On November 1st, a Las Vegas business, All About You Bridal Galleria sent a personal, 4-page letter to all its customers and contacts, announcing the closing of their business, at the end of the month.
The good news is the asuring message to their existing customers, who are still waiting on dresses. Instructions were given on how those orders were going to be fulfilled. They made it abundantly clear that they were not simply ‘closing their doors’ and stranding brides. They would follow through on all orders. Unfortunately, reports of these sort of closures crop up, in good times and bad. Usually, they are not handled in such a professional way.
AAYBG was a bridal salon selling dresses, accessories, and providing wedding planning services.
The letter outlined a number of reasons for closing, including:
- the economy
- ‘appalling’ online competition
- long time employees ‘running off and getting married, and having babies’
- compatibility of the business with the ownership’s personal lives
Through all this sentimentality, there is a major omission. From a website standpoint, this small business couldn’t market its way out of paper bag.
Harsh? You’re damn right!!
I see and critique a lot of websites. I use both my experience and technical tools to analyze sites. It’s hard to do worse than this.
One excellent free tools to evaluate Search Engine Optimization is called Website Grader. The provider of this tool offers many paid services, but this one is free. Just put in your company domain name (and those of a couple of competitors, if you’d like), and its evaluation system rockets into action. In about 30 seconds, you have been given a grade, on a 1 to 100 scale, with specific explanations of what you are doing well, and what needs correction, as it relates to Search Engine Optimization.
I’ve concluded, after running these evaluations via Website Grader on many sites, including my own, that if you make the recommended changes, you see immediate improvement in your score.
For the sake of comparison, I think a score of 70-79 is good. 80-84 is very good. 85-89 is excellent. 90 or more is outstanding.
After running the All About You Bridal Galleria website address through Website Grader system, it came up with a score of 2. That’s not a typo. It’s two, 2 TWO!!!
It would be hard to score that low, if one was trying. Just visit the final score, and see what the report says.
Besides what the report outlines, there are other major league flaws.
Here’s just one: Not only does the site play music, automatically. It plays LOUD music. Even if you mute it, when you navigate to another screen, the music BLASTS you again. You can’t hide from the music unless you entirely mute your computer. It is common knowledge that brides often do some of their wedding research from work (under the radar). And, therefore, the idea of putting auto-loading music, particularly loud music, is NEVER recommended for a wedding site. You will lose many prospective customers, immediately, because you have busted them to everyone within earshot of their computer.
I’m sure the AAYBG owners are wonderful people. It’s clear that their ethics and heart are in the right place. I wish them the best in serving their customers, and making their closing their doors in the smooth and orderly way they’ve planned.
There are many lessons one can learn here. Pick a couple.
Here’s mine: “We’re all ignorant, just in different things.” If you’re a 4-star chef, that doesn’t mean you’re qualified to run a restaurant. You must complement your weaknesses with a partner who has the appropriate strengths and/or seek outside professional advice.
Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog
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written by Andy Ebon
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