I am reposting this as my earlier post seems to have disappeared. I am also including the exchanges that I had so far... please share your thoughts... this has been very valuable for me. Thanks in advance. Zul ---------------------------------------------------- Dear Friends, I have launched a new website which allows users to associate keywords with their profile. I have managed to get ok traffic to come to the site but for some reason very few users are joining. I am very confused why more people are not joining. My site is: ez2findme.com. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions I would very much appreciate your thoughts. Thank you. Zul ------------------------------------------------------------------------- #2 Yesterday, 7:21 pm Blonde Jon Recent Blog: Two Cool Sites Raider Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 389 I visited your site. I'm not getting what you are doing. Is your site kind of a directory? __________________ Web Puffs Directory of Directories ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- #3 Yesterday, 7:45 pm zul Peon Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 4 Yes, it is a directory.... but it's better for 2 reasons (of course, that's my biased opinion): 1) Members can associate keywords with their directory entries which others can search on 2) Members have complete control over their information and they can update it themselves While other directories and yellow pages do offer some level of categorization, it is usually something that they determine and you are at their mercy. With Ez2FindMe, you get to specify the keywords that you determine to be important. Most other directories also don't allow you to update your contact information. By the way, your website seems interesting. Regards, Zul -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- #4 Yesterday, 8:07 pm mikejmu Raider Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Washington, DC Posts: 435 what are the benefits for your members? __________________ Make over $1 when people simply type their zip code or email with the following affiliate program!--CPAempire.com Example website: Free Restaurant Gift Card -------------------------------------------------------------------------- #5 Yesterday, 10:45 pm Game Producer Recent Blog: PaidByCash - Make it Easier For US Customers to Purchase Your Product Berserker Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Finland Posts: 113 @Zul: you've just found 2 great tips that can help you improve your site. 1) tell in simple and few words what your site is about. Instead of asking those questions (http://ez2findme.com/company/about.aspx) you should tell "What your site does? And for whom?". Word like "individuals" is bit hard, word "friend" is easier. 2) mikejmu gave you great tip: you need to be really clear about the benefits. I believe you explain quite well the meaning in the left side menu, but since some people ask - you might consider tweaking your layout. --- I personally think there's 2 problems with your site: #1 first, it I don't have a clue how many people or companies are already listed or how many people are using the site. If there's only 100 people visiting the site per month, why bother? If there's millions of people - you should let me know! #2 secondly, you have "individuals" AND "business"... I believe there are similar sites or directories that are dedicated to one of these (either individuals or businesses). I think you should separate them more clearly (like put tabs in the top of your site and simply have separate pages): those who are looking for individuals don't care about businesses, and vica versa. __________________ GameProducer.net - Daily Game Production Blog How my site traffic went from 37 monthly visits to 14,657 monthly uniques Selling PR4 lifetime links $36 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- #6 Today, 7:49 am zul Peon Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 4 Thank you mikejmu and Game Producer. Very much appreciate the feedback and advice. Will incorporate. With regards to the question about number of members... at the present time my membership is quite small... Quite clearly as the number of members increases the value of the service increases exponentially. However, the challenge is to get people to join based on them seeing future value as the number of members grows... so it's a chicken-and-egg problem... people join when they derive value and they derive more value as more people join. With regards to the benefits.... here's how I would describe it. The benefits of joining Ez2FindMe is that it makes it easy for others to find YOU based on your skills, expertise and capabilities. It enables others to find the right person with the right skills for the right job. Thoughts? Thanks again for all your feedback and advice. Regards, Zul
Thanks for all the advice and help. I have redesigned my homepage based on this feedback and I would appreciate comments/feedback. Thanks. Zul