Traffic has increased immensely vs. the prior site driven by online promotional tactics (banners, viral video, etc.) and … sweepstakes. We spiked to about 30K visitors each month during the sweeps, about 50% new-50% repeat visitors (re-entering the sweeps). Since September, we have averaged 2K visitors, 85% new, each month.

Thanks for your post. I took a look at http://www.mikeshard.com and I can see what you mean. I suspect that those who redesigned the Mike’s Hard Lemonade site were trying to push users to interact with the site a way that they weren’t coming there to do, or inclined to do. It’s likely that you end up with frustrated visitors who have to try too hard to find what they came there for:

Goal 1: Find out more about the product:
Why is there not a “products” section that lists everything you sell? That should be one of the very first things you see; I couldn’t find a page like that after several seconds of scanning the home page. That definitely needs to be fixed.
Oh– I see now that your Products page is actually the “From Our Fridge” tab. That needs to be renamed to “Products and put in a more prominent location. Nobody will know what “From our Fridge” means. The cuteness of the name is inhibiting its usefulness.

Goal 2: Find out where to buy the product:
The “Product Locator,” rather than being a tab at the top, would be more visible and useful as a sidebar element. You should move it to the sidebar.

It’s good practice to use nomenclature in a way that answers the question that’s already in the user’s mind. If you get too wrapped up in trying to match a theme or be “different,”, it can be detrimental. Good rule of thumb: use conventions. It makes it easier for customers to navigate.

I loved the previous iteration of the Mike’s website, which was a guy’s house with a fun party going on– you could walk from room to room, learning more, and see the Mike at the bar with the whole lineup of the products in front of him. I thought that was a much more fun and memorable way to show off your product, and to show it in the context of its use.

I would have to agree that the Mike’s site isn’t as effective in showcasing your product in the way it is now, in the format of a traditional (and not particularly visually appealing) Wordpress blog. How do the numbers stack up to the previous site? I’m curious to know if you have more visitors/subscribers now than before, and if you are easier to find in Google than before. I suspect that the frequent postings are helping your Google rankings quite a bit. Though whether it is worth the high maintenance cost you guys are paying is debatable. It shouldn’t be that expensive to maintain a blog.

I bet that they could keep the blog format but make a few small changes and see some definite improvements.

Hope all is well!

Tanya aka @cre8tn

Thanks much!