I had the opportunity to take a look at The Felt Source, and would like to offer the following comments.
My very first impression as the home page drew on my computer (using a dial-up 56k connection), was “Too many graphic images!” It took about 50 seconds for the page to completely render on my screen. While I recognize that they probably want to display as much of the product as possible on the home page for the “1 page visitor”, I think it was perhaps a little overdone, and subsequent product pages might have been more appropriate for many of the images.
My next impression was that the site was perhaps targeted more at children rather than adult teachers. It was more the “feel” I got rather than anything specific, but the general use of color and the graphics used tended to turn me away. That said, I wonder if the teachers that would be the targeted visitors would be affected the same way. Probably not, as I know a couple of elementary school teachers who are always seeing things through children’s eyes. Something to think about though.
The #6 Google ranking for the single keyword “Felt” is excellent, and the site carries a very respectable Google PageRank of 5. However, I wonder how many people actually perform a search for that single term “felt”. When coupled with additional words like “felt teaching aids” “educational felt supplies”, or “felt educational aids” the site dropped off the radar screen. Targeting specific product pages I looked at the “Bilingual Finger Plays & Songs!” page and ran a search for “Bilingual educational material” and came up with no links to the site. I think a careful optimization of the product pages would help drive additional traffic in. Perhaps a survey of some elementary school teachers as to what search terms THEY would use would be helpful. One must remember that while the site developer might have one idea as to what customers would be searching for, this is often in stark contrast to reality. I’ve always found that surveys such as this yield invaluable information.
Not wanting to be a nitpick too much, I should say that from a marketing viewpoint the site has all the pre-requisite necessities,,,”FREE Shipping” prominently displayed, toll free phone number on every page (appropriately marked), a consistent look and feel to all pages with navigational bars to all key pages. If I were shopping for felt stuff I would feel comfortable purchasing from this company.
The site has been well indexed by Google, including several non-english pages. I would only reiterate that some targeted marketing of the interior pages would probably drive additional traffic to the site, and the focus on the interior pages should be on specific keyword phrases rather than individual words.
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Steve Kimbell – Business Manager / Webmaster / (& Trumpet player)
Oracle Band – Live music for all ages
Steve@OracleBand.net
www.OracleBand.net
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