Criticize / Praise my new website

Patrick, it looks pretty good to me. I can navigate around the site easily enough and everything is pretty straight-forward. Have you considered putting your address and contact information on your welcome page? the way it is set up now you can be contacted only via e-mail and must go have a Windows ID account, which, for instance, I do not.

Just a thought.

-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.

Bookmarked, thanks for the link.

-- ...it's rennovation time!!!

All looked good and clean to me.
Only thing I’d say is that, having looked at the source code for the home page, I see no meta-tags for (some of) the search engines to use to help people find you. There’s a lot of meta-tag info out there if you do a search for it.
I didn’t understand Scott’s comment though – the “contact us” bits looked like normal “mailto:” links to me, so I don’t see what a Windows ID has to do with it? I guess if “mailto:” isn’t set up on the user’s machine they won’t work, so a “written out” email addy would be a good idea.

I’m not quite sure either. I have clickable links with “mailto” mostly on the FAQ page, so people can just click on the link, and their mail program should start, filling in my address and the subject line.

-- http://newmissionworkshop.com

I’ve added a “hard” email address in a couple of places, so people can just copy and paste it into whatever email program they use….

-- http://newmissionworkshop.com

Not bad , clean and simple. Best of luck with it!

In the Welcome.html line 63 is a only mistake.
In the FAQ.html line 57 and 127 are mistakes and something wrong whit the last “mailto”.

And its good idea to have written out email address too ( I do not have eny email reading programs installed on my PC).

And certainly U need
<meta name=”keywords”>
<meta name=”description”>

-- My woodwork blog : http://www.isetehtud.pri.ee/blog/

Interesting combination of products. Lecterns and clocks.

-- Dan, Sterling Alaska, http://sullcon.homestead.com/

Thanks much!

-- http://newmissionworkshop.com

Very clean, which is what I prefer. I want to be able to go to a website and instantly find what I’m looking for without hunting all over the screen.

-- You're a unique and special person, just like everyone else.

You should consider building lecterns with a clock on the front :)

-- Dan, Sterling Alaska, http://sullcon.homestead.com/

Hopefully, I’ve accomplished cleanliness with style, Greg.

-- http://newmissionworkshop.com

Content – It’s all about you and your hopes… not about the customer and his
self-interest. Hard to read that tiny serif type against that background.

You need to make it very, very easy for people to buy. Tell them how much
and where to click to get it.

-- Would you like to recession-proof your present business using the internet? - my revealing 9-page free report gives you the straight facts: http://copymatch.com/rec/cap.html

All i could do was get to the Welcome page you must be working on the rest.

I really like the colors you chose. As others have noted, the navigation is straightforward and easy to use. I think it is a well designed site. Good luck with your ventures.

Nice site and nice work.

I notice you use iWeb. So do I. You can put a great web site together with no html skills if you want to. It works almost like a word processor then voila. It’s web pages. Cool program.

If you want search engines to pick up on your site more this little freeware program can make a simple webpage that you upload at your site folder. Google will then pay particular attention when it crawls the net looking for new pages. Link below. (iWeb and this program only work on Macs btw).

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/205708

-- The smell of wood, coffee in the cup, the wife let's me do my thing, the lake is peaceful. http://web.me.com/deceiver6/Deceiver/Craftsman_on_the_lake/Craftsman_on_the_lake.html

The website looks ok, and the products look ok, but I think the prices are a little out of touch.

How much should I charge for something I put close to 40 hours into, Woodchuck? $30?

-- http://newmissionworkshop.com

Well, are you selling any ? If not, you need to learn how to start mass produceing to get your hours and prices down some, then you might sell some, or sell more. It’s tough out there, especially in this economy, and several other reasons. No one said it was going to be easy, if someone did, they lied to you. Your lucky you live in a highly populated city where there is more demand than the city I live in. I know how frustrating it can be, been there, done that for several years, really don’t ever care to do it again. Sorry, but you asked for input, and those are my thoughts.

The website looks great as well as the merchandise. I guess we’ll find how how good the market is eh? It’s hard to compete with China and Walmart, but I’ll be pulling for you!

-- Carl Rast, Pelion, SC

Patrick, on the “mass producing” line. Maybe it’s just me but I’d sure as hell rather tell a guest in my home, who commented on a that beautiful clock on the mantel that it was “custom made by Patrick Ashley of Rochester” than “I got a great deal on it at Wally Mart and it was produced with slave labor in China!” Again, that’s just me.

Nice web site and I hope you’re making money with that beautiful product line.

-- http://www.federalsaw.com

I didn’t suggest haveing them mass produced in China and or selling them at WalMart.

I guess my thought line of prices on handmade stuff is this:

If the price is low: people might buy (thinking it’s a good deal), or not buy ( thinking there must be a reason it’s so cheap – it’s probably made in China).

If the price is high: people might buy (thinking it must be good, at that price), or not buy (it’s too pricey for many people).

My market is not Joe Six-pack (of whom I am one); it’s Joe Caviar, who can have a designer pick out things for him, and price is not much, if any, of a concern. It’s for women who’s husbands are doctors or lawyers, and can pick out stuff willy-nilly. Yes, I will sell less units with a higher price, but I’d rather make a dollar on one unit then 10 cents on 10 units.

I’m not concerned about mass production. My thought is if you make the best – whatever thing – people will find you and pay the price for it.

That’s where I stand.

-- http://newmissionworkshop.com

I’ve had a web site now for several years and to date….............it hasnt made me a dime!

that said, I found that the black type set against the dark brown background difficult to read, they blend in.

otherwise…...........it works!

-- http://www.furnituremann.ca/

There are 3 basic things that seem to determine sales:
1. Advertising in it’s many forms.
2. Popularity of the “product group”.
3. Price. (perceived value.

Personally, if I wanted to sell upscale product I think I would have chosen a professional web designing firm.
The good ones can marry the 3 categories above together with great results.

Your site is no worse than thousands or others out there but it’s not much different either.

It’s not too late to call in a professional at least for a consultation.

Bob

-- A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner

Um, I’ve done pro website work for 5 years Bob. My site is much better than some woodjocks I’ve seen, believe me.

-- http://newmissionworkshop.com

Sorry , I stand corrected.
I guess my standards are a bit different.

Bob

-- A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner

yet another mystery duplicate?

-- A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner

Patrick, there is a web site that will give you an unbiased opinion on the pros and cons of your web site or anyone elses for that matter. Yes, they may try to sell you further services down the road (although I have not experienced that) but the initial analysis is free, I’ve tried it and it works! You can even type in a competing web site and it will compare yours to theirs. A friend told me about it so, give it a try.

http://www.websitegrader.com

-- http://www.federalsaw.com

Thanks, I’ll give it a look!

-- http://newmissionworkshop.com

I agree with some of the other comments about the background and font not working together.
Your “About” tab talks about “Mission Style Furniture” but you only have linkable tabs for the clocks and lecturn, why?
You also don’t have a tab showing your urns, why? You show a picture for an urn but no link to one like you do for the clocks and lecturns, I would think you would want a tab for each product you are selling or say that you sell. You also show two half of a pictures of a chair, but no link to those as well, why? Do you sell chairs? I couldn’t tell by this website if you only sell clocks and lecturns.
I hope this feedback helps you make a better website, good luck.

-- "You get what you inspect, not what you expect"

3fingerpat

I hear what you’re saying, good points. I guess I was trying to evoke a sense of well-roundedness, wood-working wise. I intend to get into urns later, so I should probably take that off for now…

Thanks again.

-- http://newmissionworkshop.com

Thank You FEDSAWDAVE.
That link You provided is really helpful for all website owners .

-- My woodwork blog : http://www.isetehtud.pri.ee/blog/

You’re welcome. I only heard about it several days ago and being a skeptic of sorts….Well, I tried it and I found it usefull and…it’s free. That’s the best part. Don’t forget to put in your e-mail address so you can get the final report although you can still get an analysis without putting in your address if you think they’ll send you lots of solicitations. I have not seen any but it’s only been 3-4 days for me.

-- http://www.federalsaw.com

Hey it looks simple and easy to use this from a guy that does not even know how to use this site! Looks good to me and the prices are in line with what I have seen from other custom makers.

-- projects dont pay,pieces are profitable,production is painfull

Looks great, easy navigation. You definitely need to give visitors an easy way to see your contact information and get in touch with you. Put key words for search engines into you meta tags (under page properties).

-- Ron, Twain Harte, Ca. Portable on site Sawmill Service http://westcoastlands.net/Sawmill.html http://westcoastlands.net/SawBucks2/phpBB3

Looks good, You need to put a link to “Contact” on the main page. As it stands now its hard to find out how to contact you. The contact should list your Business name, address, email and phone number. Online business that ONLY list an email address for contact are suspect to many people, including me.

Thanks, Josh, fixed that. Funny the things you miss when you make your own site!

-- http://newmissionworkshop.com

I’d put a free tracker on the front page, and the others if you like. That way you can tell how many hits your getting along with a lot of other useful info.
Like where they are from, what keywords they used to find your site etc. etc.
A good one that I use is: and it’s free
http://www.statcounter.com/
Nice looking site.

Thanks, David, but I do have stats tracking on the backend…shhhhh!!! LOL

-- http://newmissionworkshop.com

Pat
I like your website. I think you accomplished what you were setting out to do..low key, uncluttered, and easily navigable. I like your background textures…they have a real “cloth” feel. Your pictures are good quality and big enough to see the details of your fine workmanship. As far as your prices are concerned, charge what you feel they are worth. They seem to me to be handmade heirloom quality pieces, not mass produced with shortcuts to bring the cost and quality down. Sure it’s tough out there right now and people are holding their money with a tight fist, but if someone wants a clock of that quality they will pay for it. You might not sell thousands of them, but maybe thats not your intention.

-- David, South Windsor, CT "I love the smell of sawdust in the morning"

If you changed the title of your first page to index.html then the only address you would have to give out is: http://newmissionworkshop.com
It would auto load.
Also someone mentioned indexing to you already. That’s important.
Do a search on whatever engine you want Google, whatever for what you would type in IF you were looking for your items.
Then click on the #1 result.. load their page and read their source code to see what they used for Meta Tags..
You could just copy them and paste them into yours if you wanted.

Well, I’m happy to report that the Mission Lectern – the most expensive product is #1 in the google search results!

On the down side, i didn’t rate within 4 pages for “Mission clock”

Guess I have to attack that more….

-- http://newmissionworkshop.com

I’m on a high bandwidth internet connection, but the background for each page (on first load) takes a while… after it’s been cached it loads instantly, but for new potential clients- you might want to speed your pages to load faster, less of a background image size (if any at all). reduce all other images while at it to a minimum – makes a huge difference in load time (but you should know that already)

-- When in doubt - There is no doubt - Go the safer route.

Patrick,
I rechecked your website since my first comments 61 days ago and I do like the changes you have made to it. However, I still have a comment about your product line on the “About” page. You still list pictures of the chairs and urn but don’t sell them or have a link to them. And what I see as the real problem is where you note: “Since 2000, New Mission Workshop has been striving to bring high-quality mission style furniture, clocks, lectern, urns and other pieces to market.” Well, it’s 2009, when are you going to be bringing those items to market? I hope you see my point as a consumer visiting the website, it looks to me that you are having a problem getting those pieces to market, or are just lazy about updating your website or false advertising? As a consumer, my thoughts were, well it’s been 9 years and still no charis or urns, what is the problem?

Please note that I am not trying to be mean, just providing a critical, unbiased opinion of your website, again I hope it helps you to make a good website.

BTW, if I ever had need of a Lectern, I would definitely purchase one of yours, they look awesome!

-- "You get what you inspect, not what you expect"

Looks to me like the site is down…

I think the comment about windows id was actually a different comment in disguise. What they mean is they have a hotmail or gmail account and mailto links just don’t work. It is useful to have a form on a page where you can just enter your email and some text and it gets sent to you without having a mailto link.

Good luck,
David.

As luck would have it, it JUST this second went down, yes, sorry. I’m looking into it.

I hear you about the mail / send form issue, and I’ll see if I can make a form happen…

Thanks for the input!

-- http://newmissionworkshop.com

Ok. Now that I can actually see it, a few comments. The background image you use is really disconcerting when it flashes up, you should use css or something to make the background of that area closer to the yellow of the image so it doesn’t flash when the image suddenly loads. Either that or make it a consistent yellow background colour, which isn’t a bad idea since you don’t want anything distracting on the main page.

Your links up the top of the page are not obvious enough, they blend into the background so it is hard to see what you should click on next.

When I looked at the clocks I couldn’t figure out what the price was or how to buy something looking at the clock landing page. You should put a price for that actual clock there with a note about clicking on the other images or soemthing. Perhaps moving the clock images to the top so they are more obvious.

The leaf pattern is nice, but the background flashing is really really distracting and annoying. :)

A consistent footer on the bottom of all pages is not a bad idea too, a copyright notice and a link back to your home page.

I’m sorry… but in Internet explorer It seems to be having issues. I cannot view some of them, it appears as the pictures are loading, the z-index is pushing them into the wrong order. Also, overall the site is loading very slowly… I’m not sure if it’s the sizes of your images or your host. Generally you have to win over someone on the internet in the first 10 seconds… it’s to easy to click away and find something else.

-- San Diego, CA US Navy

Ok, I’ve done some revisions per your observations:

• On the “About” page, took down photos of products I don’t sell, and just put up clocks and the lectern.
• Added my contact info on the front page, and added an online contact form on the “Contact” page.
• Added the Clock line up and the Lectern to the bottom of the home page.
• Replaced the far left and right background that would “flash” each time it loaded, and replaced it with a solid color, and optimized the main (center) graphic.
• Added a colored bar to the link menu to hopefully make it standout more.

I’m pretty pleased with the results – though I think I will be switching it over to the same design, but all HTML. Thoughts?

-- http://newmissionworkshop.com

Maybe you want to explain who you are in there somewhere. How long have you been doing woodworking? What inspired you to be a woodworker? Why mission style? Where did you learn the craft?
To me you’re just some guy selling clocks. If I knew more about you and your experiences it would help. It always helps to know the artist.

-- ~ Inspiring those who inspire me ~

I’m not that good at judging websites. There have been others that looked fine to me that others were critical of. With that said, it looks fine to me. One small note; on the welcome page, 4th line. Put a space between the words “darkness” and “of”.

-- David, Southern Indiana

Looks significantly better :)

Good luck!
David.