Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

Hi Mike,
I'm a fan of the static background choice; the 'grass' at the bottom is appropriate and adds charm to the page. The site definitely has focused content and a broad catalog of products so you've got a really good jumping off point and I think with just a few design and usability tweaks, you can 'pump up the site' as your friend mentioned. The points I would address are:

1. Adjust your color palette. The yellow and green are certainly garden-friendly but they're a little duller than they could be. Yellow is a tricky color to use; too bright and it's obnoxious, too dark and consumers tend to respond negatively to it; too pale and it gets lost on a white background. Also, the header yellow in the left corner is a completely different tone than the other yellows and that discrepancy can give the site a disjointed appearance. Try going with a yellow in the range of FFFF33 to FFFF66 across the board and then go with a corresponding green in the 66CC33 or 66DD33 to the 66 range.

2. Logo/Header: I love the bird ornament; I think that's very engaging and I'm wondering if incorporating that into a more distinct logo would give the site a more polished look. The beveled element in the upper left is dated.

3. Header: You have a missed opportunity here. There's an awful lot of page real estate going unused. Your idea to promote the special shipping value is on point but it needs to have more impact. Think cleaner, sans serif text and a graphic element. It doesn't have to be busy or distracting, but it should be pleasing to the eye and mirror the content of the site.

4. Redirect: One of the first things I noticed when I clicked on the link was that I had to allow my browser to redirect. This can be a business killer since so many users have enhanced security settings on their browsers now and they're cautious about automatic redirects. This same issue occurs if I use the breadcrumb menu and select 'Top'; I wind up having to reload the page manually. Not a huge deal but enough of one to be annoying.

5. Catalog Background: The color of the catalog background and the subsequent product pages are distracting from your products. Because most products are on a white background and your table backgrounds are colored, it makes the items look like they aren't really part of YOUR site. Hard to explain but take a look at how the Birdberry Jelly looks on the main page and then click through to the product description. HUGE difference. Much cleaner and nicer on the detail page. Great job on the enlarged photos, by the way...it drives me nuts when a site only has a photo slightly bigger than the original as the 'enlarged' version.

6. Placement: I would suggest moving your 'What's New' area near the top and making the search box more prominent. Perhaps some horizontal navigation featured across the top, under the header would streamline things a bit and allow users to find the category they need at a really quick glance.

Overall: You have a lot of really great features on the site: nice products, clear policies, some wonderful freebies, a review feature...all good things but they're all getting lost in the mix. Not a lot of call to action going on and I think by breaking things up a bit more, increasing your white space and adjusting your colors, you'll see a better conversion rate.

Hope that helps! Best of luck & continued success to you!

~Lee

A couple of thoughts after visiting your site.
1) Wasted realestate on the opening page.
2) The Google Ad placement makes your site look cheap and amateurish. My guess is you aren't pulling in any revenue from it either.
3) something isn't right with the white space - try tinting it to a light tan
4) your text containers seem a little bit busy. maybe change the green color.

You might look at some of the award winning sites from internet retailer magazine (its on line). On recent article talks about a redo of action envelope's site which netted a 51% business increase.
https://www.actionenvelope.com/

Good luck, and BTW - one of my partners is an expert in developing words that sell. You might think about engaging his services. contact me via my profile if you have questions.