Please take a look at my website

Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
AlexL

AlexL

Member
Joined
Jul 24, 2008
Messages
94
Location
Fuquay Varina, NC
Hi everyone, after seeing the great response George (Texatdurango) got to look over his website I was wonder if you could do the same for me. Me and my mom built this website ourselves using Microsoft Office Live. My mom did most of the website work and my dad took the pictures, I just make the pens. We are still working on the customize a pen pages but most of the rest of the site is done.

www.pensforcollege.com

thanks for your help, alex
 
Last edited:
Signed-In Members Don't See This Ad
Hey Alex,
I'm impressed.. a great young man like yourself doing for himself.. good on you. Right up front, as a youngster working towards his college is a sales gimmick that should work for you, where it won't for use older geezers..

I didn't go all the way through the site, but what I did see was well done and as I said above, I'm impressed, both with your initiative and your skill as a craftsman.. you do great work.
Wishing you the best of luck!:star::star::star::star::star:

Only thing I saw to correct...
First page... "assembled them with" (need to take out the carriage return here... you may have to change the "top-of-the-line" so the length fits.. take out the hyphens.. they don't really belong there anyway.)
 
good job Alex.

My only recommendation is that your business lose the 24k kits. The platings on those will wear fairly quickly and may harm your reputation down the road. Stick with the Chrome, Platinum and Titaniums and you'll likely never get a complaint regarding the platings.
 
Alex,

I went through the entire site, you are off to a great start, but there are some things ive noticed...

1) i do not offer anymore pens in the 10k or 24k range, the low wear resistance doesnt help with pen sales

2) simplify...a lot of the pages are cluttered...especially within the product gallery. If you offer all those pens styles, they should have their own pages. you should try and minimize how far they have to scroll on each page. if they have to scroll very far down, whoever is looking is going to give up on your site.

3) eliminate the natural finish...in the long run, the only thing people are going to remember is you putting out a bad product. when the finish wears off and all of a sudden, it looks bad. they will remember that. Just include the cost of the finish in the price of the pens.

4) try and compress the material pages, too far to scroll to the bottom.

5) try and simplify your prices, It is great that you offer a lot of different platings at different prices, but that might start confusing people. Make them simple enough so people know what they are getting and at what price. too much clutter

you are off to a great starts, website management is a science, and it will never be perfect. It can take a very long time to get something the way you want it to look. mine almost took a year to get designed, developed and published. keep up the good work




6)
 
Well I gotta say, that is some fine work you're doning. I agree with the point on the prices. They jump around a bit. It kind of looks like you have every aspect of your pricing figured down to the penny for each of your pens. it seems a little too calculated. I like to keep my prices the same depening on the line. you make more or less profit on each one depending on which plating you use. but if I see a 60 dollar difference in two pens that aren't very different, I might choose the least expensive one, even if it isn't the one I prefer. great job on everything though. the site looks great and your work is fantastic. and I don't mean that it is good for a twelve year old...I mean it is great work...period.
 
Nice looking site I enjoyed watching the video which is very clever. If that doesn't get someone to buy a pen, I don't know what would!

One thing I would certainly change though.... On you "Contact Us" page you have a black background with light text boxes. Had it not been for the small red balls or stars or whatever they are, I would have missed the small green text and not known what to put where.

Tell your dad he is a SICK man. No one keeps a shop that clean! :eek:
 
Texatdurango said:
Nice looking site I enjoyed watching the video which is very clever. If that doesn't get someone to buy a pen, I don't know what would!

One thing I would certainly change though.... On you "Contact Us" page you have a black background with light text boxes. Had it not been for the small red balls or stars or whatever they are, I would have missed the small green text and not known what to put where.

Tell your dad he is a SICK man. No one keeps a shop that clean! :eek:
Click to expand...

Remind me to introduce you to Rod Kirby (bt3central member)
 
It's very good. Most of the small things have been noted already, I really like it. I'd like to ask permission to steal your basic flow and design for the idea of 'Custom Order Pens' . I'll be sure to make mine different enough that I'm not copying, but I really like the idea and would like to implement it myself at some point in the future.

Great site, and I suspect that you will be very successful, both with the pen site and in life overall.

Tip 'O the Cap to ya

Steve
 
Alex, I congratulate you on having set a wonderful goal, I also would like to congratulate your parents on having a son with feet firmly planted on the path to knowledge.
Your web site is quite nice, other than the minor flaws already noted, your work looks very good and the testimonials speak well of your work, keep it up.
 
ozmandus said:
Hey Alex,
Only thing I saw to correct...
First page... "assembled them with" (need to take out the carriage return here... you may have to change the "top-of-the-line" so the length fits.. take out the hyphens.. they don't really belong there anyway.)
Click to expand...

Fixed!
Thanks, alex
 
wizical said:
Alex,

I went through the entire site, you are off to a great start, but there are some things ive noticed...

1) i do not offer anymore pens in the 10k or 24k range, the low wear resistance doesnt help with pen sales My dad agrees and we are looking into this

2) simplify...a lot of the pages are cluttered...especially within the product gallery. If you offer all those pens styles, they should have their own pages. you should try and minimize how far they have to scroll on each page. if they have to scroll very far down, whoever is looking is going to give up on your site. I'll tell my webmaster about this

3) eliminate the natural finish...in the long run, the only thing people are going to remember is you putting out a bad product. when the finish wears off and all of a sudden, it looks bad. they will remember that. Just include the cost of the finish in the price of the pens. Good point

4) try and compress the material pages, too far to scroll to the bottom. we are working on this now. We are planning on separating the materials into different pages

5) try and simplify your prices, It is great that you offer a lot of different platings at different prices, but that might start confusing people. Make them simple enough so people know what they are getting and at what price. too much clutter OK

you are off to a great starts, website management is a science, and it will never be perfect. It can take a very long time to get something the way you want it to look. mine almost took a year to get designed, developed and published. keep up the good work Would you believe my mom and me did this in 3 weeks?

6)
Click to expand...

Thanks for your help, alex
 
Texatdurango said:
Nice looking site I enjoyed watching the video which is very clever. If that doesn't get someone to buy a pen, I don't know what would!

One thing I would certainly change though.... On you "Contact Us" page you have a black background with light text boxes. Had it not been for the small red balls or stars or whatever they are, I would have missed the small green text and not known what to put where.

Texatdurango said:
Tell your dad he is a SICK man. No one keeps a shop that clean! :eek:
Click to expand...

Who do you think has to clean it?:befuddled:

Thanks for your help, alex
Click to expand...
 
Tn-Steve said:
It's very good. Most of the small things have been noted already, I really like it. I'd like to ask permission to steal your basic flow and design for the idea of 'Custom Order Pens' . I'll be sure to make mine different enough that I'm not copying, but I really like the idea and would like to implement it myself at some point in the future.

Great site, and I suspect that you will be very successful, both with the pen site and in life overall.

Tip 'O the Cap to ya

Steve
Click to expand...

The "Customize a Pen" area was my dad's idea and he's working to get the concept patented and copyrighted. Just kidding! Sure you can use the idea.

Thanks, alex
 
Wow, Great site and outstanding pens! Loved the video...Now I understand how the knots are made :).

It may just be me, but the black background bothers me. Have you considered a mid tone gray? I know it will also mean changing your font color, so it may not be worth the effort to change.

I also love your sense of humor in your posts here.

Dave
 
Alex,

If my full time job didnt get in the way, i probably could have gotten it done faster, but I wanted to make sure the wording was right too. That takes a long time in itself. You are going to read it over and over and make changes, websites are ever evolving. good luck.
 
Hi Alex,

Congratulations on getting your site up and running.

You're doing a great job on the turning. The pens look great.

I haven't gone all the way through the site yet but, personally, I like the black background.

Couple little things I noticed that you might want to adjust.

1- (sort of touched on) is the materials page. Some of the pen pictures don't line up with the wood picture and name. It gets worse the farther down the page you go, but separating the materials onto their own pages should help.

2- On the description of the platings on the Dictator, it says "both" but lists 4 plating choices.

I'll look around more and let you know if I find anything else.

All around, the site looks good. I really like the testimonials section. I'll have to download the viewer to see the video. is it free? You might want to add something about it's cost.

In no time at all, you'll be giving us advice on our pen turning. Actually, I think you are good enough to do that now. You're turning some really beautiful pens.

Good job.
 
wizical said:
5) try and simplify your prices, It is great that you offer a lot of different platings at different prices, but that might start confusing people. Make them simple enough so people know what they are getting and at what price. too much clutter
Click to expand...

I disagree. Alex, I think that you're on the right track pricing your pens according to the cost and effort to make them. That's being smart. I think that most people are going to be able to understand that some platings and features are going to cost more than others.

Good job! What a fantastic idea to save for college. Your parents are helping you to learn to value of work and are essentially tripling or quadrupling their investment into your college "fund". I love the idea.
 
Last edited:
wizical said:
Alex,

If my full time job didnt get in the way, i probably could have gotten it done faster, but I wanted to make sure the wording was right too. That takes a long time in itself. You are going to read it over and over and make changes, websites are ever evolving. good luck.
Click to expand...

Mr Brooks, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be disrespectful. I know you are building your web site from scratch and that is a LOT of work. We don't have any web site experience so we used a drag and drop template program which is a whole lot easier. I really do appreciate your help and you comments. alex
 
ngeb528 said:
Hi Alex,

Congratulations on getting your site up and running.

You're doing a great job on the turning. The pens look great.

I haven't gone all the way through the site yet but, personally, I like the black background.

Couple little things I noticed that you might want to adjust.

1- (sort of touched on) is the materials page. Some of the pen pictures don't line up with the wood picture and name. It gets worse the farther down the page you go, but separating the materials onto their own pages should help. We are working on new pages based on tables to get things to line up better

2- On the description of the platings on the Dictator, it says "both" but lists 4 plating choices. Fixed!

I'll look around more and let you know if I find anything else.

All around, the site looks good. I really like the testimonials section. I'll have to download the viewer to see the video. is it free? You might want to add something about it's cost. Good point. The Silverlight viewer is free. We will add a note on the video page.

In no time at all, you'll be giving us advice on our pen turning. Actually, I think you are good enough to do that now. You're turning some really beautiful pens.

Good job.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your help, alex
 
Impressive. I think it's great that you have a desire to be responsible and save for your education. I also want to give kudos to your parents for teaching you the value of working to help fund your education.
 
Alex
I applaud you for your endeavor on pen turning and wanting to become a physician, two very rewarding fields. Don't ever give up on either. So for I'd say you are off to a fine start. Med school is very expensive but worth every cent. I love the web site and won't address any of those issues since it looks like thats been addressed already. You Rock Dude! ! ! - & congrats to your parents too, they are to be commended.
 
Alex,
I must say that your workmanship looks great and quite advanced. Your parents are to be commended for their inspired parenting and you are to be commended for your willingness to work to achieve a dream. I wish you luck in your venture and look forward to hearing how the endeaver plays out. I am sure that the fine folks here are rooting for you and will be share their experiance with you. I also suspect that you will be teaching us some tricks before it is all over.

Steve Hull
Richardson Texas
 
AlexL said:
Mr Brooks, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be disrespectful. I know you are building your web site from scratch and that is a LOT of work. We don't have any web site experience so we used a drag and drop template program which is a whole lot easier. I really do appreciate your help and you comments. alex
Click to expand...

your not being disrespectful, no worries man! I was making a joke, you are doing a good job. Keep it up
 
ngeb528 said:
Hi Alex,

Congratulations on getting your site up and running.

You're doing a great job on the turning. The pens look great.

I haven't gone all the way through the site yet but, personally, I like the black background.

Couple little things I noticed that you might want to adjust.

1- (sort of touched on) is the materials page. Some of the pen pictures don't line up with the wood picture and name. It gets worse the farther down the page you go, but separating the materials onto their own pages should help.
Good job.
Click to expand...

We made a temporary fix for this. We added a table to the materials page to keep things lined up. http://pensforcollege.com/materials.aspx

Next we will separate the woods and acrylics to different pages.

Thanks, alex
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom