My New Website - The Rough Draft
idbruce
Posts: 6,197
Hello Everyone
Without going into too much detail, here is a link for my new website. http://www.scrolleeze.com
Please withhold the criticisms for a bit, because this is just a rough draft, and there is still a lot more to be done, such as:
Bruce
Without going into too much detail, here is a link for my new website. http://www.scrolleeze.com
Please withhold the criticisms for a bit, because this is just a rough draft, and there is still a lot more to be done, such as:
- Add to, subtract from, and refine the existing website directories.
- Add a whole lot more patent prints.
- etc.... The boring stuff.
Bruce
Comments
Thanks for the input. I have actually spent quite a bit of time playing with the background color and changing button colors. As you might have guessed, it just doesn't look good with white or gray, and to me, the lighter pastels make it appear a little on the feminine side, but as you pointed out, the text must be readable.
I have temporarily altered one directory with a lighter background. If you get a chance, please compare the airlines directory (http://www.scrolleeze.com/airlines.htm) against one of the other directories, and left me know if this color is much better.
Bruce
The airlines page on your new site is much easier to read for me than the rest. On the other hand, this forum (the posts) are much much easier to read than the airlines page.
-Tor
I have to agree that the lighter colored background makes the pages more readable than the original darker colored background. I am just partial to the darker colors, but I must keep in mind, that my visitor preference is more important than mine.
In response to your comment, referring to the comparison of the forum pages, I have altered the amusement & jokes directory with even a lighter color (http://www.scrolleeze.com/amusement.htm).
I don't really like the color, but hey, it is only a color
Bruce
Any opinions on this issue?
Additionally, the next round of improvements on the website should be fairly significant. Amongst other changes, several directories will be added. One of the directories will be aptly named "Hot Spots", and I am thinking of making an exception to the alphabetical order and placing it at the top of the directory list, for quick easy access to popular internet hot spots, such as:
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com
YouTube - http://www.youtube.com
Wikipedia - http://www.wikipedia.org
Twitter - http://www.twitter.com
ebay - http://www.ebay.com
PayPal - https://www.paypal.com
craigslist - http://www.craigslist.org
About.com - http://www.about.com
Skype - http://www.skype.com/en/
Flickr - http://www.flickr.com
Myspace - https://myspace.com
Netflix - http://www.netflix.com
eHow - http://www.ehow.com
Tumblr - http://www.tumblr.com
Photobucket - http://www.photobucket.com
vimeo - http://www.vimeo.com
TMZ - http://www.tmz.com
MTV - http://www.mtv.com
GameSpot - http://www.gamespot.com
wikiHow - http://www.wikihow.com
AccuWeather.com - http://www.accuweather.com
HowStuffWorks - http://www.howstuffworks.com
AutoTrader - http://www.autotrader.com
MapQuest - http://www.mapquest.com
Bruce
I matters to people with disabilities.
http://www.w3.org/standards/webdesign/accessibility
The purpose of this is to provide a handy resource and sell patent prints.
It is like a giant favorites or bookmarks folder all organized with websites that a person would not have to seek or search for and then add, all maintained by courtesy of yours truly.
I can always just zoom into the page
I thank you very much for your input. The entire Scrolleeze website now has a new background color, but I don't think that I want to go much lighter than the new color.
Thanks again.
Bruce
You don't have to thank me, instead I thank you. Visitor input is very important to me, especially pertaining ease of use and the directories themselves.
I wish I had more input and suggestions concerning the addition of new directories, that would be useful to the general population. Some of the new directories will be:
Maybe the next one will be about electronic circuits and Stamps & Propellers.
If this website ends up being mildly successful, I was thinking about setting up some subdomains for specialized directories, such as:
- a subdomain and a directory for different types of programming languages
- a subdomain and a directory for different types of hobbies
- a subdomain and a directory for different types of collecting
Of course these subdomains and directories would be completely seperate from the existing directory on the main domain, yet they would have the same layout.However, it would be nice to have one for electronic circuits and another one for Propeller snippets
In addition to other chores, I have spent the majority of the day working on four new directories for the website. The new directories should be available either sometime tonight or early tomorrow and will be entitled:
- Scrolleeze American Politics Directory
- Scrolleeze Consumer Services Directory
- Scrolleeze Internet Hot Spots Directory
- Scrolleeze Package Delivery Directory
I am still contemplating the creation of the:- Scrolleeze Hobby Electronics Directory
But a prior post (http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/148233-Give-me-your-best-links!!!!!) referencing this subject did not gain much support. However I am hoping that a few interested people will add some more links.Sorry, I truly believe that the redundancy of that word will aid in my SEO, which is of the utmost importance to me.
You stated you want to provide a handy resource and sell patent prints. Which is the primary motive? Providing the resource is noble and a good faith effort I am sure some people will appreciate, but the selling of the prints probably funds the whole thing, or should fund the whole thing, so let's call that primary. This is your conversion then. Ideally, they view the site, forget all about the fantastic directories and just buy a print! This could happen with some value added to the prints. From there, people use the resource once or twice, and maybe see the print for sale and convert that way. Heavy users may well buy one after some period of time, etc...
Regarding the prints: A random one from the collection is displayed, and I see something I could order based on it's visual appeal. For somebody who is a fan of patent art, this may be enough, however you are looking for conversions right? Is there a story behind these patent prints? If so, a brief write up of it below the print, in the portion of the page currently unused, may well add to the appeal by adding context. This also will improve your information content ratings, which help to balance the links and many keywords on your site. You might consider the brief history of the work, how it ended up impacting society, some compelling information about the inventor, and lastly some basic call to action at the end of each story.
This content will also further encourage people to consider viewing a few prints, reading the stories, perhaps warming up to the idea that the prints are cool, the history and story behind them is cool, so maybe owning one and being able to relate that story might also be cool, beyond the mere aesthetic impression the print may have. Of course, you do have it changing prints, and you have a button for that, both of which are great. Adding more value here can only help you, IMHO.
A somewhat related benefit is people have some understanding of why these prints were selected as opposed to the many that can be found. Minor, but again, every little bit helps and once value adds like this are created, they don't take much to display. Now that I think of it, this would also serve to tell somebody why displaying one of the prints you selected is worth doing. Be sure and incorporate that into the verbiage associated with the prints! Your typical professional interested in something like this may have some familiarity and would just know, but that's not the traffic target profile. Most people won't know and telling them while entertaining and educating them is a fine idea that will improve your conversion rates. Highly recommended.
First impressions are everything. The death of conversions is the first time viewer who just says, "meh" and moves on, never to return. My commentary is targeted right at those people, and the SEO.
Another opportunity may be to list the prints in various ways, not as one large scrolling thing, and once the groupings are organized, "what's new" can be present, giving returning visitors some indication that they have something to look at they didn't before, and of course this can be enhanced with "most popular", etc... for more opportunities to provide information, add value and balance the site SEO with solid information content --the value add above and beyond a mere directory which should solidify the site rating over time. Edit: You mentioned adding a lot more prints. Honestly, the scrollable list now is at my personal limit. I might bounce around a little, looking at this and that, but it's a lot of images. If you were to double that... Not sure it would add value. If you do continue to add prints, which I think is a fine idea, consider your groupings and the what's new so that people can take them in chunks they might find relevant, and you can regularly add them for SEO purposes, as you will be adding text, etc... that shows the site activity of a healthy, well maintained, purpose driven site.
Just FYI, I've placed sites in the first 10 Google hits in the past. I just checked, and a site I built to educate people on a technology topic is currently the top reference, despite not being touched since the mid 00's. I think that speaks to the power of information content, or value add of a site quite strongly. That one factor trumps most others, particularly the shifts and trends that happen as the SEO crowd does ongoing battle with search engines. Adding it will insulate you for the longer haul.
To my eye, the design looks 1990's. I find it readable, though it has that "SUN" CDE look to it. I like the size and placement of the patent print image, and again that arrangement does leave a nice place to chat people up about the print. Colors, widgets, etc... are something I find really vary. Not sure what to say here, just give my impressions. They are of course worth precisely what you paid for them.
Directories today are not the same beast they were years ago:
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/25-ways-to-get-penalized-in-2012/47245/
I mentioned the word use because it can easily lead to a penalty, readability issues aside. It is possible to balance that penalty out with higher information content and or high value inbound links, so long as they are not from blog comments and link farms, etc... And of course, this is precisely why I suggested adding some context to the prints, if you insist on "directory" appearing as often as it does.
Good luck!
Of course you bring up some key and valid points.... I am certain that you have seen me mention a couple of times within the Parallax forums that "Content is King" amongst the search engines.
I am sure that many things have changed since the year 2000, when a similar site was published, but at that time, I did okay in the search engines. I wasn't #1 or anything like that, but like I said, I did okay. However I am sure I will have to fight much harder for the hits.
I learned many years ago, as well as from the hits recieved from this page, that my site isn't for everyone. The analytics clearly show many bounces from the first page visited, but then there are those visitors who stick around and check the place out. Too be perfectly honest, Scrolleeze is not a site that I would use everyday, but it is a site that I would add to my favorites bar as a quick link to a site that I may want to visit from time to time. Aside from selling occassional prints, my primary goal will be the addition and maintaining of high quality directories (some of them already need refining). The site won't be much of a resource if it has bad or broken links. My philosphy is not to build a huge directory, but a small one with many quality links to useful sites and information, all available at the click of a mouse. Additionally, I also realize that targeting everyone is well beyond my reach and grasp, and since I am only knowledgable about the Windows OS, I will be mostly targeting that operating system. As for the real reasons behind the bounces, I am sure I will have to do some market research to get to the bottom of it, however some possible causes could be:
- Simply not interested by the first impression
- To busy or lazy to read the instructions, in addition to not being savy with the selectable menus. I would guess that many people arrive and say, "What's this?" and then leave without investigating the functionality.
In its current state, regardless of the lack of content, those two scrolling menus contain many high quality links to sites truly worthy of a bookmark. As a whole, just for that reason alone, the Scrolleeze website is worthy of a bookmark just for the links alone (IMHO). However, if they never find the site due to lack of content and poor search engine registration, they will never book mark it. However, in my defense, at this point, I am just setting up the main foundation and functionality of the site, and I can always add advertisements and content below the random print as you suggest.As for the prints and their organization, I also agree that there must be some rhyme and reason to the layout and view. On the store page, there is a statement which is as follows:
Keywords in that statement would be "currently organized". I am not yet certain how I will truly arrange the store, but that page is just a temporary holder of things to come.
There is still alot of work to be done, but at this point, my primary goal is to set the number and content of the directories into stone, at which point, a chisel will be necessary for serious change.
I would offer up some links to other patent print sites to show you their organization and content, but I do not want to promote competition. Anyhow, I intend to just wittle away at it, a chunk at a time, and hopefully before too long, I will start the search engine registration process.
Either way, this resource will be a labor of love and should be available for quite some time. It can only get better from this point.
Bruce
Don't take this the wrong way Bruce. You are either selling something or you are not. "Maybe selling, if..." isn't really selling. Prospects pick up on this easily and it detracts from your value and the effort as a whole. If you are selling patent prints, do it unabashedly. This is good for everyone and there should be no shame in doing so. Nobody who matters sells things that suck, and that is the only real worry. Does the product suck? To answer that, I have found doing the work to sell it unabashedly tends to ferret this out quickly, and it serves to power through the nagging issues so many of us have about selling.
There is always that seller who would sell it just because they can, suckage or not, and that drives most of the ordinary and healthy inhibitions we have because we dont want to be seen as that person. Perfectly understandable and rational.
Either sell them or not so that you and your prospects and customers feel good about it and the time gets used in an optimal way. Most ordinary people pick up on "maybe sell one" and see it as a negative and they often do so because they wonder where the value is if the seller doesn't communicate that clearly enough to motivate them and move on. This is most often done on an almost instinctive level and is nothing personal, just how humans do things.
This of course, clears the way for the directory to be the best it can be. Single points of intent are clear by nature and in this information cluttered world clarity is a big deal and it is growing in importance all the time.
If a user must watch a video, or read or do some other action, you suffer huge impacts on conversions and you have three that I can identify from your expressed intent: Buy a print, use the directory, make a book mark.
Where there is a need or requirement from the visitor, there mus also be value to warrant the need or most move on and being ranked high does not also mean conversions. You want conversions or you do not realize the product of your time as optimal.
Consider the idea of "friction free" and you can Google that for some great ideas on keeping conversion rates high, meaning your work is fruitful and seeing that for you is my intent here, by insuring there is a high value perception and a low effort to return perception at all times.
In that context, a video makes sense if it is short and it educates them well enough to sell them on using the product of your efforts. Should you do this, insure there is also a quick path for those who get it, in otherwords do not force the watching of the video, unless doing so has very high value to them.
If I come across as difficult, know that is not my intent. You come here because you value what you find here and I do too and on that basis find it makes most sense to engage the problem in the way we are all known to do.
Since the the directory site in post 1 contains many different subjects, the search engine will have difficulty ranking the site. What kind of site is this and what key words should I assign to this site? Moreover, search engines implement logic to weed out sites that intent to fool the public by inserting unrelated metadata. I'm sure at some point in your browsing history you stumbled upon a pron site simply by accident. Well, that's one reason why search engines implement content related safeguards.
Bruce, I wish you the best of luck.
And just exactly what are your credentials that make you an expert? Please proviide a url of a website that you have built that has a high ranking.
Mike speaks the truth. In fact, I think one of the first technologies developed by search engines was to detect just this sort of click-farming approach. Your patent-printing service sounds like a potential winner. Don't sink it by tacking on a bunch of irrelevant links.
Dave it is not better, it is just a tool or should I say a reference too several good sites organized by subject, combined with a quick method of navigating through them.
Scrolleeze will be known as a quick reference that sells patent prints.
The (main pages of the website = directories), where all the links have a specific topic, on a given page, with the exception of internal links that point to other directories or pages. The store is nothing more than a (new topic in the diectory = patent prints).
Besides, everything I wrote in post 24 is openly published and available from search engine How-To guides.