Hi gang

 

Could you please have alook at this site www.grow-your-own-apples.co.uk

 

It is wordpress based using a template that I have fiddled around with.

 

The aim of the site is to act as a resource and purchase point for apple trees from which I hope to gain affiliate commission.

 

The site is not finished as I am at a stage where I would like to get comments from people to ensure it meets standards and it is easy to use.

 

I will be loading more recipes and blog articles at a later stage.

 

I will also be making it clearer that I am an affiliate.

 

Any way all constructive comments are appreciated, but please remember I am not a coder but a "copy & paster".

Is it that bad that nobody wants to comment?

 

Or is it the thought of my mum coming round

I would darken the font in your sidebar a bit and change the top-menu to be larger and on a different position.

Rob Aid

 

Thanks for having a look. You are right about the sidebar. It ia a stock item from the theme an I need to rework it to make it my own.

 

Again the top menu is stock an it needs looking at.

 

Can I ask how long it took the site to load and what your connection is?

 

Many thanks.

First impressions are that the navigation structure is too confusing. First thing I see when I open your site is 3 nav areas. This needs to be condensed into a single, intuitive interface for users to access your site content.

 

Which leads to my second point. Unless you're going to put your primary nav in the right column, it seems redundant. Is it there simply because wordpress themes tend to have a sidebar? If it's not there by design, then it should go. Make the site narrower if required.

 

I think your body text needs at least one heading. It needs to be immediately obvious what your site is about, and headings help make this a reality.

 

Visually I think the site is quite nice, although the top navigation doesn't really fit the style of the rest of the page in my opinion. I'd also use a dark grey rather than black for the body text as it feels very imposing at the moment. I like the main nav bar, but the links seem a bit squashed together to me, with quite a lot of room on the right which could be used to space things out more comfortably.

 

Code-wise there's a hell of a lot of inline javascript, and it's recommended that your google analytics code goes before the </body> tag rather than at the top where you have it, so that the page loads before GA has a chance to slow things down. I don't know why you've used tables to lay out the sidebar - this is unnecessary.

 

Good luck with your site

notbanksy

 

Great that is just what I was looking for.

 

To be honest the top nav bar is really being used to fill the whitespace at the top of the page. I designed the logo and I would really like to keep it as I have another 20 similar sites to do based on the "Grow Your Own" theme so I just change "Apples" to "Pears" Strawberries" etc. I need to find something to fill that dead space!!!!

 

######TOP NAV BAR NOW DELETED######

 

The reason for the separate sites is to keep the keyword content and relativity high to hopefully get a good seo ranking and make it easier for customers to navigate.

 

The sidebar is an issue for me and I am going to loose the categories and change the colour scheme. At the moment I have a link for a friend in the sidebar to help them with link backs but this will go in the live site.

It came with the theme so I cant do much with the tables

 

I am going to place category descriptions and text on all pages so that should get me there with the headers.

 

I'll have a look at the javascript to see if I can tidy that up.

 

Many thanks for your comments. As I say I "copy & paste" and use trial and error as I am not a coder.

Edited January 13, 201115 yr by TheTyke

In my point of view your site is nice. Its looking good.

 

 

 

[link removed]

Edited January 14, 201115 yr by Wickham

Quick review: Design looks awesome!

I think your site looks really cool! You design is great! Your logo is beautiful!

not bad. i'd give it a heading and give the slider a bit of padding. maybe cruve the corners

Folks thanks for the comments so far.

 

alzer81 thanks for doing the mock up, it has given me food for thought.

 

I like the fact that the "Call to action" which is "All Varieties Available to Buy!" is there at the start.

Edited January 14, 201115 yr by TheTyke

Folks

 

As it was based on a template to start with I,ve done a bit of weeding tas well as implementing a caching plugin o hopefully improve the load time.

 

Still have to do the sidebar and the main body text.

 

Can someone give me an idea of loading speed at their end please together with connection type.

 

www.grow-your-own-apples.co.uk

 

Many thanks for your help.

Edited January 15, 201115 yr by TheTyke

Ok, the website starts off great! welcoming creative logo and a beautifully crafted navigation... After this point I feel like it starts to get boring, less creative, I think you need to do something creative with the background and the container of the main body content and you'll have yourself a great start to a website.

Warren thanks for your comments.

 

I have to say when you click onto the category pages ie "organic apples" it does look bland. I am planning to get some headers in with a category description to capture peoples attention so then they can browse the apple trees.

 

I'm having a bit of a thing about load speed at the moment if you could comment on that as well please.

Don't look now as I have just killed the site!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Performing CPR now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

:shok: :shok: :shok: :shok:

 

 

Okay back on line after two hours. Just some css in dropdown to sort

Edited January 16, 201115 yr by TheTyke