GCU Forum - Look-See

Norval_132688 Gold Member artist Posts: 908	Look-See Jun 24^th, 2008, 2:23am I saw something I really liked in one of the stores and I think a customer would appreciate. It was in Alda's store, she had used the artist notes for' 'sentiment reads' and then the copy. A copy intensive cover on a card at the size a customer sees when pointing on it is really hard to see. In the artist notes it was very readable.
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Tom_133317

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Re: Look-See
Reply #1 - Jun 24^th, 2008, 4:26am

That is a workaround that must be a tremendous amount of work for Alda! How sad!

Clearly viewing the card-products that we all have for sale is one of areas that needs improvement. I have had numerous customers not purchase my cards because they say even the Large Image view was just too small to appreciate the "art" of my photos or allowed them to read the front text. It must be a disaster for Alda's beautiful work.

GCU's large portrait view is about 505px361p (5.26" x 3.75 at 96dpi) making smaller front text nearly impossible to read. This is about 20 square inches on a typical screen. I suspect a lot of GCU sales are lost because many of our products are just too hard to view or read.

Here is one of Alda's cards in LARGE VIEW. I had a hard time making it out.

This is an absolutely beautiful card but it is so unreadible at this image size that I doubt any will sell, sadly.

Zazzle's large card view is 850px600p (8.7" x 6.2"), 54 square inches on the screen - almost 300% larger, and reading the small text is no problem.

Here's Alda's card at these dimensions (provided to me by Alda Tues 7pm CST):

Doesn't the large 600p-wide view really work far better?

Imagine how spectacular our GCU cards would look at 600p wide!

TOM

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« Last Edit: Jun 24^th, 2008, 5:05pm by Tom_133317 »

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Alda_133805

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Re: Look-See
Reply #2 - Jun 24^th, 2008, 5:22am

Hi Norval and Tom,

Great topic. The reason I started using the artist's notes was due to a friend visiting my shop who said she couldn't read the card copy. It was the only solution I could come up with and hopefully is helping, but as Tom said, it is extra work. (I have since limited the longer verses that I am using on cards....it's kind of forced me to keep it short and sweet.

) Anyway, it would be great if GCU could move on the larger size image as Tom suggests. I agree that it would help sales throughout the site.

BTW, Tom...your cards are FUNNY!

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Norval_132688 Gold Member artist Posts: 908	Re: Look-See Reply #3 - Jun 24^th, 2008, 11:23am Tom----YES-------Shaun investigate----------I won't have to keep cleaning the nose smuches off my computer screen!
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Alda_133805 Senior Member artist Posts: 485	Re: Look-See Reply #4 - Jun 24^th, 2008, 12:33pm LOL!!!! and I was wondering why my eyesight is going!
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Mindy GCU Administrator Community Manager Posts: 6567 Gender:	Re: Look-See Reply #5 - Jun 24^th, 2008, 2:30pm We will certainly look into this. One possibility as well would be an actual text field for front verse like inner verse which would provide good search engine content too although that still requires retyping or copy/paste as Aldo is so diligently doing today.
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Tom_133317 Gold Member artist Posts: 2169	Re: Look-See Reply #6 - Jun 24^th, 2008, 3:27pm Yes, a large clear image view would help significantly. I am so glad GCU will look into this. By the way, the Zazzle landscape Large view is 840p wide.
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Kathy_131728

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Re: Look-See
Reply #7 - Jun 24^th, 2008, 5:19pm

This is an interesting topic. I have never had a problem with the view with any of my cards, but I can certainly appreciate why those with lots of words on the front might have issues. One thing I would suggest is that the view, if enlarged, not be larger than the actual size of the card the customer would get. I think the closer to the customer seeing the card as it will be the better, but larger than 5 x 7 may be a bit misleading. Just my opinion...of course. I think part of the reason zazzle may have such a large view is that many of their products like t-shirts for example have a larger print, so they are trying to give the customer a good view. GCU is limited to greeting cards which I think does make a difference.
Kathy

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Ernestine_131365

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Re: Look-See
Reply #8 - Jun 24^th, 2008, 5:49pm

Yes, I do think a larger image would be beneficial to cards with copy or a lot of detail. For the ones with copy (like Tom's, Alda's and others) wouldn't Mindy's suggestion of a text field - I'm assume this would be repeating the "image text" - help in the search?

Am I correct in assuming, Tom, that the actual word per word copy on the front of your cards doesn't appear in search engines, but if it was included in "notes" or a "text field" it would? Wouldn't that help you and other "heavy text in image" artists? Granted it would be a lot of work though to add it all again after the fact.

Alda, your workaround using the "notes" is a great idea!

Ernestine

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Alda_133805

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Re: Look-See
Reply #9 - Jun 24^th, 2008, 5:59pm

Tom,
Thanks for the post update...you seem to be very computer savy.
Looks like there are several good ideas kicking around to help with text heavy copy. I appreciate everyone's efforts in finding a solution. It can only benefit us all and help sales.

Thank you all!

p.s. I just did a search for the first line of my poem that Tom posted and it does bring the card links up! So, any text that is typed in the artist notes is searchable.

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Tom_133317

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Re: Look-See
Reply #10 - Jun 24^th, 2008, 6:30pm

Hi Ernestine -

I did look at a card detail page HTML source code and the Artist Notes are embedded, so, yes, they will feed those hungry search engines and could "help" in getting a higher search ranking.

I'm not sure my image text, however, is worth adding as additional keywords. I'm trying to fine tune the keywords I have now to better match what a googler would type. That's a chore in itself.

The risk is that making changes can hurt you as far as the search engine is concern. They provide you bonus points (you rank higher) if your pages are hit a lot and remain unchanged over time. However, it's very fussy all and all.

You can google on something like "paper greeting card thank you teacher" and a GCU card will show up, but it's not exactly clear why that specific page or card ranked higher than the dozens of other like it here. Many factors are used and the weight of these factors change. It drives SEO programmers nuts.

By the way, I can't wait to see a LARGER VIEW of some of your cards. You do some amazing work!

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Ernestine_131365

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Re: Look-See
Reply #11 - Jun 24^th, 2008, 7:20pm

Thanks Tom!

for the compliment. . . is slow going sometimes though, with everything else. I'm curious, how did you make your copy larger and bring images in on the forum posts? Huh

(Though I appreciate your going back to "regular size" text, sometimes the big type - like capitals - can seem like "shouting.") Wink

We have cards similar to yours in the shop where I work for the season, yet they're not nearly as clever, but alas sell for much less than GCU could do. It's too bad.

Ernestine

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Alda_133805 Senior Member artist Posts: 485	Re: Look-See Reply #12 - Jun 24^th, 2008, 7:29pm Ernestine, I agree with Tom about your art...it is AMAZING. I've been meaning to tell you for some time now.
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Tom_133317

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Re: Look-See
Reply #13 - Jun 24^th, 2008, 7:48pm

Oh - sorry about the larger type. The forum type just seemed so small on my screen.

I will provide a link to my bag of posting tricks below, I just ask that those who chose to use them be very respectful applying them on GCU. It could get out of hand and I don't want to cause trouble. I do think that some things, like posting some images of site problems, helps communicate certain issues, and since GCU hasn't scolded me yet, I think they, so far, think my usage has been OK.

Here is the Bag o' Tricks for all those geeks out there!

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Ernestine_131365 Gold Member artist Posts: 853	Re: Look-See Reply #14 - Jun 24^th, 2008, 11:49pm Tom- Thanks for the phpBB code link. I agree, it has been helpful to be able to point some things out visually, since so many of us are visual beings. In Firefox I can view the text in forums bigger, which I need to do to read some of those long posts (like my own ) can't you do that in IE? Thanks Alda! Ernestine
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