Site review

[Motorhead]

Check out the site in my sig. I am getting about 300 page views per day mostly from Google/Yahoo. Can you guys offer any suggestions for keeping visitors on the site, and also encouraging them to join my newsletter? I am also thinking about paying to get into Yahoo and Look Smart, do you think my site is ready?

Thanks,


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Kevin Schappell
Learn more about your car.
AutoEducation.com (http://www.autoeducation.com)

[Questy]

Kevin,

You're asking two sets of questions here. Let me sort them for you. I teach webmastering, I also have some sales and marketing experience, so let me break it down for you into each area.

Last question first:

I am also thinking about paying to get into Yahoo and Look Smart, do you think my site is ready?

NO. That doesn't mean I don't like your site, nor do I feel it is bad, it just means it needs a little more work. I'd rather see you put a little more time into your site before you spend the money to list it.

From an HTML standpoint....

Some of your tables have some cell padding, some do not. You need to add a little cell padding to you menus so the words don't quite touch the edges. Same thing with the side margins on the main body text of you pages, they just don't look real "clean" to me.

Look at the side margin on the main body text in the first 800 x 600 pixels of your Buying private page. The left margin seems to jump around a bit.

Look at the side margin on the main body text in the first 800 x 600 pixels of your Buying at a dealer page, you indent the first paragraph and the rest seem to ride the rail.

Some of your pages seem to be rather long narratives, while others seem to be simply bullet points. Create a template for style, look and feel, and even length of each page, and be consistant. You've done a pretty good job to start with, just needs a little fine tuning.

Site grade, pretty good: B

The other question: Can you guys offer any
suggestions for keeping visitors on the site, and also encouraging them to join my newsletter?

The simple answer is, content, content, content.

Develop your FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) sections, keep adding new content, keep changing the front page headline to reflect new pages as you add them, new FAQ's you add over time. The key word, TIME. It will take some time, but you're off to a good start, keep working at it.

*** Just wanted to add this. When I was a sale trainer, I often said the true measure of how good a sales person was how many customers came back after the first sale. That's very true with websites. What will keep them coming back for more. If your website looks like something can be printed on a brochure, something that is static, you'll waste your time and money trying to market it. If on the other hand, it looks dynamic, the content is being refreshed and updated regularly, there's a reason to visit again, then you have the true "living" web site, and you will keep your viewers coming back for more. As that happens you can use newsletters to chase folks to your site as you add more content.

[This message has been edited by Questy (edited 01-10-2001).]

[Chazhound]

Site looks good, love the cars!

Yeah, it needs some clean up but overall it ok. If you look you can find something wrong with most any site. Yours has a snappy look to it, I liked it...

Some little things like you can address for a better chance:
Reducing your picture file sizes.
Filling in appropriate text in your buttons alt tags.
Dividing up your content to separate pages.
Your pictures are big enough that you should only have one per page.

The biggest turnoff I experienced was the slow loading of your pages. In fact I got bored quickly and left! A directory editor will too. I didn't ping but thought you should know.

If your going to pay for a listing, make sure your contact information and privacy statement are in order.

Volume of content or time doesn't mean squat, unique content is what you want.

I built one site on a Saturday and it was listed in the Yahoo Directory the following Tuesday.
I also have a content site which took a long time to build and six months to list.

Good Luck!
Chazhound

[YeahBuddy]

I know I'm going to get a reputation on the board as a font lunatic, but I do believe that Verdana could right several of the world's wrongs if put to the test. http://geekvillage.com/ubb/biggrin.gif That's my first recommendation - Times New Roman is worn-out and extraordinarily bland.

Other than that, I agree with the cellpadding things Questy mentioned.

On the positive note, I *really, really* like your affiliate link placement. It seems very integral to your site.

On the Tell A Friend page, check out Mailbits.com. That makes a ton of webmasters a ton of money - they pay 25 cents for each person that refers a friend.

Overall Grade: B

[Motorhead]

Chazhound.... were you looking at http://www.autoeducation.com ? I don't have any car pictures there. Maybe you were on my Stealth site which is just for my hobby and I do agree the pics are large. Questy......
Thank you for your opinion and I will look into everything you mentioned. I get bookmarked about 5 times per day from about 150 visitors. I also get about 400 page views from those 150 visitors so they are not looking at one page and leaving. I would like that to increase but at least some people are digging into the site.

Thanks again,




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Kevin Schappell
Learn more about your car.
AutoEducation.com (http://www.autoeducation.com)

[Chazhound]

Oops, wrong site.
I still liked the cars and bookmarked it too!

Chazhound http://www.iStockcar.com