Please help me improve our website

Hi guys,

I’ve posted this website before - https://itsgrowli.com

I’m not a web designer by any standard and this is a very simple design, so I could really do with some pointers on how to improve the site, there’s obviously plenty I’ve overlooked or not thought about. So any help would be greatly appreciated and for any UK based helpers (we only ship in the UK), I’ll happily give you a discount code in return for your efforts.

I’ve used Ecwid buttons on each page, which does slow down the page loading some what due to the code size from Ecwid. I also use lazy loading from an external server, depending on your location or device type there may be an initial delay in sending images to your screen, but once cached this is usually pretty quick.

Thanks in advance for any help or guidance you can offer, Dave :slight_smile:

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Hi @DaveC, I haven’t gone through everything by any means, and just looked on my phone while having morning coffee, but nice site!
It’s the sort of nice clean look I like, just a couple of observations, and this is purely personal.
I had no trouble with load times
There are a couple of places of red copy on black where I did not initially see the red, maybe lighten up a bit?
And the last thing, and this is definitely personal! I’m not a fan of pure black text in white unless the whole site, pics included, are black and white, so maybe a mid-grey to soften it?
But if that’s your first attempt - well done!

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No slow down at all here in Germany.
Great site.

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Thanks Pal, that is very helpful. I’ll have a look at those

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Thank you, that’s great to know. I’m always a bit paranoid when I see the dreaded Google Pagespeed results lol

After loading a page the picture flickers.

screencast 2021-04-23 09-57-31

And now just had a look on desktop.
Same comments as before, plus I noticed on your FAQ page that you’re using a blue link colour - you may want to look at a couple of background box colours, it’s quite jarring in the red/purple, and hardly stands out on the paler blue.
One last thing, again a personal thought, it looks like your headings and body copy are all the same typeface (Helvetica?), it could give a bit more interest if you were to change one or the other to a different font - maybe a slight serif for headings and the Helvetica for ease or reading body copy?
To end on a plus point, it all works nicely on the desktop and various sizes as far as I can see, without delving in too far.
It’ll be good to see the journey it takes with people’s thoughts in this thread.

Hmmm, not for me on my phone and a couple of browsers, @Bootsie

That is strange, I’ve not come across that before. I’ll take a look

Yes all system fonts at the moment, I’ll look into this thank you

It looks like it only happens when testing different devices in developer mode with Firefox.
Sorry for that.

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Nice site, love the simplicity. If you don’t mind me asking, where did you get those features at a glance icons? I’ve been looking for icons that are simple and attractive.

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Thanks for the feedback. I got those off icons of shutterstock.

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Now I am NO web programmer…so just a user giving you a thought.
Everything seems to load fine…and I am in the back woods of New Hampshire where we can’t even get cable. No slow down at all…
I think your site looks great. The only comment I would make is that home page scrolls down a LONG time. Maybe break that up a bit? Just a comment…
Looks great to an average consumer…

Do I get a discount for my opinion? :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

Rich

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Thanks for the feedback mate, I was thinking along the same lines to be fair. Your more than welcome to a discount code, you may need to enter UK airspace to collect the package though lol

Thanks…and no worries!! Good luck with the site…

Rich

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Hi, great site and interesting product,

a few points from an iPad, I’ve got a thing about phone numbers being formatted ‘correctly’ and splitting the second part of the number into two parts is not ‘correct’!

On the contact section I have to scroll past the text to get any contact details, although the live chat is visible. I’d expect to see a number and/or email address without any further scrolling or clicking, after clicking on contact.

I think there are too many email addresses there, also they aren’t links, so I’d have to select, copy and paste. Maybe have fewer addresses, and set the link up with a subject for the email like “supplier query from website” also , the :frowning: at the end of the last two might be better if it was an icon/emoticon?

:slight_smile:

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Hi there,

Thank you, I’ll take a look at those. Our contact page is pretty much our least viewed page, we did initially have links to the email addresses, but the spam we got through them was a pain, I can of course protect them with Cloudflare; I’ll take a look into that.

The phone number I suppose is regional thing around here, we all do it.

Cheers!!

Hi @DaveC,

Hope you are well.

First of all, from first glance I love what you have done and it all flows really well - so nice one on that, really clean and works nice and a great site.

Now as being an events person, I do talk my mind to help people - and my views are only what I would do, and not critical of what you have done, as what you have done works…so please do not shoot me ! lol.

  1. On the home page, soon as I land, I feel as if the header/banner needs to stand out. The section you have feels the same as the rest of the website. The image you use with the hands holding the bowl would look AMAZING full size on the top of the page and the text and logo and your buttons built in it, maybe with a little more transparency to make the text stand out. But this will give the WOW factor as the user logs on and invites them into your shop/site/store.

  2. I would have double the space around each section to visually/mentally give the mind space to read and take in the text. The images and text you have are great, just can have 3 sections in a row queuing to be read. Many might not agree, but when I did a quick course a long time ago on creating presentations on keynote/powerpoint this was something which was drummed into me.
    Users need focus on what they are reading. This is why Apple have a lot of white space around there sections. One person who does this very well is @Eldar too. Space is blank, but space offers ease to read.

  3. Your header text - I would get a little creative and use a stand out font or maybe keep it in line with your logo text, keep the same bold font as that and bring that white and same red into it.

  4. Some of text on the website has text over images as a jpg, I would keep all text as text overplayed, great for SEO too.

  5. I would have the icon logo top left in the nav bar a little bigger and make the nav bar a little bit bigger.

  6. Your red logo, I would have this as your Favicon too.

Just a few things I personally would do - but its great as it is - nice one.

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That’s awesome feedback, thank you so much. I’ll take a look at those points :+1:

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