Help -- New website-- www.lafayettecheese.com

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Permalink Reply by Lisa Parker on January 20, 2009 at 7:33am

Why do you think that you're doing wrong? I've seen your site and it looks fine to me. I'm not an expert in web development but I do have some points to share..

Blog is a great way to communicate with your existing and future customers through blog posts and comments. I can see that your website is all about cheese. I think there are a lot of articles to share in your site with regards to cheese. And besides, in terms of search engine optimization, constantly updated websites (with blog posts) will boost your rankings. Higher rankings in search engines means more potential visitors who will visit your site. That means more sales!

Some pages are already indexed by Google, which is a good start. (lafayettecheese)

Creating and maintaining a website eat too much time. I suggest hiring a webmaster to lessen your workload. Anyway, you have goddady's assistance in creating the site including some marketing, it must be easier than doing it by yourself.

Good luck to your business Dana. Hope all are fine and more power!

Lisa

Btw, I read your blog post in your blogspot blog, http://lafromageriedelafayette.blogspot.com/. Your first post titled "The Beginning" is very inspiring!


KaTom Restaurant Supplies and Equipments

Permalink Reply by Debra Straka on January 20, 2009 at 7:46am

Dana,
Love the french cafe look, as well as your menu board. You could, however use some styling when it comes to your "selections page." In general you lose people when you have just verbage, or in your case cheese selections alone. You are using a pop-up when it comes time to order that carries wonderful pictures of your selections (the pictures are your best selling point.) You could probably just go with that page instead of having the two.
Not to worry the bugs will work out over time as you see what works for you and what doesn't. Keeping it fresh is what is most important, especially for your returning customers. Lisa is right, this can be time consuming (it takes a good chunk out of every day for me) and you might be better served to hire someone who can take the workload from you.
I also like the blogging suggestion ~ at the very least a comment page. Internet shoppers like to see satisfied customers before they jump into a purchase.
Good luck ~ you truly have an interesting business.

Permalink Reply by David Curtis on February 5, 2009 at 7:02am

Dana, I would say that it is a great start for a small startup. As the technology guy, I would offer the following suggestions:
The home page should absolutely have either a direct link to or the full location and contact information. Whether for the wholesale, internet, or eventual retail location, folks doing business with you will want better location and contact info then provided or available on the shop site. (It took me a while to figure out where Acadiana is)
Please review your site for consistency in fonts, type, sizes and colors. A consistent look and feel is important, dramatic changes in any of these stand out starkly and can distract.
You will need to speak with your ISP or host provider about getting a secured server, you ask for a lot of personal address info on your sign up page, but are not doing so in a secure manner. I have not looked at your actual shopping cart / payment pages, but they absolutely should be on a secured server or using secured services.
I agree with Debra, find a way to combine the two sites as soon as possible, or at least make the navigation between the two more seamless.
One last thing, as a cheese lover myself, under your cheese selection page, expand upon the listings to describe the cheese, it's uses and foods / wines that each cheese goes well with. Sort of a great way to educate the casual cheese lover like myself.

Finally, in the discussion thread "Do Restaurants Really Need a Web-site", I offer some basic suggestions on what a basic web site should contain. Take a look and see if that can help you at all.

http://www.fohboh.com/forum/topic/show?id=1411008%3ATopic%3A254780


Great Start