. Response seems to be good so far but just looking for any additional input as to how I can increase sales...

The site is: www.stratastones.net

We advertise mostly via adsense and eBay but also have a few distributors.

I will answer any questions and plan on posting a full "business report" sometime in the future.

Moderators: This is not spam...I don't have any ads on my site at all.

Thanks,
CM

poker-penguin · #2 07-19-2006, 06:04 PM

Think about how a search engine will read your site as well as how a person will read your site. My feeling is you could improve your SE rankings (which also reduces your adwords cost by increasing according to some people), and probably customer response by re-tooling your text. Don't just tell them what you offer, show them why it's what they need.

"Stratastones are a unique, hand-crafted mosaic tile made with beautiful pebbles from the island of Bali. Our mosaic tiles are perfect for creating a unique floor or can be used to provide a beautiful highlight."

I'd move the flash animation off the front page, and make it optional, as far as I can see, the picture of the product in action is more powerful than some random diagram.

Don't sound so defensive about having to see the product to appreciate it - you need to portray that it's so damn good they can already tell they want it.

Spread the pictures of the stones in use around the site as well.

List the advantages of your product compared to boring old ceramic tiles.

Testimonials are very powerful, if you don't have them, get them. If you have any use them (you can update as you get better ones).

Sitemap - helps navigation and PR

Sorry if I sound harsh or am not clear, it's midnight, I'm busy backing up my files from two laptops, and trying to pack for a month in Thailand.

Hope I helped point you in the right direction at least. It's not a bad website, it's just kind of meh, fine for people who know and love stratastones, but I don't think it'll grab your random home-improvement surfer.

Cubswin · #3 07-19-2006, 07:10 PM

Cool Product.

If I were interested in purchasing these, my first concern would be shipping costs. At 4 pounds per tile and 100 tile minimum, how the heck is this product going to be shipped to me at a reasonable cost? And where are they shipping from?

nutfloppa · #4 07-22-2006, 08:52 AM

Nice looking tile

I think you need to work on getting more distributors. Alot of small tile/flooring business out there. When it comes to buying tile most people want to be able to see it in person, not just look at pictures on a website. Maybe try hooking up with installers directly as well and give them the distributors price. I have a friend that does tile work and he said alot of his customers look to him for ideas when it comes to what to use. While some just go to Home Depot/Lowes he would much rather have them use products that he can get his builders/contractors discount on from the smaller tile stores. Maybe cut some of those tiles down to 6"x6" and make some sample sets of all the styles you carry along with some printed literature to send out to installers.

Slider · #5 07-24-2006, 09:45 PM

Free stuff will always bring people back and get relatively inexpensive traffic to your site.

Why not try sending out free small samples of the stone if it's economically viable?

Mr. Now · #6 07-24-2006, 10:56 PM

CardMinger,

You need to get yourself some search engine optimization, and thereby get some natural search engine rank improvement.

Then you'll be able to ditch those Adsense ads.

Be careful. Know the facts.

Google SEO 101
http://www.google.com/support/webmas...y?answer=35291

Shantanut · #7 07-26-2006, 02:43 PM

Couple things

Firstly, in your header in your index, you don't have any keywords/descriptions, anything. Your current header is:

<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">

<link href="screen.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
</head>

I want to see something like this:

<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta name="rating" content="General">
<meta name='abstract' CONTENT='Your source for stones'>
<meta name="description" content="Here you can buy all the stones you want">
<meta name="keywords" content="stones, flooring, etc">
<link href="screen.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
</head>

The header is basically where search engines get their first look at your site, and you can effect how each page is displayed. Give each of you pages a title.

Also, I'm not a big fan of your top banner, mainly because its blurry and your logo is a little small. Something that you might want to consider is putting your logo on the top left and then have a transition into a flash video on the left so it looks smoother and you can fit more quality resolution into the smaller space.

Other than that it looks fine, nice site.

CardMinger · #8 07-26-2006, 02:51 PM

Everyone,

Thanks for all the comments! I will make some of the recommended changes soon and will update this thread with changes made and hopefully will be able to get some good suggestions then.

Thanks again!
CM

WarBus · #9 07-26-2006, 07:57 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Free stuff will always bring people back and get relatively inexpensive traffic to your site.

Why not try sending out free small samples of the stone if it's economically viable?

[/ QUOTE ]

You could always try the Priority Mail Flat Rate Box which is $8.10 for any U.S. destination. You could see if one full tile and smaller samples of the others could fit in one of the boxes.

If you don't want to spend that much on promos or have to send so many samples to all the online freebie hunters, you could always offer the samples for $9, which can be deducted off a future order.