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Help - I've been accused of OVER-working on my site!

by MrBarnes003
8 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
    • |
Hello everyone,

1.) As the title of the thread suggests, I've been accused of over-working on my site. The dynamic is such that every casual visitor that I've had look over the site thinks everything looks awesome. But the reaction I get from the marketing/SEO/traffic/conversion crowd(s) is hit and miss. Some think I'm spot on, some think I'm way off. I haven't had a lot of people analyze it which, just based on this kind of reaction has me pretty paranoid to touch it, or hire some analyst team to go in and fiddle around with things.

2.) I have most things eCommerce employed on it, and everything functions well, is legal, and safe. There's the main domain and a sub-domain for the store that has products. I have a squeeze page for a donation campaign that's live right now, the blog (working on more content now), and I have an auto-responder and newsletter qued up and ready to go. I think it's easy to tell by just looking at the site that the CMS is WordPress. So yea...

3.) The other thing is I am the designer...sooo naturally then, as the only real pair of eyes on my site, I can't see the problem if there is one. I've been designing things long enough to know that I better take a break from looking at it sometimes, come back to it, and look again with fresh eyes. But, I don't see any "sore thumbs" about the site if you know what I mean.

4.) Right now, I'm at the point where I know my marketing strategies are coming into play. A friend put it plainly to me by saying I have all (or most of) the intellectual work done for the site. So I'm readying myself to drive traffic, get conversions, and finally monetize.

Can I get some help please? Any ideas? Has anyone been in this sort of predicament before? What's frustrating me right now is that I'm not making any money from the site for my efforts. Word of mouth is fine locally (with respect to the holidays having just passed but) singular efforts aren't working out well at all.

Not only that, the more I seek out help to get the site making money independently of me, the more I'm approached with these "offers" that spiral into nowhere. Link to my site homepage is in my signature but, if you can't see that like I can't see it, here:

site: www.cfdesignsonline.com
store: cfdesignsonline.com | Shop
blog post that leads to the squeeze page I was talking about: Help Grow CFDesigns - Contemporary Fantasy Designs

This isn't some stupid ploy to get you guys to click around on my site, honest. I'm posting this because I really need some help from other people that have found some success with similar things. It's driving me up the wall trying to figure out how to do everything myself WITH everyone (understandably) wanting to charge me money for each individual little move I make. Especially while I'm in the process of it all.

Thanks to anyone who actually takes a look and gives feedback. Last, I REALLY hope I have this thread posted in the right place after all this typing. Please notify me or something if not.
#accused #overworking #site
  • Profile picture of the author Tsnyder
    All that matters is sales.

    Your site looks fabulous. Forget the seo/traffic/conversion wienies... they just
    want your money... lol

    Are you making sales? Did I mention that that's all that matters?
    Signature
    If you knew what I know you'd be doing what I do...
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  • Profile picture of the author pdrs
    The marketing/conversion crowd can crow all they want. If you don't have traffic hitting the site then you don't really know anything.

    The site looks nice, to me it looks a little dated in terms of design, but nice nonetheless - drive some traffic, get some stats, split test and you'll soon know what works and what doesn't.

    Anyone who speculates on what a site may or may not do in terms of conversions is doing simply that.
    Signature
    RemoteControlHelicopterReviews.(com/net) - Up for sale! No reasonable offer refused. Great branding for a super hot niche!
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    • Profile picture of the author MrBarnes003
      Originally Posted by Tsnyder View Post

      All that matters is sales.

      Your site looks fabulous. Forget the seo/traffic/conversion wienies... they just
      want your money... lol

      Are you making sales? Did I mention that that's all that matters?
      Nope, not yet. I've done a few test with traffic and such. At least 2 of those tests came back bot-filled. The first newsletter I sent out did ok...I got a few subscribers. That sort of thing. No conversions though.

      I can't tell what the big idea is.

      Originally Posted by pdrs View Post

      The marketing/conversion crowd can crow all they want. If you don't have traffic hitting the site then you don't really know anything.

      The site looks nice, to me it looks a little dated in terms of design, but nice nonetheless - drive some traffic, get some stats, split test and you'll soon know what works and what doesn't.

      Anyone who speculates on what a site may or may not do in terms of conversions is doing simply that.
      I'll take it all in and keep going of course. I just can't figure out why nothing is converting. The store, the newsletter, the campaign.... nothing?

      I don't get it. hm..
      Signature

      site: www.cfdesignsonline.com
      fb: www.facebook.com/cfdesignsonline
      twtr: www.twitter.com/CFDesignsOnline
      yt: www.youtube.com/channel/UCoC87G307h8LW3QsPJ98OzQ

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  • Profile picture of the author jessand2boys
    I have fast fi internet, and your site took quite awhile to load. I probably would have hit the back button if I was shopping. Can you check into ways to optimize from that angle? I know your business is by nature pretty graphic intensive but maybe move your "recent designs" to another page so your first pages load faster?
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  • Profile picture of the author Brisa Maria
    the site looks pretty decent. i will say though that it seems very neutral. i mean, you mention that your interest is in fantasy art design, but that doesn't really come across in your website at all. i know that's not all you do, but if you're in the business of creating identity designs then shouldn't that come through in your personal site as well?

    but i agree with everyone else in that you really won't be able to tell if it's effective until you drive some traffic to it, which is what you should focus on right now. you can always make adjustments as you go
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    • Profile picture of the author MrBarnes003
      Consensus seems to be staying steady. I can deal with that. I have a question or two then...

      1.) Any recommendations for good traffic sources? As I mentioned, I've done a few tests but, the ones I had more faith in came up with a bunch of bots instead of real people (and no conversions of course). Since the predominant voice about getting good traffic seems to be to go with paid traffic or targeted traffic, does anyone know of a good company or person(s) to go with? I've been getting screwed with alot lately on this front so it's harder for me to tell, up or down which way to do by only doing random searches. Is there anything good around?

      2.) I've been thinking about building my email/newsletter list since I set it up about a week ago too (that's harder than I thought it would be). Right now it just feels like a secondary task though. Any recommendations or info on building lists?

      Again, thanks everybody....
      Signature

      site: www.cfdesignsonline.com
      fb: www.facebook.com/cfdesignsonline
      twtr: www.twitter.com/CFDesignsOnline
      yt: www.youtube.com/channel/UCoC87G307h8LW3QsPJ98OzQ

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  • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
    Did those who accused you of over-working specify what they exactly mean by that?

    I thought your company was mainly designing clothes, but apparently not according to the FAQ. There should be some sort of brief explanation on the front page, and in the blog sidebar. That way your visitor will instantly know if this is what they're looking for.

    The site seems a bit slow, which is something I would look into. You're using at least 3 full-size images on the front page, but showing them in thumbnail sizes. That way the images are making the page slow, but also don't look as good as they could. The actual thumbnails in the bottom are fetched by a PHP script which may not be the best idea.

    Here's a tool you can use for page speed testing:
    Pingdom's Website speed test

    As someone suggested the style is a bid dated. Perhaps not following the latest web design fads, but it looks good to me. Good color palette, good use of fonts. Some text is a bit too small.

    The technology behind the special fonts certainly is dated. Cufon might be slowing the rendering a bit. If it's feasible, you could try to switch to @font-face embedding.

    You could make the blog sidebar less blocky. Lose the calendar unless you need it for something. Showing blog post release dates is not a good use for that kind of calendar component. It just makes the page more crowded, and doesn't help user to actually find anything.
    Signature
    Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
    Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

    What's your excuse?
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    • Profile picture of the author MrBarnes003
      Originally Posted by nettiapina View Post

      Did those who accused you of over-working specify what they exactly mean by that?

      I thought your company was mainly designing clothes, but apparently not according to the FAQ. There should be some sort of brief explanation on the front page, and in the blog sidebar. That way your visitor will instantly know if this is what they're looking for.

      The site seems a bit slow, which is something I would look into. You're using at least 3 full-size images on the front page, but showing them in thumbnail sizes. That way the images are making the page slow, but also don't look as good as they could. The actual thumbnails in the bottom are fetched by a PHP script which may not be the best idea.

      Here's a tool you can use for page speed testing:
      Pingdom's Website speed test

      As someone suggested the style is a bid dated. Perhaps not following the latest web design fads, but it looks good to me. Good color palette, good use of fonts. Some text is a bit too small.

      The technology behind the special fonts certainly is dated. Cufon might be slowing the rendering a bit. If it's feasible, you could try to switch to @font-face embedding.

      You could make the blog sidebar less blocky. Lose the calendar unless you need it for something. Showing blog post release dates is not a good use for that kind of calendar component. It just makes the page more crowded, and doesn't help user to actually find anything.
      Well, since the site is kind of divided up into big chunks, most of the criticism was about keywords and SEO optimization stuff. My response was something like:

      "*sigh* okaay...but that doesn't have a whole lot to do with helping the sites conversion rates. Not only that, I think Google is changing up the algorithms for how it finds things online anyway."

      I went through a phase of hazing about my store, the products, pricing of things, and product descriptions. And then I went through a phase for preparing the blog (typical "what kinds of content will you be covering" stuff etc etc).

      After that, there's the phase I'm on now. Everything from newsletter and auto-responder stuff, to even more SEO stuff, and now marketing and "best traffic driving practices." It's been an nice looong incremental processes but, as far as site design and everything, people generally like it. And I can deal with that, it's just, for all this work....where's the conversions into sales?


      I mean I figured I'd at least get some good attention on the donation thing. But nope, nothing yet. I'm going to keep plugging away at it of course but, a little nudge (or a good push) in the right direction would be nice. And I guess since all that's really left now is traffic and marketing stuff, what they hey, something's gotta give eventually eh?

      I most definitely appreciate the critique. No one has been as specific about this or that until now.
      Signature

      site: www.cfdesignsonline.com
      fb: www.facebook.com/cfdesignsonline
      twtr: www.twitter.com/CFDesignsOnline
      yt: www.youtube.com/channel/UCoC87G307h8LW3QsPJ98OzQ

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