Feedback request: How does sundayslicers.com perform on your device and browser?
-
Hello! As per the title, it’s been suggested that I seek support from peers in this community to validate the experience users might get when visiting my site.
So, if you’ve got 2 minutes free, please can you go to http://www.sundayslicers.com, have a click around and then report back on any glitches you find (or if it all seems fine), and how you viewed it (mobile / desktop, browser, OS etc.)
I’ll be happy to return the favour if helpful.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
-
Thank you @sundayslicers for posting this, it’s exactly the type of engagement that we really want to encourage students from https://wordpress.com/learn/ to participate in.
Just in case anyone lands on this and wonders if it’s a legit request… yes, I verify that it is 😊 And it’s the type of request that we encourage other students to submit as well.
We each have limited access to the various devices and browsers that we can test, and even Internet network connections can be different. So sharing information about experiences with different sites from different locations, devices, and browsers, can really help site owners understand how their site functions for visitors, or if there might be some improvements that can be made.
And just to confirm, I’m one of the team members that manages our Learning Hub 😊
So please, keep the feedback requests coming and flowing! 😊
-
Many thanks @tanjoymor for validating / endorsing my request.
Let the floodgates open… :-)
-
Well at least I got a non-staff response!
Not entirely sure how passing a Cisco exam will help, but thanks so much for the input!
@tanjoymor – FYI…
-
Hi, @sundayslicers 👋🏻
Thanks for bringing this up — it looks like a spam post, so I removed it.
Keep up the excellent work with your site and by helping the community 🙌🏻🏅
P.S. That’s a nice site you got there 😊
-
Thanks for being part of the community, @sundayslicers! I’d love to see more posts like this and more folks reviewing each others’ sites.
Well done on getting that content up! That’s what makes the site worthwhile and I love that you’re staying on that!
What do you have planned for the Calendar section? If you’re looking for ideas, I’ve had some luck on personal projects with an Upcoming Events shortcode, with a CSS snippet to hide any data I didn’t want to show there (maybe someday we’ll make a better block that has those settings built in instead). You can see an example here and a smaller version of the same thing on the front page.
Also, noticed most posts have white space between them, but not the Latest Featured Articles on the home page. Is that intentional? I’m on Macbook + Chrome (both current) with a decently large external monitor.
-
Hi @supernovia and thanks so much for taking a look at my site!
Ah yes the Calendar is now empty, following a hectic golf season – I need to update that, even if it’s just UK events next year. I use the Events plugin, and it works really well – great to see it’s removed that section from my home page now that (as of this week) there’s no events to show.
The latest 3 feature articles on the home page is using the Blogger widget – it should tile them with the text appearing when you mouseover? (unless on mobile when it displays at the same time as the image). For me it looks quite cool
-
Ah! That makes sense. And yup, I do see the zooming text effect when I mouse over any of the articles!
-
Hi @sundayslicers, I first looked at your site using a mobile and later in the day via laptop. Having a lot of photos helps enormously with a website, and it is very well laid out. The thing that took my eye initially (from mobile) was the logo, perhaps it was the sun, then I saw the little golf flag, and then it was soon confirmed that your site had something to do with golf, then the name of the site made sense.
The only two things which struck me was that there didn’t seem to be a page where you could just browse all posts from most recent first, and there didn’t seem to be a way of making a comment.
Being also in UK, and having had a first golf holiday from our base in Inverness I played Fortress and Rosemarkie and I remember the par 3 by the lighthouse well, because I played four golf balls to try and hit that green in a gale. The first three with three different clubs all landed within 10 metres of each other, and when I took the driver out at the top of the swing the wind died down and I hit the ball 20 metres over the green. It was really funny at the time, I think the clubs were 7 iron, 5 iron, 3 iron, driver, but this was in 1978 a long time ago, and the story might have been adjusted from the truth over the years.
I remember the holiday well, we also played Nairn. Presumably you didn’t get up to Royal Dornoch, this was my favourite and Tain was lovely as well. But it was the first day in Strathpeffer I remembered. Two of my friends who had done the last bit of driving only played 9 holes, and when the two of us turned to play the last stretch, down in the valley there was some sort of mist, and 30 minutes later we were inside a rain cloud, and we got soaked. But I had bought some new waterproofs especially for the trip, and they each managed to contain 2 inches of water in the two front pockets.
Kings course at Gleneagles was our treat for the journey back South. For an 18 handicapper I started Birdie, Par, 9. The Birdie was a 60 footer (or more) where I lined up hitting the ball initially up hill before it curved all the way round to the hole, a bit like the 16th at the Masters. The starter had pushed us out just in front of the final of a national contest (we had been late by an hour because of the rain) and we were asked to step aside for a couple of hours after the fourth and were taken to a marquee where we were given several whiskies. The sun came out when we resumed, so we could enjoy the course, just finishing the last in the dark. There were a few puddles to navigate. Great holiday all round, but a very wet one!
My course is Saunton in North Devon.
Good luck with your website – Andrew
-
Hello @sundayslicers let me join in as well.
Firstly, I love how clear the site’s message is. You know exactly what it’s about straight away which is great.
A few thoughts.
I really wanted to see the faces behind the site on the golf course. Do you have a group picture or even individual ones of each of you golfing or if only one person wants to show their face, of you golfing? I just felt I wanted to see the people behind and a photo holding a golf club would show you are out doing what you love on the golf course.
Do you have anything you could offer as a lead magnet? On your business plan, you could add something like MailPoet to send out an email with a fact sheet, or some sort of advice, or almost anything when people sign up to encourage them to join the list?
I don’t think it’s a problem starting in Cheshire, in fact, I think it’s a big plus because you can focus on where people in your area play and then build from there. There are a lot of golf sites but how many will be geared up to Cheshire players. Not many I imagine. So this helps you niche and get a core audience before you expand. It doesn’t mean you have to only do Cheshire courses, but anywhere a “Cheshire person” might go.
The final thought was with the first line of the top paragraph. It felt like the first few words should have been in bold and bigger to grab my attention.
Overall though, this looks like the start of something amazing! I love the focus, the style, the site so far. It’s great!
I hope that helps and of course keep us all up to date!
-
Hi @maximosecrets and thanks so much for taking the time to review my site!
The positive feedback is naturally appreciated, as are the questions and suggestions.
I deliberately switched off comments as, frankly, until the site has a lot of visitors, it might expose the ‘newness’ of the site… let alone if the comments were negative. All of the pages have the articles listed in reverse chronological order, but you’re right – there isn’t one page with everything on because I didn’t want the site to be too ‘bloggy’, and more of a digital magazine site.
I’m envious of all the fantastic courses you’ve played! We didn’t get up to Royal Dornoch, but we played Moray on top of the 3 reviews already shared, so should have that written up soon.
Big thanks again for your help.
PS – I love Saunton (the place – never played golf there), and last week found a signed beer mat from David Coleman, who I met at Saunton Sands Hotel! I know Maximo pretty well too – small world!
-
Hi @rickswpress and many thanks for taking time to review my site.
The bit on showing faces is an interesting one. The Instagram page has videos of friends I’ve played with, but I’ve intentionally not had faces on the website as I don’t want it to look like an ego project, and I thought it might detract from the beautiful imagery (weather willing!) I will reflect further on this though.
I already use MailPoet! Slightly concerned that this wasn’t obvious, as there’s CTAs at the top of the home page, bottom of every page, and via a popup after 15 seconds. There’s then an automation setup to send a welcome email, and I send a weekly newsletter every Friday. Until recently I also had a high value signup incentive (prize draw for exclusive Porsche putter).
Thanks for the feedback on the Cheshire piece – it does give me a focal niche to build out from. If only Blaze worked as it purports then I could utilise that, and I’ll look at Google AdWords with keywords of Cheshire and Golf etc.
When you suggest bolding the first line of a paragraph, where do you mean? On the home page, or for each article?
-
Hi @sundayslicers!
Even if I don’t know anything about golf (except for the Wii Sports Golf game), I looked at your website to share a newbie point of view. First, the pictures that you selected are stunning.
I had a small delay opening the main page. It might be that my computer is crammed at the moment (I have more than 10 Chrome tabs open). However, I mention this just in case the pictures are causing the delay. You can always consider reducing the quality just a little bit to improve your website’s performance.
Also, I would recommend that in the reviews of the different courses, you could spice it up a little instead of having all the titles follow the same structure. How? You could say: Breathtaking views in the XYZ course. The most challenging: the ABC course, and so on.
I hope this helps you :) You could also take a look at my blog and share your honest opinion. Have an amazing day!
-
Whoops, wrong link. My blog is: https://astriddavilabio.wordpress.com/ @sundayslicers
I accidentally pasted the blog to your course review page :)
-
Hello @astridhelps
Thanks so much for your input – this is exactly the sort of engagement I had in mind, where a fellow site owner reviews as a peer, and I return the favour!
You’re right, on both counts. There can be a delay on loading the home page – I’ve tried it on many devices and it’s just about tolerable (for me, and I’m impatient, but that doesn’t mean others aren’t less patient or have worse connection). Slider Revolution does have that trade-off seemingly, but I love the carousel of beautiful images. I’m wary of losing quality, but if I knew that (say) I could reduce by 10% and no-one would notice, and page load would be 30% better, I’m all ears…
The course review titles are very pedestrian, it’s true! I wanted them to be functional and to have the right SEO attributes. I also didn’t want to cheapen them with sensational headlines, plus TBH I’d worry about characterising a club in one fitting short title. But you’re right, and I’m going to give it more thought.
So, I took a look at your site – here’s my thoughts:
The content is strong, and clear.
The information on the services offered are interesting to read.
Some things I’d consider looking at:
The format of the home is a little chaotic – layout, different fonts / sizes etc.
The sponsored content is slightly distracting. I wasn’t totally sure where it ended until I looked closer. If it’s paying you well, please do educate me on how to drive the visitor numbers to make it worthwhile!
The stock images mean it lacks a little personality – since you’re happy to show your face, who not make it more prominent – you’re selling you!
As an English person (and not everyone will share my view), I find American English off-putting (i.e. ‘specializing’) – it implies that your focus is the US and countries that speak their version of the language, which is fine, if correct.
I figured out what ‘COT’ means, but maybe not everyone will look at your LinkedIn profile and work it out.
Hope that’s helpful – I wish you every success with your various endeavours.
-
Oh, I’m afraid that the only way to know if the loading speed improves would be to reduce the quality of some images and then test the website again. However, you’ll need to see if it’s really worth it.
I wanted them to be functional and to have the right SEO attributes. I also didn’t want to cheapen them with sensational headlines, plus TBH I’d worry about characterising a club in one fitting short title.
sundayslicersYes, I get it… you don’t want to transform the reviews into clickbait posts (I hate clickbait). In this case, if you know if a course specializes in something or has a very particular feature, you could use that :)
Also, thank you for the feedback. I will confess that after I read you, I thought, “Oh, I might have been putting so much emphasis on the posts that I missed taking care of the homepage appropriately.” So, I have added a reminder to my calendar to work on that next week. Fixing the images will be a little bit more difficult as I’m currently working in a “non-aesthetic” place, so I cannot get nice original photos. I might need to go to a public library or rent a coworking space for a day to take photos (I might as well use AI to get them).
About the Sponsored content… I didn’t add that. My guess is that it was WordPress? Not sure about this one, tho. I don’t have a paid plan, so I can’t include ads.
Regarding English, I learned American English, and I heavily rely on Grammarly for British English. I don’t think that it’s a good idea to mix them up on the website (more, I’m sure I use both sometimes). I guess I’ll stick to American English now and might take a course in British English in the Future.
Again, thank you so much for all your insights! I have a bunch of helpful to-dos, and I’m looking forward to completing them. I wish you the best in your endeavors as well. Hope you get tons of help!
-
Give this a hope
For the record, I didn’t read whole thread, but I feel like I have no more skills to do this (or I messed this around by my randomly clicked and hoped it got better).
I clicked the link http://www.sundatslicers.com and my browsers (safari, chrome, Firefox, edge…) also redirect to https://sundayslicers.com no matter how I try to click and stop WITH my iPad, iPhone.
I checked the console got a lot a mess code by MAC macOS 13.0.
maybe this is not what u asking for, can someone help? My knowledge on IT is quite mild….
-
Hi @charlie102810
Not sure I totally understand the issue. I guess the typo in the first link is where you’ve typed it out rather than a link you’ve clicked? What’s the issue with the second link? Do you mean because it’s adding an ‘s’ to http? I believe that’s standard for links now.
The second link works fine for me – are you saying it doesn’t for you?
-
Your golfing tales are both entertaining and vividly descriptive! Your journey through various courses in Inverness and beyond, battling the elements and unexpected twists, paints a picture of a truly memorable golfing adventure. From the windy par 3 by the lighthouse to the rain-soaked rounds and unexpected breaks for a dram at Gleneagles, your anecdotes capture the essence of a spirited and eventful golf holiday. It seems like a wet but thoroughly enjoyable experience!
WordPress.com Forums 