What do you think of our new category page?

[Syed1]

Hey Mozzers!

We have come up with a new layout design for a category page and would love to have your opinion on it, specifically from an S_E_O perspective

• Here is our current page: http://www.builddirect.com/Laminate-Flooring.aspx

• Our new page (pending approval):  http://www.builddirect.com/testing/laminate-flooring/index.html

Just to brief you in on the key differences b/w old and new layout:

Left text link menu is removed in new layout
New layout looks funny with JS disabled - long vertical line up of products(Perhaps important keywords/ content in new layout appears way down?)
Lot of 'clunk' has been removed (bits of text, links, images, etc)

Thanks for checking this out.

[KTaylor]

I'll take a stab. I like the big and more varied imagery of the new page.

I will say that opinions don't really get you all the way there. I would suggest (maybe you already are) testing the new paging for improved conversion, or other KPIs using Google Website Optimizer (free), or Visual Website Optimizer (my favorite and pretty cheap). I love to prove my own opinions wrong through testing!

• All elements of the headers on the old vs. new pages appear to have different pixel heights
• I found it hard to tell that there were products to choose from because the items that are in this category appear below the fold. I would consider doing something to the page (possibly moving the products higher?) to make it dead simple that there are products below that people need to be browsing through. Check out the Google browser size tool below for help on the lowest pixel to show the important stuff on your page

Those were a few things I noticed right away. I'm sure others will chime in as well.

Relevant Links:

www.google.com/websiteoptimizer

http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/

http://browsersize.googlelabs.com/

[Syed1]

We do use optimizely, which I believe is pretty similar to Google Optimizer. Both are JS based but from what I understand optimizely is a bit simpler to work on.  Thanks for the input!

[BailHotline]

Hey there,

The new version looks great! The larger images definitely do more justice with selling products, not to mention adding a clearer level of text hierarchy. Also the green call to actions, in the newer version, have way more prominence than the older yellow ones. As for SEO, I do favor the older title tag versus the newer one. I understand the older title tag is a bit board of a keyword however it makes sense seeing how you target specific keywords on the individual product pages. Also, the newer one seems to have just way too many characters and may over optimized. Lastly, be more concise with adding branding at the end of the title tag. For instance the newer home page has the company name at the end (which is awesome cause it increases brand awareness), but it doesn't seem to appear on the individual products page, which also has a potential to rank in search engines. Hope that helps!

[AlanMosley]

i would get some text above the fold,

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement.html

[Syed1]

Thanks Alan - we are doing this  as of now.  I suspect  it will come at a cost of conversions/ user experience. We probably we need a lot more testing and several pages to get the right balance and decide on one.

[AlanMosley]

i don't know, i seem to think more then one image is too much in one go. An image catches the eye, but a gallary bores them, one image and some easy to read suporting text getting your basic message accross.

Only when they are interested will more content be of use.

Thats my opinion