Education Website feedback! Recently Launched Geeky T Shirt Shop

Right, as some of you might have noticed, I've launched my shop on Saturday. Problem I've got at the moment is while I'm driving traffic (modestly admittedly - more on that in a minute) to it, the conversion rate is pretty much non existent.

Is there something I'm really just doing very wrong? I am aware that obviously every shop's products are going to be a matter of taste and preference (and money) but considering the views and durations I've had I'd have thought we'd see.. more?

On the subject of driving traffic, I'm currently paying for google adwords which seems to be pretty spotty in displaying at my end.. I had it set to £1 cpc this morning and a £10 budget, since lowered it to £0.15 cpc and upped the budget by £5, but that only drove about 4-5 hits then stopped.. any one got any experience with adwords? Will the CPC bid only update at day's end or can it really be altered mid-day and mid campaign?

Thanks for any help guys, it really means a lot especially as I have only a handful of people to talk to about this and we're all scratching heads at the moment!

(Link in sig)

 

When hovering over an item, the background turns a light grey, rendering the white text illegible. Maybe a gradient to dark grey? It could also be quite interesting to have a photo of a product, or a related product, in the background, much like here on bit-tech.

 

What OS and Browser does this happen on? Could you post a screen grab for me? On mine it's quite a dark grey and is still quite visible.. Could be an issue more with high contrast?

I'm thinking through some form of BG image, but I've been liking the cleanness of the black and whiteness, I was thinking a BG for the footer might be something worth doing though definitely...

Another thing I forgot to add in the first post was; should I put more products on the home page or are people likely to go through the categories?

 

Overall I think the site is pretty good. Its pretty simple and looks reputable. It doesn't have a hundred and one things to allow on no script to get working which I think is always a plus. I wouldn't have any problems buying if I were in the market for what you're selling.

One thing I would say is that you're specials are hidden away at the bottom of the page. I would try and make them more obvious to the customer when they first visit the site. The top sellers link is in a weird position and probably should be on the main menus. It should probably have a few items in it even if they aren't top sellers. Also I don't think the tags do a whole lot and dwarf the side menu on the all t-shirts page. But that is more of a personal preference.

 

Currently, everything is considered by the shop to be a 'special' while I've got the promotion running (anything that's on sale is in specials) so that's why I've not got it as obvious as it usually would be.. Similarly the reason I've not really done anything with top sellers is that it's generated by quantity of sales for items... Currently well... yeh.. and there's no way for me to manually add any to it, short of using a 100% discount code to artificially boost the sales, which isn't really honest...

Is there anything you can see that would actually stop people from buying? That's one of my main problems at the moment.. no sales..

(Yes I know we're only 4 days old with relatively low traffic but still)

 

a) On the homepage there are no slogans or any text that says anything about Headbocks, and there's not an 'about' page linked from the homepage. Therefore I know nothing about the site and the products until I choose to click to view a particular product. I find this off-putting as a potential customer.

b) You offer some designs on different colour shirts but this isn't apparent unless I click on a particular shirt. There's a lot of 'boring black' going on on the homepage. When seeing this it doesn't give potential customers much hope that they're going to find an eye-catching winner somewhere on your site, just some plain t-shirts with simple designs. When I'm looking for t-shirts I'm looking for the holy grail site that has got endless pages or original designs that no-one else will have seen but that everyone else will want when I'm wearing it.

c) I'm not convinced that 'geek' sells. I know it's supposed to have been vogue these last couple of years, and perhaps you've got sales figures knowledge to give you good reason to pursue this, but how many people choose to make such an obvious statement on a t-shirt? Subtlety tends to win out over obvious in this genre in my book.

d) Your homepage declares a sale is on - over 33% off everything - so when I see numerous shirts with £9.95 next to them I assume I'm going to be getting 33% off that price. It's only when I click to view a particular shirt that I see you've already deducted the 33% without telling me. Heart sinks and I lose momentum on my previous instabuy excitement.

e) Hovering over a particular shirt results in a lot of visual behaviours, perhaps too many, too busy, could do with toning down a bit.

 

Right first of all thank you. Hopefully my explanations or retorts won't come off as combative (but probably will)

a) Not sure what exactly what you're expecting, it's a shop not a blog. There is actually several links at the bottom, notably; About Us and How we Print. Maybe you could cite some example of anywhere that does what you think should be done?

b) This is true of many other t-shirt sites so I hadn't realised it'd be an issue.. I'll throw together a banner for the home page that explains the colour options. I'll also make colours that aren't black default on some of the designs. I'm quite sure though that many people could equally be concerned that items on first glance are not black? I can appreciate that you may be looking for as you put it 'holy grail' of sites that has endless pages of original designs that no one else has seen, but frankly, I've launched on Saturday, all my shirts are ScreenPrinted by hand... not merely printed out and heat pressed. So the fact I have as many as I do is a bloody miracle tbh, especially due to the cost and size of the screens.

c) ... never mind that geek is currently in at the moment.. about as much as owls anyway! (fashion wise) if geek didn't sell then ThinkGeek, SnorgTees, BustedTees, Jinx, etc etc have been on the wrong end of it for a while! Some of the designs are more subtle than others. This is more a matter of personal opinion in my book.

d) Yes it does indeed, I defy you to find me a site that informs of a sale and then doesn't show you the deducted price. This is how the shop that I'm using works. I could remove the (actually documented feature) sale, and instead post a 33% coupon code but that seems a lot more clumsy in my view. Besides which I'm not entirely sure how you could think anywhere would really sell Hand Screen Printed T-Shirts for £6.60? Yes I would like to make sales, but I'd actually like to make a profit!

e) I've previously had good feedback on this, so I'll have to see if I hear more of this.

Again I do apologise for being combative in some of my remarks, however comments on t-shirt designs and pretty much the comments on how the actual direction of the business is wrong is a bit mean spirited. Certain people on here (notably Hiren) would be able to attest to the fact this is something I've wanted to do for about 8-10 Years. And I've poured a not inconsiderable amount of time, money, and late nights especially recently into getting it to where it is.

I do appreciate everyone taking the time to look at the site, and for comments.

 

Just a thought on the shirt colours issue. When you mouseover a product and the item description comes up, is it possible to have a couple of squares in the bottom right (top left/wherever) appear highlighting the colour options available for this particular shirt. That way they know straight up if you can get it in blue/red/magenta without even having to click into a product page. Help speed up dialing in to what they want.

 

It's very likely that this is a monitor issue - on my laptop (TN) the contrast is poor and the white text does get a bit lost, but on my PVA screen the grey is dark enough to offer plenty contrast for the white.

On a similar note, I'd say the main banner gallery has a couple of slides that are very difficult to read - eg the "in soviet russia" one and "all t-shirts are handpainted..." have poor text/background separation and arguably break the golden rule of marketing design: make it easily readable.

Apart from that I also think the site looks very good and would consider it reputable.

 

I'm not trying to be an ass here, and I don't want you to take it personally...but I think it's the actual products that need work, more than the website.

In comparison to the designs on somethinggeeky.com (2nd result in a google search for "geek tshirts") headbock's designs just seem kinda flat and boring.

Their designs are simply more interesting, more playful...and they can print more than one colour.

I should state that I'm in no way affiliated with somethinggeeky. I've never even ordered a tshirt from them, or any other retailer for that matter...geek tshirts aren't really my thing

My advice would be to work on the the designs first and foremost. Perhaps even run a monthly free tshirt competition, inviting people to submit their own designs. The winner, in addition to their prize, will have their design sold on the store. That way you can improve customer engagement too.

 

Well, Some feedback:

More content. That is: More text content. A paragraph on the homepage to explain "What is this, I don't even" would go a long way. Search Engines will love you for it as well.

More colour.
people like colour. More colourful shirts, more colourful notices.

Clear Call to Action. "Buy now", "On promotion", etc should stand out. it currently doesn't at all on the homepage, and doesn't do ENOUGH in that regard on the items pages. Bigger buttons, brighter colours, more attention grabbing in that regard. (also - the grey is too light... a much darker grey would still be noticable and not break the contrast like that -the grey on the white background is also too light)

You MIGHT want to look at making the font a bit bigger as well. It seems a bit small...

The ad at the top is a bit... well... too big, too flashy, distracting from what matters: People buying.

That all said - I am not trying to be negative. It's technical and usability niggles that I have, that I'd look into, SPECIFICALLY regarding sales.


As for Google Adwords:
Use their recommended amount, and push the limit.
That's going to generate clicks. BUT! Make sure you are pitching the text of the ad PERFECTLY. A Bad pitch there ruins the Click through rate, as well as the people clicking through.
Obviously, this can get VERY expensive VERY quickly, so I'd suggest an aggressive (yet carefully strategised) linkbuilding campaign right off the bat.

 

One rule of thumb I always use when doing a website is to stand 6 feet away from the screen and anything you can't read needs re-doing. For example the font on "Welcome to Headbocks, Sign in, etc."

Maybe the moving banner is to high in height and the font on the grey is unreadable.

Another good idea is to think of a folded over newspaper, the catchy headlines are always on the top two thirds of the page to grab attention.

 

On my monitor, although still perfectly readable, the text loses clarity and contrast compared with the white on black. If the text simply darkened a bit (but you would have to lighten the tile a bit), or the tile didn't lighten as much, it would make it clearer.

With regards to the 'About' thing - there should be a link at the top. I also think it might look better if there were fewer products on the front page - at the moment it looks like a category of its own. You could just have a few products, maybe 4, but make them bigger and more attractive. Show off the products, don't just list them.
But otherwise a well designed website, with a nice clean colour scheme.

 

You need to work on your SEO to boost conversion rates.

Your <title> tag and <meta> tags have zero information within them only your brand name.

Ideally, you want your <title> tag <meta> tags main <h1> tag all to be similar and focused on the same phrase. "HeadBock - T shirts for geeks" otherwise no one will find you on Google.

Doing a site search on Google shows the issue https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site:www.headbocks.com

Ideally you should have nearly every single page pop up when doing a site: search.

Have you submitted a sitemap into Google webmaster tools?

 

I'll stick a link on my website to see if that drives any traffic your way.

Do you do "discount codes" to track where traffic is coming from? (i.e. "get a pound off using code xxxxx" then see what codes give the most traffic & advertise there)

 

This is a good idea.. however I really can't think of a way to implement it easily. Do you think it'd do to just add a similar thing to the main 'cover image' of each product? (Still a massive ache but at least do-able)...

I had wondered that myself... obviously I've kinda got Gollum syndrome over it all now so it's hard to take a step back.. I'll try making the line width of the outlines at least 2pt see if that makes a difference?!

Don't worry you're not being, as I said I think I've got a bit of Gollum Syndrome (my preciousssssss) and maybe can't see as objectively as I'd like! With regard to simply more interesting and playful, I can see what you mean (some of their designs also seem to infringe a few more intellectual properties too) and I'll work on getting more and better designs, however I've got 40... which is more than I planned to launch with, and in fairness I've had to do everything (and pretty much all of it in the last three weeks) so I think I may have lost my funny along the way.

With regard to the more than one colour thing though... That's an equipment issue (i.e., I don't have the equipment to do >1 colour atm) that I was hoping to upgrade after an initial run...

To work on the designs, what would you have me do? I haven't the money or screens to do yet more designs yet (each design needs a screen and they cost....) I do like the idea of running competitions (stupidly that was going to be the plan for 'down the road'...)

Thanks. In regard to more text content, I actually can't see a way for me to do that in the shop I'm using (I'll be investigating more) (and I also still haven't seen any other tshirt site that does this?)

Colour; I'll get on with making the cover photo for more shirts !black, and I'll get together some more colourful banners etc...

Call to action; I'm not really sure how to implement what you mean? Maybe you could clarify for me if you have time?

Font; being as the CSS is a nested pile of evil, I would really rather try and leave that alone as much as possible but I'll have a look to see if it's something I can do without the whole website taking an arrow to the knee...

Ad; not sure what to say to this... I have tried to make it as muted as possible while still calling attention to the topics.. Not even sure what could be done to change this other than deleting the module all together..

I do appreciate the comments and I not trying to take any comment given negatively (within the scope of spending 8-10 years plotting this lol) I will look into everything.

Adwords; Their recommended amount though was 'too good' it auto bid me up to a £1 per click... and had me smack bang at the top block... whilst awesome for the five minutes that lasted.. it really isn't sustainable... I have very little money so I'm pretty much entirely reliant on free advertising and a £50 google adwords credit.. to put this in perspective.. yesterday's ads cost me over £8 and got me 15 clicks. If you'd be willing to offer a bit more help with this stuff could you PM me? Thanks.

I'll look into that, in fairness they're not oft used things so I didn't think it'd be much of an issue.. I'll definitely take it on board for next time I look at the module (which might be soon..)

Thanks I'll have a look what I can do, but as I've said.. the CSS for the theme is a Matroska Doll of evil! I will see what I can do though (without going insane and breaking everything..)

I think I've actually reached the limit of how many links will fit in that black bar without it killing off the search box stupidly.. I'll try and see actually about putting it in the 'Welcome to Headbocks, Sign in etc' block if you think that'd work?

With regard to less products on home, I actually used to only have 4 on there... and the abandon rate was really high, so I added more (as is now) and the people that are exploring through are greater by a huge factor.. I do get what you mean though, because I felt that way too but I'm wondering if people thought that's all there was and just gave up? I'll feature some in the banner at the top of home...

Thanks

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NINJA EDIT!!

... Right.. I'll be on that today then! I didn't realise it was that bad.. I had a friend help me with the product pages and tagging and to be honest neither of us know what we're doing so I'm going to go back over that today then. (if there's anything else I can do let me know please.. as I say I'm clueless about SEO)

I have submitted a site map.. I'm guessing I should do again after fixing tags...

I'll change the shop's name to something along the phrase you said.. should help!

I just noticed some traffic head my way from x404 as well! thank you, although sale runs until 22nd August not 2nd

I can do yeah, to be honest I was trying to not use too many discount codes in the opening offer as that'd kill even more profit off.. but definitely after..

I was actually thinking of throwing together something along those lines as a thank you for everyone who's helped in this thread.. so watch this space for that...

(If you want a discount code for your site or something let me know (PM) and I'll see what I can do )




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If there's anything else people think I should know please let me know...

I hope I've not come off as too defensive etc I really do appreciate the feedback (even if it hurts lol)

Cheers, J

 

What you could try is to have just a few special items or offer items on the front page, then big category boxes underneath. This would certainly attract more attention to the categories, which unfortunately isn't really happening with the small text in the navigation bar.

If you need more space in the nav bar, consider slightly expanding the width of the content. I noticed that bit-tech seems to be slightly wider than your website, which may restrict things. You could also combine all the categories under a drop down menu - Categories. Therefore you might have:
All T-Shirts | Categories | About | [Search]

[ Categories ]
Gaming
Offensive
Keep Calm
Design
Playful
Slogan
Popular Culture

 

Changing the width breaks pretty much everything lol, (tried before launch) and I don't think I've got the patience to go through everything to get that working...

The category drop down thing, it's doable (if I change the name of the category "T Shirts" to "Categories"..) but would that not just hide them more? I'll have a look and see how it feels..

For the sake of reducing the visibility of the categories is an About page's visibility at the top really that important?

 

Post updated. Keyboard must have not registered the 2nd press of the number 2.

Use promo codes after the opening sale. I'll quite happily put a box on my site with it in to try & drive traffic for you.

 

That would be really gladly appreciated, especially any reblogs/retweets etc on the social places