Yeah, I was about to reply saying that it looks exactly like a link farming placeholder and he should probably change that. Then I realized no one would willingly make their site look like a scam page.
Currently redirects to the link noted above, which in turn goes to a site with a poor Web of Trust reputation (search discovered . com – link intentionally broken).
I don’t understand the navigation. What’s the essential difference between what’s listed vertically along the left, and what’s listed above in tabs? How is “Hot Favorites” different from “Most Popular”? If I were looking for a particular item, how would I know where to look? The visuals should guide me to where I need to go. But they’re just sprinkled around the page seemingly at random.
Also I find the colors and layout to be very cold and corporate. You say you’re looking for an old-timey look but that page doesn’t have that feel at all for me.
Can you perhaps collaborate with a graphic artist who can provide some suggestions and maybe some artwork for you?
Sorry to sound negative, but you were looking for a critique. Good luck and I hope it works out.
People replying this afternoon June 24th:
The site is down. The page you’re seeing isn’t the site, it’s a placeholder page from the webhost.
Yeah, I think her card was declined. She is very undercapitalized. I’ll post to the thread if it comes back up. Thanks everyone for the good advice.
Well, here’s hoping your future website gains her lots of success. I’m all for organic farming. The less corporate, pesticide-ridden GMO farming, the better!
Disclaimer: I didn’t read any of the other comments, and I just glanced at the site.
One thing- for an organic food site, I’d like the colors to be organic-y and food-y, not so dark and monochromatic. Prolly gotta have some green.
**Blocked by my Trend Micro.
“Dangerous Page” **
Any other Trend Micro people around here?
Yeah, I don’t like the URL as a title. It is a confusing run-on. You should have the title as “Sylvia’s Organic Farm” and the URL in a smaller form underneath.
OP, I suggest you ask this to be locked, as people seem to still want to comment on the locked page without first noticing it’s not a real page.
OK, I have rehosted the page and am giving this thread a bump. Now I have a specific question, when the user makes a comment or signs up for the newsletter, I send an acknowledgement email, which is from “server@silviasorganicfarm.com”. The problem is that my hotmail is bouncing that sender into the junk folder, and I assume other webmail services will probably do the same.
Anybody know a way to make this less of an issue other than reminding new subscribers to check their junk folder after they register?
Thanks for all the excellent suggestions. I will be implementing many of them over the next few days. The page isn’t looking exactly right because when I lost the other host somehow I didn’t have all the images from the banner/navigation thingy on my local drive. :smack: Working on fixing that, so bear with me.
Again, thanks for the help!
I’m just going to jump in and recommend that you test the page for color-blindness. Some color-blind people are going to have problems viewing it because of all the green you have going on in the site. There are several sites offering simulators that will show how people with this problem may view the site.
Or better yet:
info@silviasorganicfarm.com
Never thought of that! Care to let me know about one?
What I want is something that won’t be filtered into the junk box by most of the e-mail programs. server@silviasorganicfarm.com may not be the best one.
That’s odd. I never knew your own server would be considered junk mail, why?
I have an email set up on through dad’s website, and it was never filtered.
This is outgoing mail to confirm the receipt of any comment or to confirm a newsletter subscription. It will also be the address that the email newsletter originates from. If you go to www.silviasorganicfarm.com and navigate to the contact page you can give it a try. Just don’t check any radio button and you won’t be subscribed to the newsletter. (unless you want to be! ;))
Most filters work on keywords, and unfortunately a lot of confirmation emails have those kinds of terms in them. You can’t do too much about that, and just have to ask people to check their spam filters (and add your email address to their whitelist), usually written near the submit button or email form field.
Most likely the cause of your problem is that you are sending the mail from a shared hosting web host.
Usually when sending from a shared web host, the email headers will indicate it was sent by some obscure server, like “mailserver3.webhost.com”. This domain will not match the “from” domain in server@silviasorganicfarm.com, and some email clients / spam filters will note the mismatch as an indication of spam or falsified headers.
This may or may not be the reason in your case, but if it is, there’s really not much that you can do about it that I’m aware of.