Please critique my website! Newbie here

What is your budget?

Hey Ramzy

"going the dreamweaver way" is like saying "I'm going the Word way" for writing a book. It's just a tool to modify the html.

I would suggest you use Wordpress, which help you to easily manage your site. I can't judge the site builder you are using, but the page looks pretty plain and uninteresting.

What worries me most - the "animation" in the middle takes a long time to load, for little effect....

Cheers,
Rob

for that, you can *easily* find some great guys on freelancer.com who will do a complete overhaul of your page.

Cheers,
Rob

Well, the easiest way within your budget would be: install wordpress, look for a nice premium theme (there are dedicated themes for your niche) and modify that to your likes.

The design you have now is plain and boring so NOT suitable for a jewelry store where you want a royal, comfortable and rich feeling.

Hope it helps,
Alex

I recommend you use wordpress to build a very good and functional estore. I have been a web designer for 5 years and I have worked with all the major CMS and find WP the most crisp of them all!

I would add eCommerce to your web site and redesign it completely, that way you can sell online too instead of limiting yourself to just walk-in business.
Contact me and I can do an overhaul on your web site within your budget. Just use contact form on my site - Buy backlinks, Quality link building services, Buy Backlinks Cheap

I recommend you to convert your site in to word-press. Its an easy way to control your site by yourself

Design the site look like e-store, which can bring best look. As mention above Wordpress will be easy installation and maintanance

Hi Ramzy

I am not offering you any services but i will speak from a potential customers perspective.

When i visit a jewelry site, i want to see a lively and interesting site not boring at all. A kind of site which makes the jewellry look finer, and create an impression that the owner of the business are seriously in business which eventually leads to increased sales.

Am sorry that this may sound harsh but it is my opinion. YOUR PRESENT SITE LOOK LIKE A SCAM SITE.

Now here is my opinion:
You certainly can build a site, sure but i advise that you get a web designer within your budget to build a word-press e-commerce, catalog, or storefront website for you using jquery not flash example: English - Casato Roma
it is a jewelry store too.

And after you get a freelancer from here (service offer section, or on odesk, or on freelancer, and even elance) then you can begin to learn word-press by updating content yourself.

But not learn to build you start by modification.

Hope this helps
Thank you
Anastacia

Hi Ramzy,

I agree with others about using WordPress. There are ecommerce plugins that will help you. There is a WSO that shows you how to build a site for businesses just like yours, called Grab Apple. I had a quick look but couldn't find it, so you might want to spend a little time doing that.

I'm in the process of building a similar site for a frined of mine, but I'm using Serifs WebPlus X5. It might be worth your while investigating that too.

Web Design, Photo Editing and DTP software | Serif – Inspiring Creativity

HTH

Glenn

I agree about using wordpress - it's easy.

You targeted the right market in this economy - sell your gold for cash and weddings. People are struggling to make ends meet and they will sell their gold. Make it easier for them to do so by offering an online service - research an online competitor who is offering a service to buy gold. Not sure how they do it, people will be weary of sending their gold without some sort of guarantee.

Weddings are also a good market. Even in the worst of economies, people are still going to get married, so your wedding rings would be one of the top selling items.

Take photos of your inventory and post them. You don't need a merchant account to start, you can use paypal. Quick and easy. Okay, I see you do have photos under the fine jewelry link. It took a really long time to load. Most people would have hit the back button on the browser - consumers are not a patient group. If you can't get the load time down, just post the photos.

You can do this on your own and if you do the work, it won't cost you a dime. You can even keep your existing hosting account, just select another theme that is more attractive.

Find something that makes your company better than the other guy. Maybe you could offer free shipping - put that cost into your product. Start a blog about weddings, selling gold?

Good luck!

With your budget you need to be prepared to spend a lot of time creating a professional looking site as you are competing with larger companies with huge marketing budgets in a market where presentation and professionalism matters so much.
I would look at other sites and list the top 3 that you think portray what a customer is looking for, then spend a lot of time learning how to customise wordpress until you get the best aspects of those sites, there are some really useful seo plugins. Remember to backup regularly so that you dont lose your work.

^^ What they said ^^

Edit: here's a nice premium WordPress jewelry theme for $45 to consider:

with affiliate link: http://tinyurl.com/8xl9oes

non-affiliate link: http://tinyurl.com/2dcddup

Sometimes a good website design is needed along good online marketing, after you've design the whole website (the old one is bad, sorry) use shopify (not free) for easy online store, it's safe and you don't have maintain the security of your customer safety.. or if you want to try a super free easy way to sell jewellery online try etsy

You can visit jewellery/fashion related forum to promote your products or go to fashion events in your city. Usually niche market of jewellery design are for college students/ young businesswoman... or maybe I'm wrong?

hope this helps

i cant see any mistake of your website. but you got huge number of replys.
Good luck

Ramzy, I can help you with the design of your page and within your budget limit. Contact me on Mossbrooksmedia.com