Hi David!
Some of my notes that hopefully can help you to see it through potential user eyes.
* The top section on website “Join our British Drinks, Days Out & Destinations Facebook Group JOIN HERE” directs users away from your website. This is one of the main areas and why would you want to do that?
* Why do you direct users four times away from your platform to social media? Because of the algorithms and healthy community, I wouldn’t recommend doing that. It should work opposite that you direct users from social media to your platform.
* “JOIN HERE” Do not forget to give your users some cookies and a quick overview of why they should join and be a part of your journey.
* Call to actions are useful but it seems you have them too many and for the same thing.
* “Discover a World of Great British Drinks” This whole area is too vague and bold. If only this area takes the almost full size of the screen then it might have the same effect if you are trying to watch tv so close that your nose is touching it. PS: you can check your data to see how many web users use 13-15” laptops and if they use 100% of their screen size (what most of them do) then it might have some attention lost issues there.
* “Recent Blog Articles” Blog takes more than full-screen which is too much. Make it compact: “Read more” is not the necessary same thing with the summary. Also the positioning!
* “Recent Blog Articles” ——> “View All” button: if you highlight “View All” like this it takes too much attention from other content which. “View All” button should be about fourth category thing so no need to highlight.
* “Our Latest Podcasts” Use space wiser.
* “Want to see your business on this banner?” You are trying to sell a banner place for a company. With that, you can cash in only from one company at the time. Why don’t you bring 8-12 (+ expand) companies products and deals on the home page so you can cash in 8-24 times more? Also which company would like to see their competitor’s big ad on the platform where they try to do business/spend time and effort, especially when
britishtippleclub.co.uk hasn’t improved it’s spot on the market yet …
* “Feature Your Business on this banner” same thing as with another banner. There are better options from the business perspective.
* “Popular searches” is nice but bring also products on the home page. That should be the must-have.
* Footer. There are better ways what to show on the footer menu & how to use the space at the moment it looks more like others-have-let’s-have-it-too.
A few things to focus on:
* On Instagram 950 followers / on FB 988 people like & 1,051 people followers. Not digging too much into data but is it organic growth? Even if you have about 1,000 followers on social media then the conversion rate on FB is usually not more than 2%. If you do not keep personal contact with your users/followers then they are going to be the ghost riders who sometimes better not to have.
* One of your clients (
https://www.thinkwinegroup.co.uk/) running a campaign that ends in ~2 hours. I do not see any information or promotion on your webpage but this is exactly when you should show your value and community strength to your clients if you give an extra boost to their campaigns. (Edit: it seems like they have that foolish never-ending campaign)
The possible value of www.britishtippleclub.co.uk
* Website: It seems you’ve put time on it but from professional look and simple users perspective then even if website structure is simple then sections size, about ten different fonts, colours… it all makes feeling like over-designed where is difficult to focus on most important. Which means that users might get lost. The website needs changes from scratch so it does not have a value for me but someone probably has.
* Missing is products, experience, emotion and community.
Conclusion
I’m not here to say is it a good domain or not because domain names are for some people like children whom we might like or not so much but own are always cuter, smarter and better. The domain name and current website do not have big value for me but where I see that the hidden gold coin might be buried is if your social media followers have got through organic growth. Even if the current CVR is minimal then it might be worth £10 or £10k (depends on test campaign results). Extra value gives if users/followers are in one area or they have other connected links/interests + knowing how did they find you and what made them click the “Follow” button. The value might not be in the domain or platform but in data.
