Help me with the Mayfly website before I take it live

mayfly

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Hi folks,

I'm in the process of a complete re-do of the mayfly website to make it less Audiophile-centric and more guitar pedal centric.  I need your help!  Can you guys give it a whirl?  All comments welcome.  Well, I really don't want to hear about your cat, but all comments about the website welcome.

Sorry for the short notice, but I hope to go live monday 9pm EST. 

Here's the link:  https://www.mayflyaudio.com/page-3/
 
One quick bit of feedback from me, is that it may be better to make the amps and pedals site a separate site to the Audiophile site so that both are focussed to a specific audience.

 
Yep it would be... and easier to code as well.  But sadly I only have one domain for Mayfly stuff. 

Any other thoughts?
 
Mayfly said:
Yep it would be... and easier to code as well.  But sadly I only have one domain for Mayfly stuff. 

Any other thoughts?

Could you make a sub domain perhaps?
 
The link you posted above to go to page 3 resulted in a 404, so I went directly to the root of the domain itself.

First impression, the initial splash page with the logo then the timed redirect to the "About Me" page may be detrimental in the long run.  At first, I thought since all I see is the logo and no other content that you just have a placeholder up. It took me by surprise that it eventually redirected to content.

When you're trying to promote a product line, as a consumer, my first inclination is to want to get information about the product and what others are available.  I don't want to know your backstory as a first stop.  Once I review your catalog, THEN I'll want to learn about who you are and why I should buy from you.

So I would suggest focus on your products first.  Put all of that right up front, rather than the redirect mechanism. That takes precious attention seconds away from pulling viewers in further, because even I was tempted to leave your site, and I KNOW you make a product I'm interested in! :)

Another thing is to evaluate the optimization of the background images that load on the pedal & audiophile pages.  When I hit the audiophile page, it again took a few seconds for the background image to load before the important content. Once it DID load, it remained in cache so I could flip back and forth between pages, but that initial load took a little longer than I expected it to in comparison to other e-commerce sites.

For news or blog posts or what-have-you, if it's not current within the last week, don't post it. Otherwise, it makes the rest of the site feel outdated. I see news from June....does that mean you haven't paid attention to the site in two months?  As a potential customer, how should I feel about that?  Also, if I can't read the image that you posted, how much effort should I spend trying to read a static image that would otherwise be better served as text?

Remember accessibility.  If I'm visually impaired, that flyer you posted as the June news article about Evil Twin isn't going to do me any good.

Sorry this is kinda' all over the place. I'm commenting as I'm navigating.
 
I got the 404 error so I suspect you’re working on it.  I then typed in mayfly and got a fishing website.  I then typed in mayfly audio and got to your website.  I clicked on the pic of my favorite pedal and went to the pedal page.  It worked for me, I think you need to make it idiot proof by having a some sort of indicator that if one clicks on the photo they’ll get taken to the pedal page.  Looks good to me, but I click on things like a monkey. Bon Chance!
 
It looks like he is working on it as the 404 error was not there before but an actual page.
 
Gentlemen,

These are all great comments.  Yup I'm working on it (and yes the original link is gone now).  Ned your comments are all great.  Give me a sec to tweak all that up.
 
Hey Ned! 

I did a bunch of your suggestions:
1 - made the time on the splash screen much shorter.  Should be zero on fast connections.  Thinking about just removing the logo entirely, or maybe a 301 redirect. Or something.
2 - automatically re-directs to guitar effects page instead of the about us page
3 - drastically lowered the resolution of the effects page images - much faster loading.  Still need to do this on the hi-fi side.

Any other ideas?
 
i thought the site looked great,  very fast compared to other sites

although im not a pedal guy,  actually i usually dont even plug in,  as a matter of fact two of my guitars still dont have any wiring or pickups, i wish i had your know how to do that electrical stuff like sodderin irons and shit,  i should take a class

if i was going to buy one of your pedals i think i would go for the open windows, 
 
thanks guys for all your comments.  Got the site working much faster.  Still need more content for the  News page.
 
Maybe a description of the controls fopr each pedal. Even when obvious, It could help an undecided purchaser to purchase because it can be reassuring.
 
Not news, but more in the way of content, something that like what tech 21 did which is like a "settings page."  https://www.tech21nyc.com/products/sansamp/gt2/  which would be cool for the overdrive or distortions
or this
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/http://www.bbesound.com/products/manuals/GreenScreamer_manual_rev2.pdf

For the delay something like this would be cool
  https://www.premierguitar.com/diy/pedal-projects/best-delay-pedal-settings
Then you could have an examples of each.  I know, it's a lot of work to do this. 

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.zikinf.com/manuels/bbe-soul-vibe-manuel-utilisateur-en-43970.pdf

Anyway, the website is looking good.


 
 
Yup a common settings thing is pretty important.  I'm actually working on a compressor right now, and I found I needed it for my beta testers! 

Lottsa work, though.  I think I need to off-load that to someone else so I can get back to the chorus / flanger.
 
Gentlemen,

The site is up and finished.  I took advice from everyone and the site is top notch (or as top notch as I can make it) because of it.  Thanks again!

www.mayflyaudio.com

 
It looks pretty dang awesome to me, Trev.


That hand-wired amp thingy makes my mouth water, but it's not in the cards this fiscal year.  Sigh.
 
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