Website 101 for makers & retailers

[Joss]

Hi,

I thought I would start a thread on websites making, were we could exchange ideas and opinions on what we (as customers or professionals) enjoy in a good website - what helps sell, etc...

Hopefully we'll get some professionals to chime in.

Here are some of my ideas, in no particular order...

- Available e-mail list: I like when a retailer or a maker has a way to e-mail people when new knives are available. There should be a spot on the site where you can submit your name & e-mail to receive updates. New knives should not come up on the site before the e-mail is sent. Also, the e-mail should be sent at a time that makes sense for the entire US - i.e., not at 9am EST and not at 5pm PST.

- A New page with all the most recent items thumbnailed with name of the maker (for a retailer) and price. For retailers, the new items should be clearly separated from the previous batches. I.e., Bladegallery makes it difficult I feel to find what is really new from what has been new for quite a while already.

- Sold knives should be clearly identified as such. There should be no sold / unavailable knives in the available galleries.

- Thumbnails should lead to high definition pic. For art pieces, there should be pics for the whole knife as well as a couple key details (e.g., the damascus pattern and the guard.)

- There should be good info on the knives. That includes: materials, incl. steel (steel mix for damascus), size, handle size.

- The site doesn't need to be fancy, but it should be well organized. Java scripts and flash slow down the site. The knife gallery (-ies) should be clearly distinct from other areas.

What else do you feel works?

JD

 

[J.Loose]

Joss,

I guess I'm a professional, but only in the sense that I do my own website.

Most of your suggestions are good ones. Personally I haven't had time to get an e-mail list up and running, but it would give me a chance to directly contact interested parties and would probably help.

Thumbnails are a mixed issue for me. Sometimes I think I'd rather put up a few larger images than a bunch of little ones... I'd rather people saw the impact of the damascus pattern or embellishments. I suspect some people skip an ocassional thumbnail because it doesn't have enough detail. I also typically only have three or four knives available at a time so I can get away with it.

I agree with you on keeping it simple and avoiding flash or other bandwidth eaters... even though I have DSL. I figure other folks don't and I try not to put too many images on any given page. I also keep it simple so I can zip in and update things quickly; I don't have nearly as much time to play computer as I'd like... My site is almost all in HTML 2 because I haven't had time to keep up with the language!

Oh, I have a good, fast web-hosting service, too...

 

[Joss]

Hey Jon,

Yeah - the thumbnail thing was mostly thinking about retailers. One thing I hate is when you need to get really deep into a site to get to a specific knife and then have to do the same lengthy work to get to another knife, etc. I also like to open several windows, so I don't like when pics appear in Java windows, where typically you can only have 1 at a time.

The idea of this thread was more of a "best practice" exchange of ideas for makers - whose site performs well (i.e., yields sales) vs. poorly and why, etc...

For a maker, the list for updates seem to me to be a no brainer. I mean, if you have the opportunity to capture the e-mail address of people interested in your work, I can't think of a reason why anyone would not do it. Even if you don't have new pieces, if you can send 1 update say each month (new area of the site, new tutoral, modified this or that, award, features, etc...), that will keep you on top of your customers' minds.

JD

 

[C. Marlowe]

Just added the email list feature to my site, hope it works out well. - Charles

 

[Nosamk]

Arent thumbnails by nature a small image that is linked to the larger image [and therefore can be 'clicked on' in order to view a full size version]...

Good suggestions overall....I hate going to purveyors sites and attempting to figure out what is new and what isnt....its a PITA somtimes and there are only THREE on the internet that separate the new stuff and make it easy to identify. [True North, Nordic, and TAD - thanks for making it so easy on me!! ]


edit: duuuuhhhh....how could I forget TAD!?!?!