Wanted: Domain Appraisal Website review: giftcertificate.co.uk

[Edwin]

http://www.giftcertificate.co.uk/
It's a directory of paper/email gift certificates and gift vouchers offered by UK retailers. Informational site, meant to help people find the appropriate gift certificates to send as gifts.

The site's going to be officially "live" next week, so I'm polishing furiously, but I'd love a bit of feedback, thanks. Version 1 of the site is going to be very simple (no graphics, basic template) but I can always iterate with a more "elegant" design if the site gets a bit of traction.

Anyway, enough from me - I'll get out of the way and let you form your own opinion...

 

[patrickj]

Edwin

The concept is a great idea and you have a very comprehensive range of merchants on offer.

As you say the site really needs graphics, logo branding etc so i wont state the obvious

The navigation is good and easy to find anything in a couple of clicks and you have unique meta data (title, description etc) which is good.

Not a lot more to say with out the graphics

Patrick

 

[ScottJ]

Looks good Edwin, as you say & are aware of it could be beautified a bit if you get traffic going through it. So that aside it seems practical and effective.

The bit that says Need a last-minute gift? under the navigation, should there be a link in that box or is a future feature, as emailable one's are high demand.

Also can't see 'Music' on the homepage, I would have though itunes vouchers would be one of the top sellers at this time of year.

 

[mojoco]

http://www.giftcertificate.co.uk/
It's a directory of paper/email gift certificates and gift vouchers offered by UK retailers. Informational site, meant to help people find the appropriate gift certificates to send as gifts.

The site's going to be officially "live" next week, so I'm polishing furiously, but I'd love a bit of feedback, thanks. Version 1 of the site is going to be very simple (no graphics, basic template) but I can always iterate with a more "elegant" design if the site gets a bit of traction.

Anyway, enough from me - I'll get out of the way and let you form your own opinion...

Edwin,

The functionality of the site is fine, however I think you need to have the more "elegant" design when you first go live.
In it's current style it appears too serious or formal for the type of product you are promoting. Just my tuppence worth.

 

[ScottJ]

Also email a friend option and add to favourites are two functions you should probably push highly on a site like that.

If I want a voucher for a store or I feel someone I know may want to use the site for buying vouchers the tell a friend should be built into the nav on the left.

 

[retired_member16]

Its too clutered and too formal for me, im not sure that I would hang around long enough to work out what it was all about.

I think you should postpone and come out with all guns blazing with the finished article.

 

[Jeewhizz]

Its too clutered and too formal for me, im not sure that I would hang around long enough to work out what it was all about.

I think you should postpone and come out with all guns blazing with the finished article.

What he said.

You won't get a very good response rate if people aren't attracted by the site, and 'invited' to click further.

TBH, to me, it looks like a sedo parking page.

Jee

 

[Edwin]

Thanks for all the comments.

Music will definitely be there before it goes live - that's a very good point. There are about 4-5 categories I still need to add (there are many more possible categories, but how long is a piece of string?)

The "Last Minute Gift" box isn't going to be a link initially, it's really just to help draw attention to the listings that have a bright yellow "Email delivery: Yes" as part of the listing. For example, the Garden Building Centre on the DIY page.

Functionality that requires programming can come later, along with the better graphics. I have a press release that will go out next week as I'm hoping to get a bit of traffic/interest before Christmas ie it's topical now because shipping cutoff deadlines are looming.

But of course the site is "evergreen" in the sense that it's not just THIS Christmas when people want to buy gift certificates, but for birthdays, anniversaries, next Christmas etc. so I am guessing/hoping/planning that I can roll out improvements in stages, but at least fingers crossed the basics are "ok".

But I will look into at least an automated Javascript bookmark thingie as well for Day 1.

Any more comments, I'd love to get them. Thanks for all the great feedback so far!

 

[retired_member6]

I havent done affiliate marketing for a while since I got excluded from the community, that happens when there's only one site for it, but while I presume directory sites still work, you could probably do more with that, it depends what your aim is. It's obvious it's not a £100,000 recycle project - that was yours wasnt it?

Push the whole current site into a part that says 'directory listings', then think of a unique way of presenting the content, news is views, do an article a week or day, get it up and running, message board, images, it's too bland, get an artist to do you some small gift voucher images, an header, pos, do an auto field where visitors can buy vouchers on site or believe they are, with drop down box for merchant selection, be imaginative.

Get membership incoming, free vouchers each month. The domain deserves a better site, albeit not a plural but good enough generic wise for the project at hand. I still mantain that I should get paid for my advice.

 

[mxm]

drink more water eat more donkeys

as fire and jee have stated, way to clutered... boring list of links even for a pre-launch for the xmas rush... will there be one this year just a few graphics running somewhere would entice some input / click through value.. the hotspots are just not there...

some examples which get hit / searched and make $ off ACT's

http://www.wishgiftcard.com.au/home/

http://www.voucherexpress.co.uk/

http://giftcards.giftcertificates.com/home.do

 

[denchomsky]

Personally i wouldn't trust a site that looked so basic, one look and I would be gone.

What I would suggest (as you are not a webdesigner), is to make it more simple, dont bother trying to put drop shadows on boxes, colour's that really aren't compatable with eachother, and borders around navigation.

Give the information some room to breath.

A single vertical line is enough to seperate the navigation fron the content.

You are definately doing some things right, you are using CSS and not Frames/Tables and your text resizes without breaking the layout!

You have obviously put alot of work into this so it would be a shame for it to do nothing, so a bit of time thinking more about style and layout would be worth it.

A great book I can recommend is 'Transcending CSS' by And Clarke which is all about using CSS for design that is simple and pleasing to the eye, using grids e.t.c, I think your site could really benefit from this approach.


Good Luck.

 

[Edwin]

All good stuff, thanks. Much appreciated!

I'm still working at breakneck speed to add listings, but I'll take another hard look at the design over the weekend, or early next week.

BTW, it's interesting to look in the back-end stats at the traffic that came from this thread - it's split almost exactly 50/50 into people who came to the front page and then left, and people who had a good wander around the site

 

[stevie]

I had a look inside... i'd be tempted to put thumbimages next to the listings.. maybe a picture of the voucher or logo of the retailer..

All good stuff, thanks. Much appreciated!

I'm still working at breakneck speed to add listings, but I'll take another hard look at the design over the weekend, or early next week.

BTW, it's interesting to look in the back-end stats at the traffic that came from this thread - it's split almost exactly 50/50 into people who came to the front page and then left, and people who had a good wander around the site

 

[accelerator]

Edwin

Link to National Book Tokens:

http://www.giftcertificate.co.uk/cgi-bin/jump.cgi?ID=5

not currently working.

Rgds

Accelerator

 

[mxm]

fish

All good stuff, thanks. Much appreciated!

I'm still working at breakneck speed to add listings, but I'll take another hard look at the design over the weekend, or early next week.

BTW, it's interesting to look in the back-end stats at the traffic that came from this thread - it's split almost exactly 50/50 into people who came to the front page and then left, and people who had a good wander around the site

answers your own questions then Ed... could be a goldmine if the 2.3sec hotspots on the homepage are correctly coloured to entice further viewing... just chance the CSS colours for now... as you are busy.. to something bright and web2 ish... you will be suprised how much further visitors will go when they see a nice backdrop!

 

[Edwin]

Well, there are still a hundred things I could do, but I've implemented a whole raft of changes, many prompted by comments on this thread (thanks again!). The press release goes out Tuesday or Wednesday this week, so we'll see what happens... I'll post another update if it gets any kind of significant exposure.

 

[mally]

Edwin, nice domain for a site thats improving all of the time - the final product no doubt will be great.

Could you start a thread detailing how you do a press release (any guidance would be greatly appreciated!)

thanks

Mally

 

[Edwin]

I put out the press release via http://www.pressdispensary.co.uk/

In fact, it was released just a couple of hours ago, and you can see it here...
http://www.pressdispensary.co.uk/releases/c991507.php

Basically, I paid for their writing-and-distribution service. I gave them some basic information about the site (they have a form with various questions to guide them) and they produced quite a decent first draft.

At that point I was able to submit corrections and send it back for a final redraft, but I skipped that step by reaching out to a writer friend and getting his expert attention and then I sent it back to the press release service as the "final" version.

They asked me when I wanted to release it, and also sent me a list of media outlets to approve - and now they've distributed it.

Too early to tell what the impact will be, but at least it's "out there" - and who knows, it may just catch somebody's eye...

 

[ScottJ]

I have heard Tuesday & Wednesday are the best days for your release, Mondays are too busy catchup days and Thu/Fri are winding down for the weekend so sending one out on a Tues/Wed gives it the best chance of being seen & used.

 

[Edwin]

I have heard Tuesday & Wednesday are the best days for your release, Mondays are too busy catchup days and Thu/Fri are winding down for the weekend so sending one out on a Tues/Wed gives it the best chance of being seen & used.

I'd heard the same thing, which is why I asked them to distribute it today.

BTW, I've found that the distribution gets into Yahoo News and Google News amongst other places.

So far only a handful of visits directly from the release, but it's early days...