6 months after everybody’s favourite high street pick and mix retailer closed down, the Shop Direct Group has decided to resurrect Woolworths as an online retailer. I strongly believe that using the Woolworths brand online is a wise move by the Shop Direct Group as there is a lot of love and affection throughout the UK for the established Woolworths brand.

Over the last 3 weeks I have been using the site since its re-launch, but the more I visit the more disappointed I am by how our beloved former high street brand has been launched online.

SEO

As an SEO analyst I have tried to keep my eyes closed about the complete lack of content throughout the important pages within the site, I mean the only text on the homepage that isn’t a link is the statement about who owns the website and their offline address. The URLs make my eyes bleed, I mean what is the below URL really telling users and search engines about the page it is linking to?? I don’t see it saying much, if anything, about paddling pools.

http://www.woolworths.co.uk/rf/wlo/s.do/toys-games/outdoor-toys/pools-waterplay?N=159+4294484527+85+4294483400&Np=1&Nu=this_product&seo=t&pageSize=12&Ns=prod_in_stock%7C1%7C%7Cprod_min_base_price%7C0%7C%7Cscu_id%7C1&Nao=0&cmEvent=product_order&cm_re=Homepage-_-Text+Links-_-Pools

I’ve not followed that link as I find it quite offensive.

I could go on for hours and days about the lack of input from someone with SEO knowledge into the project, mentioning the very poor page titles, the Meta descriptions, the page code and how this site doesn’t really stand a chance in Organic search. But then i remembered it was one of the most loved high street stores and, since it does manage to rank for its own brand, it is most likely going to receive a fair amount of traffic. With that in mind I am going to try and consider the site from another point of view.

Design

I must admit, the jquery added to the site is quite funky and the different carousels kept me entertained for about 5 minutes, clicking through the various products, and the pick and mix section is simply outstanding. It should be nominated for a set of web application awards – it would get my vote. Once you overcome the jquery and pick and mix section you start to reflect on the look and feel of the site and to be honest I am not a fan. It looks similar to my very first website but with a lot of rounded corners.

This image shows how the navigation on the Woolworths party site looks in Firefox, or the latest version at least, not a pretty site for up to 20% of the sites visitors. (This appears to have been fixed since I wrote this post)

Large chunks of whitespace appears down the left hand sub navigation on the entertainment site as can be seen in the image below. Nobody can tell me that this was a pre-meditated design decision, that it had some purpose or that it would affect conversion rates in any positive way.

Usability

I have always been sceptical about sites built across multiple domains, not necessarily from an SEO point of view because the benefits are obvious (especially when built by a large brand), but from a usability point of view it can become a large issue that puts users off or, at the very least, reduces the amount of sales.

Woolworths has been split over 3 websites, one being party/pick and mix, the other being entertainment items such as computer games and DVDs, the third comprising of everything else Woolworths traditionally sold.

Visitors have to individually log into each of the sites and go through a separate checkout process for each site; which could get extremely tedious should a visitor wish to purchase an item from each section.

Overall

Considering the resurrection plans were put in place early February 2009 and the site launched in June 2009, I believe the site has been both rushed and not thought through properly. Although I have seen improvements occurring across the sites over the last 3 weeks both in terms of SEO and design, I feel that Woolworths Online is nowhere near 100% polished compared to competition such as Amazon, EBay, Play, ASDA and ASOS. This could potentially lose them a lot of the visitors that would have flocked to the sites brand on launch.