# A new Chapter for an Old Book



## NeilYeag (Sep 4, 2019)

Yep, after 45+ years of workin' the day job, I have decided I have had enough fun and will leave some fun for some others to share! Will retire in November. I will turn my full time attention to being a Maker. Because a) I like it, and b) I need da money!

Any way in all seriousness, I need some help from you all here. I would like any of you that can and will to critique my website. I have added some new content. My hopeful niche in the big boy world of knife making is to offer "semi custom" builds. Client can choose from a few different blade styles and then select all of the other options. I think it gives one an opportunity to "customize" there personal knife. Without me offering a full one off custom service, which I am not at all prepared to do. Any way if you can look at the site , particularly the "Build your Knife" page and give me your honest impressions I sincerely appreciate it. I know I need some improvements in the graphics and photos on that page, but I think the conceptual content is there.

If you can look on both mobile as well as desk top, that would be great. Or let me know which one you used to access. 

Thanks,
Neil

www.ngycustoms.com

Reactions: Like 2 | Agree 1 | Way Cool 2


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## T. Ben (Sep 4, 2019)

I visited the mobile site,while I didn’t go everywhere on it,what I did see looked good to me. Nice job.


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## TimR (Sep 4, 2019)

Well, congrats first on starting retirement. Last November for me, couldn’t be happier. Enjoy going to ‘making’ full time.

Some individual gallery pages (forge area, workshop, leatherwork, gallery), have excess length that could be cropped. This looks fine on mobile (iPhone), so may be desktop view issue. I’m using Microsoft Edge.

The Scales page takes too long to open and too much to view. Nice stuff though! Might be better to further categorize by key feature, i.e color, spalting, burl, curl, wood variety, hybrid… Doing this might make pages come up quicker.

Looking at Gallery, would like to have pic able to open for enlarged view or perhaps multiple pic details, i.e mosaic patterns, knife work, sheath details…

Build your knife: Maybe on ‘select scale’ have it redirect back to scales page…impressive pins…trying to imagine how made. 

Background needs a pic or themed pic based on page visiting. The black just seems a bit plain.

The About page…show a pic of you and/or your helpers ‘making’ to add a personal touch to site.


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## Sprung (Sep 4, 2019)

Neil, congrats on retirement! Where are you going to settle down in retirement? Are you going to remain in Thailand or end up Stateside?

Overall I think your site is good. Nice and uncomplicated. Some sites can be too busy, or too challenging to find information on.

I do agree with Tim about the scales page taking too long to load. I'm guessing it is loading up the full size of each image, then just displaying them as thumbnails? It would certainly help page load times if it simply displayed a simple thumbnail, then downloaded and displayed the full sized image when you click on one. I don't know if they need to be sorted by type as it is nice to see all the options laid out on one page - and a person might go in saying, "I want spalted" and then they scroll down and see some of those beautiful crotch blanks or a hybrid and they find the material that seals the deal - a material they might have never looked at if they only viewed the spalted stuff. But maybe having the option to sort based upon various criteria (like you would be able to while shopping online) wouldn't hurt either.

I think the home page could use at least a knife pic or two to show off your great work right from the beginning. First impressions count and even a small taste of the kind of work you do right at the beginning will hopefully leave one wanting more.

From the Build Your Knife page - when you mention scale options, a link to the scales page would be good. And where you mention contacting you at the end of the page, a link there to your contact page would also be helpful. Links placed in the immediate location of where you're telling someone to go check something out will help draw them to that area to see the possibilities. If they have to go searching for the link or scroll up to the top to find it, you might lose them. But if when they're reading about scales they can click on a link to the scales page, then, well, hopefully they'll start going, "Oooh! I like that one! I gotta have that on a knife!"

On your About page, it might be neat to see a picture or two of you at work. (Yeah, I know - no one likes getting their picture taken or posting it. I know I don't, lol. But it is always neat to see a craftsman at his work.) Also, on the tools pages - maybe a little explanation of things, kind of like a shop tour. Or, better yet, if you're up for it and could do a decent job of it, a video tour of your shop and forging areas, with you providing a verbal explanation of what things are and highlighting neat features as you go through. (Like, "Here's my table saw - and here's the fence I built for the saw." and maybe give a 10 second brief mention of what you like about the fence/why you built it and where someone could find out how to build their own.) Some of those details may apply only to makers, but there are also lots of people who will never venture into making, but find it really cool to check out the work spaces of makers and learn about where the item they're looking at buying was made.

On the front page - the mention of an Amazon link. There is no link there. I would either drop it or change it to being more of an affiliate link where, as some makers do, you have an affiliate page of items that you like and use in the shop - and then if someone buys something from there, you get a commission. It can be neat to see what other items people find helpful in the shop and I've gotten some good ideas from other people's lists - and they've no doubt earned some commission from the sale of some of those items when purchased through their list. Obviously some who visit, this won't apply to them - they're not makers; they just want to look at your knives and maybe (hopefully) buy one - but they're there to look at and hopefully buy a knife, not be bombarded with a "Hey! Buy your stuff on Amazon - your dish soap, your bath towels, etc - through my link that I earn commission on!"

I viewed your site from a desktop computer.


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## milkbaby (Sep 4, 2019)

I would definitely agree that your home page should have at least two pictures of knives there so people can see your work.

Also, just in the quick look around that I took, I had no idea how much it costs to buy one of your knives. Maybe have some old work that's sold with pricing or on the build-your-own page have a couple blurbs under each offering like: Starting from $150 and up depending on materials chosen

Congrats on retirement! I'm jealous because I'm definitely planning to make more knives too when I finally get to that point myself!


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## Jason Martin (Sep 5, 2019)

Very nice website! And nice knives and leatherwork!
I visited site with tablet and it looked good!


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## kweinert (Sep 5, 2019)

I sent you a PM with some observations and suggestions.


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## NeilYeag (Sep 6, 2019)

Man thanks to all of you guys for taking time for this. I really really appreciate it. I am pretty much (completely) a newb at most of this. I tried to build the web site mostly myself (of course with a template) and for a shoe string budget. I looked at it till I am blue in the face, and so much that you guys pointed out, that is now obvious to me now, I did not even notice!! 

Also as all of you have remarked on the home page. Now I see it is wrong. I liked it cause it was a cool picture, but truthfully 90% of my work is stock removal not forging! So that needs to be totally revamped. 

Interesting though as I trogg through it. I am getting around 1000 unique visits per month with an average engagement of 8 minutes. So I assume that people are browsing through the details. I did by some complete dumb luck get two inquiries that turned into orders. I have not at all promoted the site except on my instagram feed. But one thing that is a bit puzzling to me is the demographics. So far 45% female and 55% male. Seems high for female. But the average engagement -Page views and minutes are the same across genders? Also the age group is somewhat interesting 

18-24 28% 25-34 34% and 35-44 15%. Once again certainly not being a maven in this I think the target is in the 35-54 right? 

Any way enough of me taking up your valuable time. 1000% thanks.


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## NeilYeag (Sep 6, 2019)

@Sprung

Matt, I will be back in the states for the Holidays, but yes will go back to Thailand after that.

And yep I am really not ready to post a video or pic of me at work. Just cant get to that yet....

Interesting on the scale page agreed way to much, but my site engine does not have any sorting or filtering capabilities, plus frankly many items are sold and i have not updated it yet. In my couple of conversions the people said, wow to much to choose, but I like something like this xxx. And I was able to offer some suggestions from with in that. 

Any way just a old dude trying to make his way through the digital and social media way of life. 

Truth be told, I am a lone maker. I can make maybe 3 knives a week working flat out. I am happy as a clam to sell 6 to 8 a month. I have no illusions of financially devastating the knife makers universe HA.....


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## kweinert (Sep 6, 2019)

NeilYeag said:


> Interesting on the scale page agreed way to much, but my site engine does not have any sorting or filtering capabilities, plus frankly many items are sold and i have not updated it yet.



I think you'd have to do the sorting yourself if you wanted to separate them out.

A couple of thoughts:

Create a composite photo for each type - maybe a 2 picture x 2 picture using the thumbnail size you have now with a title that has the type in it. That would link to a new page with just that on it. That gives the person viewing a visual as to the type of scale it is and then you're only loading images for that type. By having the 2x2 composite then they can see the other categories as well and it doesn't imply that you actually have those specific scales. I'd be careful of showing scales you don't have but that may just be me over thinking it. I tend to do that.

I don't know if the template you're using allows you to do this, but one thing I've done in the past is to have the thumbnail be a link to a new popup page that shows the full image. Since it's a different page the system won't try to load all of the full size images when you first show the scales page. Right now, since they're all image links it has to load them all when you show the scales page. By doing it this way you can keep everything on one page but greatly speed up the loading of it.


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## Bill Clancy (Mar 25, 2020)

Nice work, nice web page Neil. I'm still a working slob, and hobby knife maker...maybe someday I'll get to have fun all day like you do! You have quite the skill set developed.

Reactions: Thank You! 1


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