Looking for high level technical feedback (and general).

[Grassracks]

Hi all! We've been around for over 10 years and I've handled our website/SEO/copy/media since inception but I always welcome feedback and am looking for a fresh perspective. I'm most interested in the following..

1. Technical feedback (open to quotes) - Re: Site Speed (LCP, etc.), Lowering our Bounce Rate, Making sure our pages are indexing correctly, increasing customer engagement and conversion rate, making sure we dialed on all best practices.

2. Appearance and usability - Even if you're not an expert, I welcome what you think. What do you think of our site? Easy to navigate? We make the highest quality racks on the market for outdoor gear. Does that come across?

3. Misc. - What do you think of our pictures/branding, do you feel like they show our quality?

4. Anything else? Don't hold back (but tactfulness would be nice). I welcome all suggestions.

www.grassracks.com

Thanks!

[Bundler-Manuel]

Hello there @Grassracks  I had a look at your store and here are a few thoughts I have to share on it

1) The site speed was really good, I didn’t experience any lagging or hanging while I was on it.

2) The product images could be upgraded on a bit and I also think you should add some videos in the gallery for a more appealing effect.

3) There should be customer reviews on the homepage. From my experience, it is something that a lot of customers tend to look out for the moment they land on a Shopify store. 
4) There should be a FAQs section on the homepage as well.

I hope you find these helpful and I wish you the best of luck!

[Grassracks]

Thanks for taking the time to give me some feedback, Emmanuel, it is very much appreciated!

1. At face value our site loads quickly, but it still doesn't rate well on Site Speed Audits and I'm wondering if that affects our Google rank since that is a factor.

2. Agreed! I am in the process of doing this. I'm sure you can tell which pages have upgraded pictures/videos and which don't.. it's a pretty stark contrast.

3. I'll take a look at this. I try not to have too much load on the homepage but I do like this idea.

4. We have these in the footer.. not sure if you think they should be somewhere else in addition.

Thanks again!

[BON_Loyalty · Accepted solution]

Hi @Grassracks ! I'm Tracy from BON Loyalty, the top-rated Shopify loyalty app. 

First off, congrats on keeping Grassracks going strong for over 10 years. That’s impressive. I took a spin around the site, and here are a few things that stood out to me. I’ll keep it straight to the point and more conversational, since it sounds like you’re pretty experienced with the whole website-building side of things.

1/ Technical feedback
- Site speed – Honestly, the site loads really fast, so no issues there. But once it loaded, I found myself a little unsure where to focus. The hero banner is HUGE, and I had to scroll quite a bit to see any actual content. It might be worth shrinking it down a bit or making sure there’s something immediately eye-catching below it.
- Hero banner optimization – Instead of just shrinking the hero banner, consider turning it into a rotating carousel featuring best sellers, seasonal promotions, or UGC (user-generated content). This keeps things visually engaging and gives visitors more to interact with immediately. An A/B test with a smaller banner and a prominent CTA could also provide insights into what works best.

- CTA button – The hero banner didn’t have a CTA button, and I feel like that could help drive more conversions. Even just a simple “Shop Now” or “Explore Racks” could guide visitors a bit more clearly.

2/ Usability & Navigation
- Sticky header – The site could really benefit from a sticky header. It’d make it easier to hop between pages without having to scroll all the way back up.

- Navigation – I noticed there’s no “Best Sellers” section in the navigation. This could be a missed opportunity. Best sellers often drive sales because people trust popular products. Might be worth adding that.
3/ Appearance & Branding
- Visual hierarchy – Again, the hero banner grabs a lot of attention, but it also kind of overshadows everything else. Maybe reduce the height a bit or add a carousel that rotates through a few key products.
- Product pages – Upsell opportunities – On product pages, consider adding a “Frequently Bought Together” or related products section. Bundles or complementary items could boost average order value and showcase how versatile your racks are.
- Product quality – The images look good, but it wouldn’t hurt to add a few close-up shots or lifestyle images showing the racks in use. A little more variety could highlight the craftsmanship better.

4/ The other things
I’d skip suggesting vague things like “add more engaging content” without examples. You clearly know what you’re doing, and I don’t want to sound redundant.
- Content that drives traffic – If you’re open to blog content, focus on long-tail keywords like “how to store surfboards safely” or “best wall racks for outdoor gear” This could naturally bring in organic traffic and position of your shop as an authority in the space. It’s a subtle way to drive traffic without heavy advertising.

Final thoughts
Overall, the site looks great, but a few tweaks here and there could make the experience even smoother. Let me know if you want more detailed thoughts on anything specific!

If you find these suggestions helpful for you, please let me know by giving BON Loyalty  a 'LIKE' or marking it as a 'SOLUTION'. 😊

Cheers,

Tracy | BON Loyalty team

[Grassracks]

Thanks, Tracy, this was a great and thoughtful response!

Technical/Usability

1. Hero Image has been shrunken and CTA added. Not the final version but I do like this better. I also like Laza's suggestion to combine it with the section below.. I will work on that.

2. I do like carousels but worry about having too much on the homepage and don't want to slow our site down. To my eye, our site loads quickly but we still don't have great site speed audits and I know that will affect our SEO and Google Rank. Ideally, I'd love to have a video..

3. Sticky Header - Done

4. Best Sellers in Navigation.. I do like that idea and will take a look.

5. Technicals - I wonder about the technical backend of our site. Is it bloated? Is there a lot on there we don't need. Is our Robot.txt correct? Do we have toxic backlinks that we should disavow or just leave them as they are? Are our pages indexing properly? What can be done to lower our bounce rate? Happy to chat if you have experience with that as well. In 2025, I want to knock out any and all site errors we have and start checking off the things that have popped up on our site audits.

Appearance

1. We actually do have some upsells at checkout but kept it to "you may also like" type products on the bottom of each product page.

2. Great feedback about the pics - I am currently working on this. I'm sure you can tell which have been updated. I'm focused on more environment shots and closeups, curious if there's anything else that stood out that you wanted to see that we don't have..

Other

1. The majority of our focus is on SEO and blogging and it's been great over the past few years. We have been going after lots of longtails. I don't think enough website owners focus properly on that aspect.

Feel free to shoot me an email and we can chat. If you're well versed in some of Technical #5 stuff, I'd be happy to get a quote.. also open to learning more about BON Loyalty. Thanks again for the thorough feedback, it's exactly what I was looking for!

[Laza_Binaery]

Hi @Grassracks 

First of all, the site looks good. It has a lot of content, good images, the right sections, and good speed, but it has some room for improvement.

Homepage: 

• The header is good, it does not take up too much space. Here I noticed first that the link hover color is not a great choice because of contrast, it is too small so it is not clearly visible. And it is not just for accessibility issues, I think a lot of people would need to look harder to read it.
• The dropdown menu is fine, but for Shop, a full mega menu with some images would be a good choice
• On tablets, I would just display the hamburger menu
• like @BON_Loyalty  said hero banner is huge, it is a good image but it needs text and buttons. You could easily combine it with the text from the section below.
• Shop by sport is good but I would split them into 4 then 3 items so 25% width each and have a bit more padding between.
• Next, one more great image but a missed opportunity for a button to lead customers to the collection page
• Shop by rack, "from " price color again, it is barely visible for me, then on image hover, if the product has video it is cut off. You could make 3 products in a row for some room to the title but video would still be cut off.
• "Featured in" again 4 by 3 would look slightly better
• The footer and sign-up button look off to me, you have an empty column so you can easily split links under Grassrack into two.

Product page:

• The product title needs a bit of room on top to breathe, it is too close to the top-line
• Colors again, Size guide, and most importantly "add to cart" button is almost invisible on that white background.
• You have a lot of content on the product page which is good but as customers start to scroll they lose sight of the Add to Cart button. So a good practice is to have a bottom sticky add-to-cart appear
• With all that content I do not see shipping info for a product, it is also a good way to inform users on the product page itself. 

One thing  I always look at stores is contact details and for yours except the email I could not find any other. If you are a business then your business name, address, and phone would be the first step in getting the trust of customers. 

Good luck with the sales, you do have a good, unique product that can attract a lot of customers.

[Grassracks]

Thanks the thoughtful feedback, Laza!

1. A lot of your suggestions were exactly the other set of eyes that I needed. I made some changes to the links, buttons, and hovers. Great suggestion!

2. I will consider the mega menu. A lot of what I do with our site is limited to what is readily available by the theme and I'm not sure the mega menu is part of my current.. will investigate.

3. Yes about tablet menu.

4. Shrunk the Hero image and added a CTA. Not going to be the final product with the CTA but it's better for now. I like the idea of adding the section below.. I've been wanting to change that to something more captivating anyway.

5. Love the 4 by 3 suggestion but this is a Logo List and am ashamed to say I don't know how to easily change that.. I could figure it out but other things are more pressing currently.. I will get to that though.

6. I attempted to drive customers to collection pages via the Shop By Sport section.. not sure if you think we need another addition collection button somewhere.

7. Will check the colors.

8. 4 by 3 - Done

9. Great suggestion.

Product Pages

1 & 2. Done. Great suggestions.. again, I was too close to the site to realize.

3. Bottom "Add to Cart" sticky is not something I would know how to do off the top of my head. Do you have a suggestion??

4. I've been working on refining each page. I hadn't thought much about advertising our free shipping on each page but that's a great idea.

Contact

We try to make it easy for people to get in touch with us by having a contact form and chat but we did remove our phone number because of a truly absurd amount of SPAM calls. Once we removed our number, those stopped. It's not idea to have no phone number listed but it's been alright and I, personally, love not having to look at my phone as much.

Something I do wonder about is the technical backend of our site. Is it bloated? Is there a lot on there we don't need. Is our Robot.txt correctly? Do we have toxic backlinks that we should disavow or just leave them as they are? Are our pages indexing properly? What can be done to lower our bounce rate? Happy to chat if you have experience with that as well. In 2025, I really want to knock out any and all site errors we have and start checking off the things that have popped up on our site audits. Thanks again!

[Laza_Binaery]

@Grassracks  

You are right about spam calls. There is no right solution. A service like Aura or the Robokiller app can help, but the best solution is to remove it and have peace of mind. I can not help much with other things; SEO and Analytics are not for me. But in general, check all apps you have and the ones you do not use. robots.txt looks fine for me. I did try one online tool, and it found one toxic link, and yes, you should disavow it.   but hope other people in the community who have more experience would help you more on these questions.