Like the title says
CK5
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What improvements would you make to our website?
- Thread starter Hogback Fabrication
- Start date
Lower prices?? 
The online catalog page is getting kinda cluttered up. Reorganize the categories and items
The online catalog page is getting kinda cluttered up. Reorganize the categories and items
I think its pretty good, how about a customers rig album
I like the web site since you updated it recently. Maybe some pictures of installed parts on customer rigs so we can see how they look on different vehicles. I like that you have added some new items. Wish I could afford a coil spring front end.
newer pics for the 10+ year old ones.
pics of more items. not just generic pics.
pics of more items. not just generic pics.
Which pictures, specifically?
Reorganized how?
Like you click on a link for front suspension and then get to a page with the 10 or so links?
name a few super old ones.
flip kit / greasable rear bushings / sway bar bushings / and no pics of the tuff country springs.
there is more i am sure.
flip kit / greasable rear bushings / sway bar bushings / and no pics of the tuff country springs.
there is more i am sure.
We need more "buy now" buttons in place of "call for details". In this case, if details are needed then add drop-down menus to get specific items such as brake line lengths, fitting sizes or even full hydro/hydro assist ram sizes, choice of power steering pumps, etc.
I can see the need to call to further explain details to change or modify a kit but not just for a simple kit. Just my .000000000002 cents.
I can see the need to call to further explain details to change or modify a kit but not just for a simple kit. Just my .000000000002 cents.
Jessie James
1/2 ton status
I would make the following changes, making note that I implemented these changes on several sites I ran with great results:
1. Install VbAdvanced for your home page. It's free and very powerful. When done right - a 3 column layout with member classifieds on the left, vendor listings in the middle (at 75% width), and recent posts on the right, you will see over 75% of visitors hit the home page. In addition, people will love the classifieds and vendor ads.
2. Break up the classifieds section better, into more well defined sections. For example, Parts & Trucks Wanted is a cluster of threads. It is difficult to use and would benefit greatly if broken down into proper categories. The proper categorization, for example, would be to break out Tires & Wheels into 6 sections: FS - Tires; Wheels, Tire & wheel combos; and then WTB - Tires, Wheels, Tire & Wheel combos. The same is true of the other sections. You don't even have an interior/exterior parts section, so that all goes into General. Trucks for sale could be broken down into Year/Series categories, such as Gen I, Gen II, etc. Finally, you should add sections for "Other Make trucks", "Cars - Import/Domestic" and of course Motorcycles. Yes, this is a bit of work to setup.
3. Look into VbClassifieds. This is a great system for classified listings. It has a nice universal format which forces users to include prices and location, which greatly helps sales. In addition, you can opt to charge for "upgraded" ads to make some additional revenue. You can integrate this into the home page as well. It has some great features which will help drive more users to the site. It does cost some money, but it increases traffic which should help drive more revenue to the site. (NOTE: Pick #2 or #3, but don't run both at the same time.)
4. Believe it or not, limiting users to shorter signatures helps increase readability on the forums and helps draw in new members. Disable the option for images in signatures as well as dropping the font size by 1 point. It helps make the content of the post the focus and clearly defines the signature. Users will complain at first, but you will then get more visitors, better SEO rankings, and ultimately people will come to enjoy the more streamlined layout.
5. Break up the technical sections more as well, and break up the years. 1973 to 1991 is totally ridiculous. My 1991 truck has virtually nothing in common with the 1973, so why should I wade through posts that have nothing to do with what I need to know?
6. Allow users to search on 2 letter words. Right now the search engine on the site forces 3 letters minimum. This does not add much load to the site - if any - but greatly benefits users who are looking for short words ... like years of trucks ("91") that people have typed into the site.
7. Be sure you are up to date with vBulletin. Being out of date exposes the sites - and user data - to hackers.
8. If you want more traffic, look into VbSEO. It is a commercial product which works well to get better SEO rankings. I recommend it highly.
9. Be sure your MySql database has an index on the Post table. Not having that can cause site slowdowns, such as slow loading pages, high server load, and slow searches. For more performance tips, see THIS article:
http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/268-vbulletin-optimization/
10. Install and integrate FlashChat. It's $5 and can be fun for users.
1. Install VbAdvanced for your home page. It's free and very powerful. When done right - a 3 column layout with member classifieds on the left, vendor listings in the middle (at 75% width), and recent posts on the right, you will see over 75% of visitors hit the home page. In addition, people will love the classifieds and vendor ads.
2. Break up the classifieds section better, into more well defined sections. For example, Parts & Trucks Wanted is a cluster of threads. It is difficult to use and would benefit greatly if broken down into proper categories. The proper categorization, for example, would be to break out Tires & Wheels into 6 sections: FS - Tires; Wheels, Tire & wheel combos; and then WTB - Tires, Wheels, Tire & Wheel combos. The same is true of the other sections. You don't even have an interior/exterior parts section, so that all goes into General. Trucks for sale could be broken down into Year/Series categories, such as Gen I, Gen II, etc. Finally, you should add sections for "Other Make trucks", "Cars - Import/Domestic" and of course Motorcycles. Yes, this is a bit of work to setup.
3. Look into VbClassifieds. This is a great system for classified listings. It has a nice universal format which forces users to include prices and location, which greatly helps sales. In addition, you can opt to charge for "upgraded" ads to make some additional revenue. You can integrate this into the home page as well. It has some great features which will help drive more users to the site. It does cost some money, but it increases traffic which should help drive more revenue to the site. (NOTE: Pick #2 or #3, but don't run both at the same time.)
4. Believe it or not, limiting users to shorter signatures helps increase readability on the forums and helps draw in new members. Disable the option for images in signatures as well as dropping the font size by 1 point. It helps make the content of the post the focus and clearly defines the signature. Users will complain at first, but you will then get more visitors, better SEO rankings, and ultimately people will come to enjoy the more streamlined layout.
5. Break up the technical sections more as well, and break up the years. 1973 to 1991 is totally ridiculous. My 1991 truck has virtually nothing in common with the 1973, so why should I wade through posts that have nothing to do with what I need to know?
6. Allow users to search on 2 letter words. Right now the search engine on the site forces 3 letters minimum. This does not add much load to the site - if any - but greatly benefits users who are looking for short words ... like years of trucks ("91") that people have typed into the site.
7. Be sure you are up to date with vBulletin. Being out of date exposes the sites - and user data - to hackers.
8. If you want more traffic, look into VbSEO. It is a commercial product which works well to get better SEO rankings. I recommend it highly.
9. Be sure your MySql database has an index on the Post table. Not having that can cause site slowdowns, such as slow loading pages, high server load, and slow searches. For more performance tips, see THIS article:
http://forums.asmallorange.com/topic/268-vbulletin-optimization/
10. Install and integrate FlashChat. It's $5 and can be fun for users.
He was talking about ORD's website not CK5
Jessie James
1/2 ton status
Whoops!
Well, first things first, as a vendor he should post a link to his website or put it in his profile so it shows up in the dropdown in his username. The rule of thumb is to always assume people don't know what you are talking about. More relative details are ALWAYS needed as people on the web often skim content and if they don't see something ... they leave.
Some folks (like me) also have signatures turned off, so if the link is in there we won't see it either, which renders his site invisible to many people.
Well, first things first, as a vendor he should post a link to his website or put it in his profile so it shows up in the dropdown in his username. The rule of thumb is to always assume people don't know what you are talking about. More relative details are ALWAYS needed as people on the web often skim content and if they don't see something ... they leave.
Some folks (like me) also have signatures turned off, so if the link is in there we won't see it either, which renders his site invisible to many people.
Yep, all the info is in my signature so if you have that turned off you didn't see it.
I added our website to the drop down box, thanks for the input!
not to mention the post is in the Offroad Design forum....
the site is "eh".. much better than the last version... but it could use some "pro" work.... more navigable, better menu's, more and better pics, etc.... tho it definitely looks like some stuff has been added in recent months...
the site is "eh".. much better than the last version... but it could use some "pro" work.... more navigable, better menu's, more and better pics, etc.... tho it definitely looks like some stuff has been added in recent months...
Definitely, I am certainly not a professional web designer (I'm an engineer in charge of R&D but I end up doing lots of tech support and website work too).
It may end up that I put all the technical stuff up there and have a pro finish it, just trying to get suggestions
well a couple format/layout things I'm not crazy about are definitely the catalog main page... i tend to like the main links on the home page across the top, but thats neither here nor there..
one thing i will say... i RARELY visit the site... it's the products and the rest is all about YOUR trucks.. not the slightest bit of tech... heck, if i had a webpage i'd do THOROUGHLY written descriptions on product installs and have a section for all that kinda stuff... heck, a page with a list of recommended trail supplies, anything... i love parusing thru different sites pdf files... heck, look at all the stuff ya find on site like TCI, PSC, BTO, etc...
and almost every small aftermarket parts vendor is the same, your absolutely lucky if your ever even graced with 1 page of directions when ya buy something...
that's one thing the big companies do well, obviously they have dedicated funding, personal, etc to help with that..... i understand everyone's a small operation and it may take some time, but after a couple yrs, there's no excuse imo...
the site isn't horrible... not like some sites who REALLY need a pro to go over theirs.. ***coughJessecough*
one thing i will say... i RARELY visit the site... it's the products and the rest is all about YOUR trucks.. not the slightest bit of tech... heck, if i had a webpage i'd do THOROUGHLY written descriptions on product installs and have a section for all that kinda stuff... heck, a page with a list of recommended trail supplies, anything... i love parusing thru different sites pdf files... heck, look at all the stuff ya find on site like TCI, PSC, BTO, etc...
and almost every small aftermarket parts vendor is the same, your absolutely lucky if your ever even graced with 1 page of directions when ya buy something...
that's one thing the big companies do well, obviously they have dedicated funding, personal, etc to help with that..... i understand everyone's a small operation and it may take some time, but after a couple yrs, there's no excuse imo...
the site isn't horrible... not like some sites who REALLY need a pro to go over theirs.. ***coughJessecough*
Could you elaborate on that?
We have instructions for just about everything we make, we should definitely get them up on the website.
Thanks again
Jessie James
1/2 ton status
Ok, here is my take on it. All in all, it's an "okay" site, but it could be a LOT better! 
> You are using a fixed width design. This does not allow users to take advantage of wide screen monitors. As a result, your site only fills about 75% of my screen and has a lot of empty white space on each side. Change this to a dynamic width layout.
> Animated GIFs have to go. They are distracting and old fashioned, basically telling users you are from the 80's.
> Mystery navigation has to go or be fixed. When I click on the About Us link and go to that page, now the link does not appear. The other links on the left side are now changed in position. In addition, there is a dramatic layout shift and everything moves up. You should have a standardized menu and layout. When you are on the racing page, the navigation jumps WAY down to the middle of the page. It should never move.
When I click some of the links, like the Hole in the Rock trip 2010, all of the sudden the navigation is completely gone from the left and is now up top. This is a very bad design.
Finally, your site references lots of other site links, but many are not in the nav bar. You should use a dynamic Nav bar that can keep up with all the links so they can be found from the navigation bar and not just the articles.
> Online catalog. Okay, that just has to go. It's clearly hand made and is hard to use. I can only imagine it is hard to update as well?
Buying anything takes you off site to some store provider, which is not very seamless to users.
I would recommend you look into some store software like OSCommerce (free) or CRELoaded (costs) and very powerful. Using that software will allow you to create categories and then slowly drill down to specific items, allow searches, show most popular products, apply discounts and coupons, etc.
In addition, you can handle payments on your site or via PayPal. PayPal lets you print shipping labels which is very nice.
> Product pages. Uh, they are very complex. You need to have a better system than listing everything on one page. Look at this page, for example:
http://www.offroaddesign.com/catalog/Dana60crossover.htm
You have options for a lot of trucks. That's okay, but you have to make it easy for people. Have links for the Make, then drill down to the year, the lift, and then whatever else. It should go like this:
Select your Make to view available products:
Chevy
Ford
Dodge
------------
Select your year:
1969-1973
1974-1987
1988-1991
------------
Select your lift:
None
2"
4"
6"
8"
------------
The products available for your truck are:
[list them]
------------
You MUST list every version of every product. If someone has to call you to get the "right" part for their truck, you have failed. It's like ordering a t-shirt - let me pick the color, the size, and the sleeve length online. All options MUST be available on the site.
Yeah, so that is some work for YOU, but it makes it easy for your customers who want to spend money - and easily. If you make it so they have to read through a list of 50 different versions they might feel intimidated or confused and be forced to call you.
Remember, the goal is to make it easy for people to find things and buy them. If your site is hard to use, people will call you, which makes the site unproductive and not doing a good job.
> What is the goal of your site? Are you a vendor who sells stuff? Are you trying to make money? If so, then your home page should be a new/hot/on sale SHOWCASE. Sure, you can have articles, but they should not come first. Products are what most people want, and if you focus on getting the product in front of the customer everyone is happy.
> Logo. Clicking your site logo should take you to the home page. Right now it does nothing. This is a web design standard. Go fix that!
> Omit needless words. Your homepage has several paragraphs on what you do and so forth, but that should NOT be there - it should be on the About Us page! No one reads most of that either, so keep it as short and simple as possible. Make the home page about products. Have a brief description of each one, and add a Buy Now button RIGHT THERE! Fewer clicks = more sales.
> Recommended products. Is someone buying a lift kit? How about you recommend they get a shackle flip kit or something else? If you have store software, you can often do this automatically and easily.
> Is it in stock? While you have products listed, it is always good to have the site keep track of inventory and be able to tell people if it's in stock (and will ship today) or will be a wait of xx days/weeks.
> Layout/graphics. The site is in desperate need of an update. Either find a new template and apply it or hire someone to make something for you. If you are smart, you will use a dynamic layout that has a header file (top, navigation), the body content, then the footer file (bottom part). That way the layout stays the same on all pages and you only have to update the middle content (you may already be doing this, of course!)
> Your site is green, but your links are blue. Come on, make the links either black (best) or green so they fit in. You can apply that change in your stylesheet in seconds! Ok, you don't have a stylesheet, go get one. You can apply changes to every page all at once, it's really simple!
> Product categories. You really need to make some high level categories and then drill down. You have two steering categories. That is silly. What you should have is sections for each Year/Make truck, such as 69-73, 74-87, and 88-91 etc. Then in there have "Steering" and then from there drill down to Steering boxes, Linkage, Knuckles, etc, for EACH series of truck. You may have to cross list on product many times, but at least people can easily say "Oh, hey, this will work with my truck."
> Be sure you do not list any products which are not available. If it is sold out, REMOVE it from the listing. If it is special order, make it very clear that it's not in stock.
> Nothing should say "Call us" for details, pricing, etc. You are only open 9-5, and I get off work at 5:30. I can never call you so I will Google search somewhere else that I can ask questions.
> Get a support forum. VBulletin is a great forum product, and if you add it and call it a customer support forum people can ask questions there. You can answer them at your leisure and then the answers are there for other folks. Make a link to each category in the forum from each product and category in your store (I.e., Store - Steering - link to "Steering" forum) so people can go look or ask questions easily.
> Hot products. What are your best sellers? List them on the home page and let people know they are hot! Explain why.
> Reviews. If you are using store software, people can post reviews. Based on that you may find out about problems with your products, documentation (or lack of!), customer service issues, etc. Let people provide feedback, both good and bad, so you can learn from it and improve the store, products, and site.
> Navigation again - once you are in the store, there is no breadcrumb navigation which I can click to see other products in the same category. I'm looking at softtops, for example, and there are links to steering parts. Why? Show me ONLY exterior parts. You even link to soft tops on the soft tops page! Tsk, tsk!
> Errors. One page has a link to "Coming soon". When I click that, it goes nowhere and I get an error page. (http://www.offroaddesign.com/catalog/steeringkit.htm). Fix that. You should have NO "Under construction" or "Coming soon" pages. Either the page works or it does not exist.
> Contact us. Your "disclaimer" of "A note about email - we're a small growing shop and try as we might, we don't always answer emails in a timely manner. If you have a time sensitive question, you will be better off calling for information." is horrible! While your intentions are nice, you are saying "We're slackers!" You should simply say "Please allow 2 business days for replies, or post questions in our support forums [link]." And if you give out your email address, you MUST REPLY TO EVERYONE!
> When people do contact you and ask a question about a product, you should UPDATE the product. If one person asked, then 9 other people have the same question. Save yourself headaches and improve your search engine rankings at the same time by putting more content with each product.
Think about this - when you guy something from Amazon.com or Best Buy how do their sites work? They allow people to quickly and easily find products by searching and drilling down. You should too.
I hope that helps. Don't cry too much, I do web design for a living, so I just call it like I see it!
> You are using a fixed width design. This does not allow users to take advantage of wide screen monitors. As a result, your site only fills about 75% of my screen and has a lot of empty white space on each side. Change this to a dynamic width layout.
> Animated GIFs have to go. They are distracting and old fashioned, basically telling users you are from the 80's.
> Mystery navigation has to go or be fixed. When I click on the About Us link and go to that page, now the link does not appear. The other links on the left side are now changed in position. In addition, there is a dramatic layout shift and everything moves up. You should have a standardized menu and layout. When you are on the racing page, the navigation jumps WAY down to the middle of the page. It should never move.
When I click some of the links, like the Hole in the Rock trip 2010, all of the sudden the navigation is completely gone from the left and is now up top. This is a very bad design.
Finally, your site references lots of other site links, but many are not in the nav bar. You should use a dynamic Nav bar that can keep up with all the links so they can be found from the navigation bar and not just the articles.
> Online catalog. Okay, that just has to go. It's clearly hand made and is hard to use. I can only imagine it is hard to update as well?
Buying anything takes you off site to some store provider, which is not very seamless to users.
I would recommend you look into some store software like OSCommerce (free) or CRELoaded (costs) and very powerful. Using that software will allow you to create categories and then slowly drill down to specific items, allow searches, show most popular products, apply discounts and coupons, etc.
In addition, you can handle payments on your site or via PayPal. PayPal lets you print shipping labels which is very nice.
> Product pages. Uh, they are very complex. You need to have a better system than listing everything on one page. Look at this page, for example:
http://www.offroaddesign.com/catalog/Dana60crossover.htm
You have options for a lot of trucks. That's okay, but you have to make it easy for people. Have links for the Make, then drill down to the year, the lift, and then whatever else. It should go like this:
Select your Make to view available products:
Chevy
Ford
Dodge
------------
Select your year:
1969-1973
1974-1987
1988-1991
------------
Select your lift:
None
2"
4"
6"
8"
------------
The products available for your truck are:
[list them]
------------
You MUST list every version of every product. If someone has to call you to get the "right" part for their truck, you have failed. It's like ordering a t-shirt - let me pick the color, the size, and the sleeve length online. All options MUST be available on the site.
Yeah, so that is some work for YOU, but it makes it easy for your customers who want to spend money - and easily. If you make it so they have to read through a list of 50 different versions they might feel intimidated or confused and be forced to call you.
Remember, the goal is to make it easy for people to find things and buy them. If your site is hard to use, people will call you, which makes the site unproductive and not doing a good job.
> What is the goal of your site? Are you a vendor who sells stuff? Are you trying to make money? If so, then your home page should be a new/hot/on sale SHOWCASE. Sure, you can have articles, but they should not come first. Products are what most people want, and if you focus on getting the product in front of the customer everyone is happy.
> Logo. Clicking your site logo should take you to the home page. Right now it does nothing. This is a web design standard. Go fix that!
> Omit needless words. Your homepage has several paragraphs on what you do and so forth, but that should NOT be there - it should be on the About Us page! No one reads most of that either, so keep it as short and simple as possible. Make the home page about products. Have a brief description of each one, and add a Buy Now button RIGHT THERE! Fewer clicks = more sales.
> Recommended products. Is someone buying a lift kit? How about you recommend they get a shackle flip kit or something else? If you have store software, you can often do this automatically and easily.
> Is it in stock? While you have products listed, it is always good to have the site keep track of inventory and be able to tell people if it's in stock (and will ship today) or will be a wait of xx days/weeks.
> Layout/graphics. The site is in desperate need of an update. Either find a new template and apply it or hire someone to make something for you. If you are smart, you will use a dynamic layout that has a header file (top, navigation), the body content, then the footer file (bottom part). That way the layout stays the same on all pages and you only have to update the middle content (you may already be doing this, of course!)
> Your site is green, but your links are blue. Come on, make the links either black (best) or green so they fit in. You can apply that change in your stylesheet in seconds! Ok, you don't have a stylesheet, go get one. You can apply changes to every page all at once, it's really simple!
> Product categories. You really need to make some high level categories and then drill down. You have two steering categories. That is silly. What you should have is sections for each Year/Make truck, such as 69-73, 74-87, and 88-91 etc. Then in there have "Steering" and then from there drill down to Steering boxes, Linkage, Knuckles, etc, for EACH series of truck. You may have to cross list on product many times, but at least people can easily say "Oh, hey, this will work with my truck."
> Be sure you do not list any products which are not available. If it is sold out, REMOVE it from the listing. If it is special order, make it very clear that it's not in stock.
> Nothing should say "Call us" for details, pricing, etc. You are only open 9-5, and I get off work at 5:30. I can never call you so I will Google search somewhere else that I can ask questions.
> Get a support forum. VBulletin is a great forum product, and if you add it and call it a customer support forum people can ask questions there. You can answer them at your leisure and then the answers are there for other folks. Make a link to each category in the forum from each product and category in your store (I.e., Store - Steering - link to "Steering" forum) so people can go look or ask questions easily.
> Hot products. What are your best sellers? List them on the home page and let people know they are hot! Explain why.
> Reviews. If you are using store software, people can post reviews. Based on that you may find out about problems with your products, documentation (or lack of!), customer service issues, etc. Let people provide feedback, both good and bad, so you can learn from it and improve the store, products, and site.
> Navigation again - once you are in the store, there is no breadcrumb navigation which I can click to see other products in the same category. I'm looking at softtops, for example, and there are links to steering parts. Why? Show me ONLY exterior parts. You even link to soft tops on the soft tops page! Tsk, tsk!
> Errors. One page has a link to "Coming soon". When I click that, it goes nowhere and I get an error page. (http://www.offroaddesign.com/catalog/steeringkit.htm). Fix that. You should have NO "Under construction" or "Coming soon" pages. Either the page works or it does not exist.
> Contact us. Your "disclaimer" of "A note about email - we're a small growing shop and try as we might, we don't always answer emails in a timely manner. If you have a time sensitive question, you will be better off calling for information." is horrible! While your intentions are nice, you are saying "We're slackers!" You should simply say "Please allow 2 business days for replies, or post questions in our support forums [link]." And if you give out your email address, you MUST REPLY TO EVERYONE!
> When people do contact you and ask a question about a product, you should UPDATE the product. If one person asked, then 9 other people have the same question. Save yourself headaches and improve your search engine rankings at the same time by putting more content with each product.
Think about this - when you guy something from Amazon.com or Best Buy how do their sites work? They allow people to quickly and easily find products by searching and drilling down. You should too.
I hope that helps. Don't cry too much, I do web design for a living, so I just call it like I see it!
Jessie James
1/2 ton status
One other thing, I would ask the admins here to change your username of OffRoadDesign.com. That way people know (a) you are a vendor and (b) what your site is. Simple and effective! While some guys may know you are a vendor, not everyone does, and you should advertise your name as much as possible!
