Web Site Research

Dan Young

Web Site Research

The Lewis Lumber website does a good job in telling the reader about the green ways in which it harvested its wood and how they maximize their resources in order to protect the environment. The left side of the homepage does a good job in allowing the user to quickly finding the type of woodwork they need done. Also, the website does a great job in describing all the different types of wood it has in detail.

Keyword are: Lumber, flooring, paneling, molding, decking, wood oils/finish

Competitors and keywords include: Patterson Lumber Co. – lumber, hardwoods, graded, timber; Baillie Lumber – Hardwood, ripping, grades, timber; and The Hardwood Store of Pa – lumber, moldings, paneling, flooring, Ipe decking material

    

Patterson Lumber Co. – This lumber company works similar to the Lewis Lumber Company. They offer a multitude of different kinds of hardwoods. They also offer to cut your wood into the exact shape needed in order for one to do any type of project they desire. Along with this, they offer to buy land from people at good prices in order to have more options to get timber.

Baillie Lumber - This company is one of the leading hardwood distributors in North Central Pa. They offer a large array of different hardwoods for any project one may be working on. Collecting wood from all over the world, Baillie offers a wide range of quantity options in order to support large companies or at home projects.

The Hardwood Store of Pa- This website, although short and to the point, does a good job in showing all the different types of wood it offers. Unlike the last two companies, this company offers molding. Along with this and the hardwood selections, The Hardwood Store of Pa allows for a wide range of different projects to be done from large companies to at home projects.

All the websites offer a wide range of photos for the users benefit. The Baillie website appears to do the best job because they have a slideshow on their homepage with photos including the inventory, workers, and forests where the harvest there woods. They also provide a multitude of videos’ which allow the user to what exactly they are going to buy and get more insight about the company which they are buying their wood from. As far as pictures go Lewis Lumber seems to have the widest array of pictures. These include the facilities, all different kinds of wood (like all of them), and the inventory that have at the ready.

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The main difference between the competitor’s websites and Lewis Lumber website is there use of space and orientation. All of the competitor’s websites posted links to other parts of their website at the top of the homepage, while Lewis Lumber has their links to the side. Furthermore, the other companies’ websites did a tremendous job of using the entire webpage and not leaving any blank space. The Lewis Lumber site has a lot of whitespace to the right side of the page which is unappealing. Also, their contact information should really be posted in another link not at the bottom of the home page. This can make it difficult to find and frustrate the user.

I do think the writing is good in the other websites. They get right to the point, but at the same time manage to show completely what they are offering in services. I also think the writing is fairly good in the Lewis Lumber site and very specific, it is just how they choose to orient their website that I have problems with.

   

The Lewis Lumber site needs a few more larger and more attractive photos for the user. Although they do have a few photos on their homepage, the Lewis Lumber company needs photos that are more inviting. Their pictures now are boring and do not invite the user to stay on the site. They need something that will better draw the user in.

I think there are a few things that the Lewis Lumber company did well and a few things that their competitor did well. Lewis Lumber offered pictures of all their available types types of woods, which was a unique trait to their website. It allowed the user to know exactly what they were going to buy if they were to order off the phone or online. The competitors to Lewis Lumber had more exciting websites. All of their homepages seemed to do a better job of drawing people in. The diversity of the slides and pictures seems to be Lewis Lumbers main problem as well as their outdated website format.