Well hello again from the friendly confines of my mind. Sorry that I am "late" with this, but I hope you will agree that I had a good reason. When I first conceptualized what I wanted Grandma's Attic to look like, I had thought of all of the other sites that I had seen before, and wanted something simular in design (although different in contact and purpose). When I searched for the place to host my site, I knew two things: first, I knew that I didn't want one for those freebie web sites that anyone can get...as I didn't want to put my "professional" e-commerce site on their network, and be limited by their rules and regulations (not to mention the popups or banner ads that I wouldn't even get paid for on my site). Secondly, I wanted to have the (artistic) control, while not having to worry about the nitty gritty of HTML coding. I had came across CitiMax.com: a place where I could build and host my site for a very reasonable price.
As I started to build my site (they give you 10 days for free to try it out), I noticed right away that there were some limitations; but all in all for the money, I could work around most things. In order to get my site looking somewhat professional, I chose a design template, and started entering the text. I found a really cool header that "spoke to me", so I used it. In fact, I saved the image on my computer, and then added some text to more "personalize it". I then uploaded the modified file back to the citiMax site, and am still using the image to this day. But there were things that I didn't like, but didn't know enough of their system to make the modifications. Instead, I plowed forward, adding page after page after page; until I hade a good working knowledge of not only my site, but of their system as well.
Now that the site has been up for a while, I decided to make some much needed changes to the site. The first and most important change I wanted to make was on the home page. To my opinion, there was just too much info, in the form of text, on the page. Second, it was more cumbersom to navigate...and I feared that people wouldn't be sure where they wanted to go; as there were quite a few navigation buttons listed. Lastly, you didn't even know what this site was about until you started reading. To address these issues, the following changes have been made:
- I eliminated about 75% of the text on the page. Most of the information that was their eithor didn't need to be because it was elsewhere, or it just wasn't needed.
- I moved several new products onto the home page, entitled This Weeks Featured Products. In doing so, I eliminated the Featured Products page altogether. By doing so, I hope to encourage purchases right from the start page...instead of navigating to it. Also, by making this change, people now should know right away, that it is an e-commerce site, that sells products.
- I eliminated about 1/2 of the tabs on the Navigation bar. There are now only 10 tabs, instead of the 22-24 or so that were there before. In order to do so, I needed to create a couple of new pages, and then place links to the old tabs in the newly created pages. By consolidating the tabs into "tab families" (logical divisions of related information), I hoped to make the navigation bar less crowded and easier to read.
- I moved the tabs from the left side to the top. I also changed the font type, resized the text, and rezided the tabs themselves. By doing so, I felt that the site would have better symetry, and not look off balance (yes, I really do think of these things).
Lastly, besides all of this, and all the many "little" things that I did, I also created two additional pages that will be used down the road. The first is a FAQ's page (every site should have one), and the second was a Glossery of Terms page. We will blog these items as they become available.
After doing an all nighter from Sunday (11/6) to Monday (11/7) to get these changes made, I slept for about 4 1/2 hours, and then started work at the site again. This time, I had some help from the outside. Two people in particular have helped my: first my friend Katrina from TN, and second, my friend Deb from Iowa. Both gals have helped me in "beta testing" the site; but Katrina has really gone above and beyond the call of duty. Katrina actually went page by page, tyring to hit all the links, and checking for any bugs. With her help, we found a couple of benine bugs: including a typo in the sub-title of one page. Katrina even went as far as to help me run a test sale (using bogus info) to test my systems order handling process. I was given a green lite by both of these wonderful gals. You can read their comments in our Guest Book. If you discover a bug in our system (even a misspelled word) please let us know by writing to us NOW.
I guess if I am going to give any shout-outs, I shouldn't fail to metion my good friend and neighbor, Alvin. Alvin has been working behind the scenes in helping me promote my site by giving out my business cards to his family, friends and business contacts. If everyone did as Alvin has done, I know that this community we're creating would become bigger than any of could possibly imagine.
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