My New Website: input from brides and vendors?

[Sandframes]

Hello all. My name is Valerie. Me and my husband just started a company from something that we did at our wedding. Its a Sandframe for the sand ceremony, where you use a photograph in a frame instead of the usual glass container. I loved it and would like to share with other brides. I want to make sure everything is good. I had the original website done by someone and didnt like how it turned out so I changed it all. I hope that it looks okay

Do I need to make any changes? Does it look professional enough. Any input would be greatly appriciated. Thank you for your time. Look forward to your replies. The website is www.sandframes.com (http://www.sandframes.com) I hope it was okay to write this thread in this category.

[WebLady]

At first glance the only thing I see that I would change is to get your own domain name and hosting. That and maybe change the banner to something more realavent to your product; maybe get a logo or something.

Generic templates like the one used and those free hosting things, don't really do much good for establishing your business image.

Good luck to you though; I like your product, it is nice :)

[ShannonKay]

The frames are pretty, but I've never heard of a sand ceremony.

I agree with weblady. You have your domain name forwarding to freewebs. You should definitely get your own hosting. A couple of good affordable hosts are LunarPages (http://www.lunarpages.com) and Bluehost (http://www.bluehost.com). You could then also have branded email addresses like order@sandframes.com

I'm a web designer and new media consultant, and if I might be a bit critical in the interest of helping you improve. The site is obviously a template and more importantly it looks like a template. You could improve it some by replacing the default banner with a custom image featuring your product. You also really need to have a form for people to use to send in their order preferences rather than just an email address. The main page looks very "personal". I think, for one, that the centered text looks a bit dated. I would suggest having it justified or even in columns. Another thing is that It begins with "Hello and welcome" and continues with a personal letter. That sort of thing should be on your "about" page, your main page should have the highlights, optimally in a to-the-point format like a bulleted list and a nice big picture of your product, and direct people to find out more information or order now.

Also, as another place to sell your frames and something that would be good for promotion, I suggest checking out Etsy (http://etsy.com).

Hopefully that was helpful to you! Good luck with your business.

[SerendipityCrafts]

Also, as another place to sell your frames and something that would be good for promotion, I suggest checking out Etsy (http://etsy.com).

Hopefully that was helpful to you! Good luck with your business.

I ditto this. We sell most from our own website but it's taken a LOT of promo work to get our site up in google searches. Etsy may charge a commission and a small listing fee but they provide you with a "store front", but more importantly, they have already done the work regarding getting people to the site.

The trick at Etsy is to tag your items properly, take part in the forum discussions (you will learn a lot there), join etsy teams and list or relist often, to keep your items up to the front of the searches.

It is also important that you promote your Etsy storefront outside of Etsy. You can use your Etsy storefront URL on business cards, promos, emails etc.

[wedbyjean]

At first glance the only thing I see that I would change is to get your own domain name and hosting. That and maybe change the banner to something more realavent to your product; maybe get a logo or something.
I agree. Image and branding is so important. While the yellow orchid is pretty, it doesn't appear to have anything to do with the web page itself.

Your product looks wonderful, and these days it seems as though more and more couples are looking for an alternative to doing a unity candle.

[august8bride]

I don't have much suggestions about the website. I just wanted to say what a nifty idea! I love the idea of a sand frame.

[WBandMe]

We actually just ordered our sandframe! My suggestions for the website would be maybe put actual pictures of frames made with the different woods next to the wood ID. The pics of the different woods don't give a great idea of how it would look... my fiance and I ended up googling pics of the different woods to get a better idea. Same thing with the sand... I know it might sound silly, but it just helps to actually see the sand color and not just a color square. Only other suggestion is to have a more advanced order form, like maybe a form to select our wood/sand options instead of having to remember to type it in. All in all though, I think it looks pretty good, and I can't wait to see my frame!

[shopmysongs]

What a unique idea. I agree with a lot of the suggeations. I will def. pass this along cuz' it's different. Also, try advertising with google ad words. You pay as the customers click on your site. I get most of my business there. Your site will show up in the search engines under sponsored ads. Make sure you use the right meta tags. I would add weddings, sand, art, frames, just for some suggestions.

I think you have something here!

[Sandframes]

Thank You for all of your input your advice was well needed. We do put pictures up as soon as we make a new frame. The sand and wood colors that we had were the photos from the woodstore themselves and the sand colors from the supplier we use. But I am going to take your advice about putting different photos up, just have to get a better camera. lol

We are trying to make some changes with the order form and everything, but it seems to be taking forever trying to figure out how to do everything. Also I have my own domain name but didn't know where to go that would host it and how to set that up. I had someone give me a shell and I guess that was the hosting site they used. Im am not web site creator friendly. lol Any advice on that would be greatly appriciated.

We were just trying to get a feel for everything to see if this is something that is worth persuing.

[WebLady]

Im am not web site creator friendly. lol Any advice on that would be greatly appriciated.Some great advice has been given already; there are a few members here (myself included ;)) that do websites and can offer hosting. I am sure you could find someone that would be glad to help if you decided to take on any updates or decided to remodel the site :frogg:

You can check out Google (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769) for tips on how to make your site more search engine friendly. That, along with a few design changes would do you wonders.

Unless you learn to do the proper things yourself, you may have to pay someone else to do it for you.

As many others have said; you have a great product that I am sure many brides would like, you just have to get it out there :grinhappy:

All the best :flower:

[ShannonKay]

Where did you register your domain? I'm a web designer and I can do hosting as well.

When you said "I had someone give me a shell and I guess that was the hosting site they used.", were you saying someone gave you a shell account? I'm really confused about that sentence.

[shopmysongs]

I know what you mean about taking so much time. When we 1st started it was weeks & months to figure out stuff. We went through GoDaddy for our name & site. It's OK & a good place to start but I think as we get bigger & sell more CD's I'm going to need a different site. I sell about 130-160 a month now. That's pretty good since it will be a year in June when I started to sell them. Then I have a new CD coming out so hopefully that number will double. I had to upgrade my site once already due to the traffic on it. Whenever I have a problem, GoDaddy & Paypal are really bad for helping their customers. Their customer service reps are not good at answering questions at all. Oh well, live & learn!

[ShannonKay]

I know what you mean about taking so much time. When we 1st started it was weeks & months to figure out stuff. We went through GoDaddy for our name & site. It's OK & a good place to start but I think as we get bigger & sell more CD's I'm going to need a different site. I sell about 130-160 a month now. That's pretty good since it will be a year in June when I started to sell them. Then I have a new CD coming out so hopefully that number will double. I had to upgrade my site once already due to the traffic on it. Whenever I have a problem, GoDaddy & Paypal are really bad for helping their customers. Their customer service reps are not good at answering questions at all. Oh well, live & learn!

I register all my domain names at GoDaddy but I always host it separately. That makes it really easy to change hosts if I need to and I never have to worry about my domains being at a different place and whatnot.

[lovesimplyhappens]

As a photographer the first thing that hit me was that you need much better photographs of the product you are selling. They need to be much more tantalizing and have more zeal in the photo itself. Image is everything.
As far as the web I think everyone has said the most important points already and it sounds like you are on it. I had never heard of sand frames until now. Cool idea!!!!

[crystalinephoto]

What a neat idea! Have you trademarked this idea? I would highly suggest it before you do much more promotions of it! Good luck!

[FizaDesignsJewelry]

Also, as another place to sell your frames and something that would be good for promotion, I suggest checking out Etsy (http://etsy.com).

I have been an ETSY member for a couple of months now and now finally I got the trick to selling on ETSY. You just have to keep relisting your stuff every 2 to 4 hours. It really helps. I sell jewelry and it is the hardest to sell on ETSY because everyone is selling jewelry but you can keep trying!

My website is under construction right now but soon I think having my own website will help my sales too.

I agree, you should get your own hosting!

Good luck!