New Self Defense Weapon site and a great lesson

I have been working on improving the usability of the PDWS.biz site. Over the last year I have added many new pages and original content; which is exactly what Google wants to see. Fresh content is king in websites. However, the site grew so big it was difficult to navigate. So, I took a real hard look at keeping it simple.

I was consulting to a computer store this summer and it was fun to watch people come in and look at their menu on the wall. All the options became paralyzing. We need to keep it really simple; I would say. Maybe like 4 choices on a sign so we can get them moving again. I took the owner over to a local restaurant where I know the menu is too large.

I asked the shop owner to start reading out loud all the menu items. The restaurant owner was watching us intently and was fascinated on how long it took us to get through 1/3 of the menu... something over 12 minutes. I stopped the reading out loud and asked the shop owner what he had learned. He said "if it takes me 12 minutes to read 1/3 of the menu, guests at the restaurant would have to take over 30 minutes to read the menu". I said "precisely".

In the restaurant business you would like to turn tables in 30 minutes. That means they read the menu, order, get their food, eat, pay the bill and leave. That way you can set up for many services on a shift. Well, we changed our menu at the computer store to 5 choices. The time at the counter went well and the clients were not paralyzed and afraid to make a wrong choice as they were before. Bingo for me too!

The cobblers kids have no shoes. So I looked at my own site in the eye of making it simple to order and not send visitors in to paralysis. I also took only the best of breed self defense weapons to keep in the online store. This simplified things and I think it really helped the over all site navigation and sales.

Please, if you have been to the old site (red) come visit the new site (blue) and see what I did. Comment here if you can or send me an email letting me know your thoughts and suggestions.

Master Peter Brusso
PDWS.biz 
Self Defense Weapon
Self Defense Weapons