Very New Canvas Art Site

[Espirito]

espiritoart.com - Espirito Art buy canvas art prints and personalised artwork

Hello

This a new website for a very busy market. In time, the commission services will be fully automated which will offer a lot more flexibility for creating personalised art than most competitors (basically you'll be able to commission virtually anything you want). Apart from that, the 'gallery' artwork on display is little different to most, and we have a popular fine artist on board with exclusive online sales of his work.

I am looking for feedback on whether it looks and navigates well, and whether it is clear what it is for.

Feedback I have had so far, which I am looking into is:-

Method of Payment - needs to be displayed on the homepage, as full card payments and paypal are accepted.

Colours - some comments on the red used being too strong

Flash animation - some issues with jerkiness

Text - Fonts too big on main page

Anything else anyone can comment on would be great, plus whether you agree with the feedback i've already had or not.

Thanks a lot!

[NikkiPilkington]

I don't usually like sites with black backgrounds, but I think in this case it works well.

I don't like that you only have a PO box as a contact address - it makes me worry about how I will get in touch with you should their be a problem.

The art itself is gorgeous - very very classy stuff.

As far as SEO goes, you have the same title tags on every page of the site, and I presume the same META description. The copy isn't very search engine optimised, but this may not be something that you are considering at the moment.

Parts of the site (the front page for example) have quite a professional feel, but others (about us, links) look as if they've had no thought put into them and are there as fillers - not as well laid out at all.

Great products though - I hope you do well.

If you are looking at SEO and want to DIY, you can get a free copy of 299 Steps to Website Heaven, my ebook here.

[Espirito]

Thank you Nikki for taking the time to have a look through, I appreciate it.

PO Box is a difficult one. I only put an address on because it is required. As there is no need to carry stock, there's no need for premises so the business can operate from home. However, I wanted to give a professional feel and thought a PO Box was more pro than a home address? If you ask Royal Mail, they will disclose the registered address behind any PO box anyway - but unless you know that I can see your point.

My brother built the site, so I will take up the tags issue with him. I am working on more volume and more targeted copy at the moment so that should get a little better shortly.

Those two pages you mentioned are fillers at present, yes. I am working towards them becoming more informative and worthwhile (more like the product quality page) at the moment also.

All in all, I appreciate your help very much - thank you!!

[Mat]

At first glance, the site looks great, as do your products. One thing I noticed is that the product pages (e.g. here) display the image above any text. Scrolling is always an issue for inexperienced web users, and it may be worth changing the product page template to combat this (With the title, breadcrumbs, and a note to say "scroll down for purchase information" above the image).

Also, if you're planning to market through the search engines, Nikki's site is a great resource

[Mark]

Originally Posted by Espirito

If you ask Royal Mail, they will disclose the registered address behind any PO box anyway

If you're concerned about this, why not use an official 'office address' which only the Courts, the Police and HMRC can ask for details?

[Espirito]

Thanks everyone

Mat - Totally valid point and seems obvious once stated - thanks a lot, will work on that! Particularly as more and more traffic is coming from search engines where people are searching things like 'river art' - and coming directly to the page you used as an example which is a mounted and stretched canvas print. They need to see that straight away.

[saxon68]

I also dont like black back drops but i must say this site does have appeal and is nicely presented.

[Mat]

Originally Posted by saxon68

I also dont like black back drops but i must say this site does have appeal and is nicely presented.

I think a black backdrop can be extremely effective when used correctly.