Editor's Note: ECommerce-Guide's latest critique is of a site that sells lingerie and other related products. Some images on the site may be considered unsuitable for some viewers in a work environment. If you have any questions or concerns about viewing the site, please check with you company's HR department or your supervisor.

Today, we finish our critique of Set-the-Mood.com. Last week, we introduced you to Shelly Riddle, owner of the site, and the first half of our panel gave their thoughts on what Riddle can do to improve her site to generate more sales.

Today, the second half of our panel chimes in. They are Steven DiPietro, of the DiPietro Marketing Group, regular contributor Sean Michael Kerner and a brief summary from Web designer Jans Carton of Web Sanity.

We hope Riddle is able to make the most of this critique. We will check back with her in six months to see what changes she'll have made and whether or not she was able to increase her sales.

Steve DiPietro, DiPietro Marketing Group

Online Marketing
What's Good:
Meta Tags Though Meta Tags aren't as important as they used to be as far as natural search rankings, combined with other factors they are still meaningful. All of your Meta Tags contain appropriate key phrases, especially the Meta Title which still tends to get the ol' "Welcome to XYZ Shop' from some as opposed to being written using phrases that are most critical to the business.

Link Structure Great links! So many do not realize the importance of the text used for product links, or they use a graphic instead of text. Your links contain key phrases. Ex - the link "Lace up leather mini dress, adjustable straps and underwire bra. Leather back" located on the home page contains phrases relevant to that particular product. This, along with other factors, will be given weight by engines when determining page rank.

Page titles Again, great job. Ex. - the page to which the above link points is titled "leather-dress.htm." The most important key phrase for that particular product is "leather dress." It is not only contained in the link text as shown above, but is also repeated in the page title. Many engines will likely view the "leather-dress.htm" page as very relevant as a result.

Merchandising and Selling
What's Good:
There's a fair amount of trust-building elements, such as a graphic of the credit cards accepted, mention of the guarantee, toll-free number, mention of the return policy, and the VeriSign logo.

Very good enticement to signing-up for email ("Instant Discount"). May I steal this idea?

What Could Be Improved:
The policies (returns, guarantee) should be links pointing to a page that explains the details. This should help build trust to an even greater degree.

Capturing email addresses is very important. And, the Instant Discount offer is too good to be simply text. You'll get more takers by making the offer more visible using an image, including the sign-up box, and eliminating the click.

Add "More Info" buttons along with "Buy Now" buttons. Suggest exactly what you want people to do - either learn more, or buy now. Don't leave prospects to their own devices...after all, getting more product info / buying is the entire point. Don't be afraid to ask for the order.

Test selling by mood. You currently follow a standard approach to selling - everything is neatly categorized. But lingerie isn't a rational type purchase...it's emotional. You even say as much with your store name. So, sell by mood, not category. Think in terms of solving a problem and group items together. What items will help create a mystifying mood? An adventurous mood? A getting to know you mood? A winner-take-all mood? Solve the emotional problem, and you'll raise your Average Order Value in the process.

Set-the-Mood.com's design received a lot of attention from our expert panelists.

There's only "Hot Sellers" on the home page. What about "New & Exciting"? "Perennial Favorites"? "Overstocks"? Not necessary to use product images for each list; some could be merchandised using just links. (More links for engines to follow and index as well.)

Design
Way too much purple...overbearing, and does nothing to help set the mood.

Use many smaller product images to merchandise more products on the home page. Use 1 larger image as the eye-catcher, preferably in the upper left. As it is, there is no eye-catcher. The eye needs something visual to latch on to.

There's a bit too much real estate being taken up by the top and left borders. One could be made narrower. I would reduce the height of the top border so that everything moves up.

There's too much copy (or, "text", as developers like to call it). Except for links, try to reduce the amount of words where possible, and use more images. In other words, be more visual...that's a more effective way of creating an overall look (or, mood, in this case).

Sean Michael Kerner, ECG Contributor

Existing Design
The site is called "set the mood." Unfortunately, the design doesn't set the mood. It's a table-based layout (with table padding yet!) that appears to quite amateur (and not amateur in a sexy way). The use of color is basic, images are thumbnail-type and, overall, it's not particularly inviting.

Suggestions:
Brand is critical for any type of sales. I would suggest that the brand of set of the mood is precisely that, a sexy mood. First off scrap the pre-millennium era table layout and get a CSS layered design that flows and penetrates the pages, one image flowing into the next.

Start off the home page, and other non-product specific pages with larger images of the model. Show the product more and often, show the sexiness on each and every page, entice the buyer at every possible opportunity, Set the Mood!

Existing Copy
The existing copy like the existing design does not set the mood. Certainly product information and the basic sales type copy is there, but it isn't attractive and it doesn't re-enforce the brand.

Suggestions:
Stick with your brand. Use copy that will "set the mood". Get your users into the mood by using suggestive phrases, words, innuendo and the like to entice the buyer. It's not just a piece of material it's a whole experience, a very sensual experience that you are selling.

I would argue that it's not just women that will come to your site to buy product but men as well (likely for their partners, but not necessarily). Indulge their needs to by spelling out what the experience is all about. The existing tips for men page is a case in point. There are no model images on the page and the text is about as sexy as a used car lot (my apologies to the used car lot readers out there).

Oh and toast the "talk about anything" board unless you're going to seed it yourself with some posts. A discussion board with only 1 post is not going to get any interest - and will likely serve to dissuade customers.

E-Commerce Fundamentals
Existing:
The site currently includes an "offer" front and center. "You'll find a large selection of quality sexy lingerie and more at amazing prices, secure ordering, fast worldwide shipping, hassle free returns/exchanges with friendly customer care, lower shipping costs, free gifts, and free standard shipping on orders over 100.00 (US Only) FREE Sexy Shoes With $200.00 Purchase!"

Unfortunately, though, the "design" of the offer (font size, design, etc.) is not nearly as prominent or as differentiated at it should be. It almost looks like part of a product description as opposed to an incentive to buy.

The shopping cart appears to work "ok", but again it's not a branded experience. The free shipping offer and the incentive to get an instant discount code by joining the email list is a good thing.

Suggestions:
The fundamentals are there, but the branding and overall design has made it very uninviting. I think that with a proper branded experience that carries throughout the whole site, that sets the mood throughout - interested buyers will be more likely to follow through.

From a technical point of view I happen to be a big fan of Live Help system (see our review of one such system here). It might help out your sales a whole lot considering that I'd guess many of your sites visitors don't know what they want.

Jans Carton, Web Designer
Bad URL
The http://www.set-the-mood.com/ URL is bad. Hyphens in a URL are bad news for users. They often leave them out. It's also a pain to tell somebody the URL when hyphens are involved. I'm guessing that http://www.mistressbarbara.com/ (redirects from http://www.setthemood.com/) gets lots of traffic from folks trying to go to http://www.set-the-mood.com/.

Lots of Superfluous Content
I'm seeing a lot of content on the page that has very little relevance to most users. This badly diffuses the useful content on the page.

Poor Use of Vertical Screen Real Estate
On an 800x600 screen, you only have about 410 pixels of screen real estate before you have to start scrolling. I'm looking at almost 350 pixels of content before products appear on the page. Products are what most users are looking for.

Too Many Top-Level Navigational Items
There are 52 top-level navigational items. That's way, way too many! Users have trouble choosing between so many links. The site badly needs better navigational organization and prioritization.

I could go on and on with this site, but these are the biggest issues that jumped out at me.

We continue to welcome and encourage our readers to participate in the Set-the-Mood critique. Take a look at the site and post your comments in our forums.

Devin Comiskey is the Managing Editor of ECommerce-Guide.com.