Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

 

     I am not crazy about the slogan and I think it limits you by having  an actual date integrated within the wording. How about just Elect to Feel the Pleasure?

    I think the logo can be a good logo but needs to not have the homemade look to it. It is rough in design and needs to be smoothed out and cleaner looking if that makes any sense?  And yes, far too much pink and the pink is so bright it makes the logo hard on the eyes for me anyhow.  How about a more suttle pink or my advice would be purple for the logo color? A lot of women these days that I know do like purple as opposed to pink in my opinion. 

      I would also incorporate a second color within the headers so the color of the logo is complemented but not competing with the content colors.  You could use a lighter varition of the logo color even.  

      On the front page I recommend to keep it simple and eye catching.  Put the script you have on the front page on a separate page in the site and the consumer can opt to go read it if they choose.  The first thing a potential customer sees should be something that gets the customer`s attention and can be absorbed within a few seconds time, give them something where you get their interest and feel they want to go and find out more about your product.  The front page is akin to your store front and you want the store front to draw them into your store.  

     Go to some other commercial sites and see how their front page looks. Including businesses that do well that are selling products similar to yours as well the ones that sell unrelated products.  On my front page I feature 6 products that are in my store where the customer can click through and it takes them directly into my store area.  I plan to change the pictures once a month to keep the front page fresh to keep customers coming back.  Have you thought about carrying other products as well so you have more to offer the customers and hopefully to generate more business for yourself?

 

      I was only teasing about the machine comment and a man designing it.     I do wish you luck with your venture!

-------------------------

Beth Downey
BoxerHaus.com
The Ultimate Boxer Shopping Experience!
www.BoxerHaus.com

Boxer,
Whether it was a joke or not, There are ways to say things...Although, it sounded like a joke to you "That is not how it was read" You guys where blunt about it... and it sounded harsh... very harsh on my end, unless I have a different type of monitor that makes things come out that way... As for your web site... hahaha, I`ll let you live with that...
Yes your web site looks nice... and your customers like it....

Do you want my opinion? or should we just leave it at that???

Have a good day everyone...

-------------------------

Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net

       I am sorry you took it that way Edgar, that is why I put the Emoticon in, to indicate I was being funny.  I don`t think my post was harsh and it involved mainly construcive criticism I thought would be helpful.  Don`t combine what I said with what someone else may have commented, I am not a "you guys", I am just me and I gave my own personal thoughts.  You agreed with them in your own post.  As far as your opinion on my site, let`s not be high school.  I don`t care what you think and I don`t think Dlakey needs his thread here to be used as a bashing platform against other people.  By the way, my site averages 100 visitors per day, that will equal 3,000 by the end of the month - not to mention over $600 in sales already.   Not bad for a site that has been open less than a month. 

       If you have anything you want to say to me about my site, you are welcome to contact me but let`s not clog up Dlakey`s thread with high school antics. 

-------------------------

Beth Downey
BoxerHaus.com
The Ultimate Boxer Shopping Experience!
www.BoxerHaus.com

Check the applications in your current hosting control panel.  You should already have it. 

-------------------------

_____________________________________________ Mike

Hi Dan,

Ok,  I took a look at your website and the first thing I noticed is that your logo image is stretched. By that, I mean that the code around the image is telling it to make the image 310x235, when your image is only 273x239. When I took a look at your logo at the appropropriate size (just copied and pasted into my image editing software) it really does not look that bad at all.

So, go into your code and edit the image tag. This is what it looks like now:

<img border="0" src="_borders/logo_to_use_to_ads_copy.gif" width="310" height="235">

Just change it to:

<img border="0" src="_borders/logo_to_use_to_ads_copy.gif" width="273" height="239">

By changing the width and height dimemsions to the exact size of the image, it should look alot better. My suggestion would be to make the logo `sexier` by adding some curves and shine to it.

Here`s a graphic I did just as an example:http://auctionboutique.com/usersdirs/11082/sb_kisses.gif

 If you can send me your original artwork (in illustrator, photoshop - whatever you used to create it) I would be happy to see what I can do (no charge). Although it`s a bit from what I`m used to working on

http://auctionboutique.com/usersdirs/11082/boutiquelogos2_sm .gif

I have done alot of logos and graphics for kid related businesses, but I`m not limitted to that. I can maybe help you out with your website graphics and assist with coding for a very low rate. Just let me know.

I`m a firm believe that you can teach yourself almost anything, but you`ve got to have the time to dedicate to it. If you don`t, than you are definately better off outsourcing it to someone who can. Your logo is a huge part in establishing your brand - it says alot about your company. I don`t believe women will be inclined to purchase an item (especially something of this nature!) if the logo doesn`t `speak` to them. In this case, women need to really trust your company, and I think your logo should portray a sexy, powerful and confident image. Just food for thought!

Melissa

 

 

 

 

 

-------------------------

Melissa Yamello
Owner/Designer
Storybook Studio
www.storybookstudio.net

Kids` Craft Blast
Sign-up for our newsletter featuring free project ideas in each issue!

Just saw another issue. The reason some of your tabs appear to be shifting up on you, is that you have <p align="center"> tags in front of your tabs. Get rid of them your tab images should align properly. You might want to put your nav images in their own table as well.

Melissa

 

-------------------------

Melissa Yamello
Owner/Designer
Storybook Studio
www.storybookstudio.net

Kids` Craft Blast
Sign-up for our newsletter featuring free project ideas in each issue!

Wow, I knew I would find some great help on this site, just like the help I get from listening to the Sloan Brothers podcast.  Where do we start.

 

Well first I want to say that I have not taken any offence from anyone and I want that made clear.  Absolutely everyone here has tried to be helpful and I thank you for that.

 

Next Showboxers, I am definitely with you on changing the color of that logo, actually that color was my wife’s choice, but I don’t think she really realized how bright it was going to be, the purple/pink combination is certainly something I could live with.  As far as the text on the front page, what do you think about putting the first paragraph there and then having a text (more) link at the end to read the complete text.  That was it won’t take up so much room.  What do you think about the idea of a couple of animated .gifs on the front page.  I have two of them, each one of them shows the two different motions of the sybian.  I think it could be somewhat eye-catching.  Do you think my fonts are too large throughout the site??  I guess maybe it is just a sign of my age, or my bad eyes, but I read somewhere once that you are supposed to use a font that is sized ½ of your readers age.  Example, for a 40 year old the font size would be a font size of 20.  I used 18 Georgia for most of the text on the site.

 

I meant to address this comment yesterday when I responded but it slipped my mind.  Your comment concerning a man designing the sybian and how most men just don’t have a clue.  You are SOO right, in most cases.  Most vibrators are designed in a phallic shape, and as all the ladies know, sometimes this just isn’t the most efficient shape and thrusting is not the most efficient motion for getting you where you need to go, but the Sybian was designed differently.  The Sybian was put through 3 years of trials and testing from real women, and hundreds if not thousands of tweaks were made to the machine before it reached the form it takes today.  Dave Lampert the inventor of the Sybian right on his website makes this statement, “The Sybian is not the result of what I thought it should be, but the collective input of many women.”  So you see, you may have been joking, but there was certainly a seed of truth in what you said.

 

DesignCaddy, dude you certainly know your stuff.  DotNetNuke was right there on the control panel where you said, but I am going to have to uninstall community server in order to install the DNN.  Right now I am pending removal of community server  before I can install DNN.  So I guess I have a lot of learning to do this weekend.  I’m sure I will have some questions, but I will certainly give the instructions a good read first.  Looks like the community forum over at DNN is pretty good also.  Once again, thanks for turning me onto the DNN, you were about the price being right, it is free, lets just hope I can figure it out now LOL.

 

Storybookstudio, save the best for last, you are so very kind.  Hey TJG, do you see this?  This is how most people give constructive criticism, They tell you what is wrong, and then they tell you what to do about it.  I guess you did the same thing, it`s just that you suggested dynamite to fix my site LOL.  First of all I have already taken your suggestion and resized the logo, thanks.  I guess when I was moving it around in FP it got stretched a little bit.  Your suggestion of curves and shine sounds great, especially the shine part.  I was wanting to do something like that, but my photoshop skills just aren’t the best.  But I can see you are good with it..  I really liked the kisses.  I assume you created those from scratch?   Damn artistic people, you gotta hate them 

 

Anyway, I would be honored to take any assistance you could offer in reworking that logo, I will try to email you my original .psd file n the next 24 hours.  Maybe we can chat back and forth some over the next few days to see what we(spelled you) can do with it.

 

And to close, I would like to once again thank everyone who has been so kind to the newcomer.  I appreciate any kind of feedback I can get on the site and the business, and I REALLY appreciate female feedback.  You are my target audience, tell me what YOU like.

 

Thanks again

 

Dan

 

-------------------------

Electric Sensations
Sybian Sales and Rental
www.electricsensations.com

When fate hands you a lemon, make lemonade.
Dale Carnegie

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the kind words. I did create the kisses using a filter. I am playing around with a logo right now actually. No need to send me your original file as I would like to just create it from scratch.

I also think that need to lose the lightening bolt (female opinion). I know it was tempting to incorporate that in the design since you have `electric` in your company name. However - we`re not talking about a power plant here. When I`m thinking of any kind of `pleasure` the last thing I want to come to mind is being electrocuted!!  That kinda kills the mood (although i`m guessing their are some women that are into that sorta thing ;0) I think you should play up the `sensations` aspect...and loose the shock factor. Also, I agree that a softer pink and purple would be appealing to most women. Let me see what I can do and I`ll send it over to you either later today or tomorrow.

Melissa

 

-------------------------

Melissa Yamello
Owner/Designer
Storybook Studio
www.storybookstudio.net

Kids` Craft Blast
Sign-up for our newsletter featuring free project ideas in each issue!

Thank you so much Melissa, that is very kind of you...thinking about how to say this, the uhh lightning bolt, I`m kinda attached to it, but for the sake of the business I`d let it go, don`t know what my wife will think about it LOL. This company has been in the works for close to 4 years nowand that lightning bolt has been with us almost since the beginning.  Actually in the original design there were 3 lightning bolts LOL.  Two little ones for the S`s at the beginning and end of sensations.  If we let those go I guess it won`t be that hard to let the last one go.  .  Anyway, ok if the bolt has to go, so be it....but please make it merciful.  I will be waiting anxiously to see what you come up with.  But don`t hurry too much, I won`t be back on the computer until tommorow morning, I work 3rd shift and am getting ready to go to bed.   TMI????  sorry

 

Designcaddy, I got the DNN installed, and I think I am going to really like it.  Hang on while I go snap my Frontpage2000 CD in half.  OK thats better.  Yea I think I am really going to be able to do something with that program, and along with Melissa`s help on the graphics, I might just have a site that women can trust, thanks to the help of everyone on Start-up nation.

 

Dan

 

-------------------------

Electric Sensations
Sybian Sales and Rental
www.electricsensations.com

When fate hands you a lemon, make lemonade.
Dale Carnegie

        Glad to see you are getting some great input and sounds like Melissa is especially helpful - nice to know there are people out there willing to help a new person out.  I certainly benefited from this when I first came to SuN a few months ago!  I met TJG here and he has been a great supporter and extremely helpful in getting me where I am now!

      My opinion on the text is that it is too big and needs to be smaller.  It is a bit overwhelming.  I like the idea of putting a few sentences up and then the - more... - leading into another page.  And if you add graphics to the front page, you don`t want the lettering so overbearing or it will take over.  I would recommend graphics that were interesting and related to passion, etc. but a graphic of the Sybian on the front page might be a little too shocking, but something related.  I guess I am a little conservative.  Not opposed to what you are selling by any means but a bit on the shyer side with that kind of product.     

       I agree with Melissa now that she mentions a good point in that the lightning bolt might be a little too electric and something softer and more sensual would be better in the logo design.  Now that I look at it again (had to get past the bright pink to really see it, LOL!) it looks more like a logo for an electronics company.  Looking forward to seeing what Melissa comes up with!

-------------------------

Beth Downey
BoxerHaus.com
The Ultimate Boxer Shopping Experience!
www.BoxerHaus.com