Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Share your eyeballs and your thoughts please:

My company, Global Sourcing Specialists, is interested in gaining feedback for our company website:

www.productgss.com

as well as our recently launched blog:

www.product-global.com

I offer the information below about us and our website to anyone willing to share their thoughts with us.  I will be happy to answer questions and will be checking back on the thread regularly.  In advance, we really appreciate all your help and thank you for your time and input.  

-If you are willing to offer us feedback, please let us know which comments refer to our company website and which comments refer to our blog.

-Goals: Global Sourcing Specialists is a product development and manufacturing sourcing firm that helps businesses, start-ups, and inventors develop consumer products and tap overseas resources for production.  The goals of our website are to provide an online destination where potential customers can visit and

1) learn about who Global Sourcing Specialists is and what we do
2) develop new customer relationships and business
3) educate and create dialogue through our blog
4) help promote our company through SEO and other online methods.

-Our site content was designed by us--the rest by a professional, award-winning website designer (who is also a friend).  Our goals were the same as above.  It`s hard to say how long it took to design--20 hours at least on our part with many changes and tweaks along the way.

-Our ego is intact and we are happy to receive all commentary and critique about our website--from the nasty to the fantastic.  All feedback is helpful.

-Once again, our website is www.productgss.com and our blog is www.product-global.com.

Thanks again!

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Hi Ashton :-)
Here`s the embedded link to make it easier:  www.productgss.com.

Comment: Here`s what you have as your lead-in, which is quite good I think.
We`re exactly in the condition you`re describing, and here`s what bothers me quite a lot: Why am I required to use an overseas product development solution? I happen to like the US, and would at least like to start exploring US solutions.

Another possible modification has to do with the spectrum of products and your own limits, parameters, or constraints.

Here on SuN we`ve seen everything from engineering products to electronic devices, food preparations, packaged foods, clothing, toys, games, gizmos, knick-knacks, and paddywacks. Your site seems to handle everything. Do you handle textile products?

If not, then I`d like to see, maybe on the "About" page, a fleshed-out listing of your general area of interest. For instance, you could say we`re a contact and brokering business specializing in machined products, metal working, and so forth.

Do you also provide design help in the sense of virtual prototypes? That was a discussion we had awhile back, where someone wanted to generate a working 3D model of their invention more for problem analysis before committing to tooling up a factory and building a solid prototype.

If you do handle textile products, we might want to contact you ourselves. :-)

Ok, you asked...

If your website designer was an `award winner`, then he owes somebody that statue back. Your site uses clip art photos, nearly no color, way too much text.
Your home page banner is just plain hideous: four photos, all different sizes and not cropped, just vaguely reflecting your tagline. No creative use of text, fonts, nothing. Bland. If they give awards for that, someone needs to speak to the academy...

On the blog front: you actually have some good thoughts, but you also directly lift trademarked products (Risk, Kleenex spots, etc) and violate federal trademark regulations in so doing. This will get you sued.

The blog scrolls for ever - why not use a better blog solution which groups your posts by subject, date, etc?

You used the phrase `new paradigm` in a late April 2007 post. We stopped talking like that before the dotcom explosion in `99. I know the blog just started, but I`d find a way to suppress the comment counter until there is a comment in it. In other words, every post shows (0) comments. This makes you look bad, although it`s totally not your fault since you just launched the blog.

Finally, it appears that you simply are a broker for these situations. Is that true?

I`d argue the Kleenex thing ... reposting their ad without charging them is actually good for them. It`s on YouTube anyway, which makes the poster responsible - not anyone linking to it. And actually, the ad was posted by the musicians featured in the commercial - I`m assuming they have every right to repost an ad featuring their song.

Your blog does need excerpting. And what is your priority? Why are subscriptions some really dinky link way below the schpiel about who writes this stuff? Subscriptions should be easy and obvious. You have a lot of wasted space ... I`d go with a 3-column design.

What does "Site Powered By Wind Energy" mean?

I don`t like the graphical disconnection between the main site and the blog.

I don`t think the site is terrible. It`s quite workable ... except for the copywriting. The copywriting is definitely terrible, or first class awful.

The graphics don`t bother me and I imagine that the vast majority of potential visitors couldn`t care less. The top graphic is quite nice in my opinion. But forget about the graphics for a moment: don`t your visitors want to know what this site offers? How long do you think they are willing to spend figuring it out?

The copywriting is all about what you do and not about what you offer. "Envision - Connect - Build - Succeed". I can see why this string of words appeals to you - you are the business owner - but I cannot figure out why it would appeal to your prospective customers. Perhaps a more literal approach such as "Manufacture your products overseas and save money. A lot of money." Isn`t that what you`re really offering?

From your services page: "Our Value Proposition to You". What does this mean to a customer? Your value proposition? The information is well written and presented nicely but is a bit wordy in each separate service description.

The trendy "recommend" this site to a friend is nice but really seems out of place for this type of business. Just a comment.

I think the site is fairly well done overall. It just needs a large injection of clarity and some professional copywriting. Or ... just a bit more focus perhaps. Basically you could reduce the information on the entire site to a few short snips and snaps on the front page ... and don`t forget a prominent call to action.

Great business concept, imho. Probably a real value.

Here is a link to an article I wrote on copywriting.

Just want to say thanks for the comments thus far.  Please keep them coming!  They are all helpful.

To make sure I understand your comments correctly...

Craig,
A better explanation of our competencies on the site is warranted.  In terms of product development, this does happen in the States and we should clarify that on the site, no?  We have experience and are currently working with a number of different kinds of products.  In the way of textiles, I can think of at least 5 different products off the top of my head that we have done or are working on.  We`re also working on a machined metal after market car product, plastic injection tool/handyman products, baby and toy products, and some electronics as well.  We don`t provide 3d animation services, but I have a very good designer I can refer out to who does this.

BrandAlchemy,
To save my designer, I have to say that while he gave me some basic input and helped me build the backend, many of the design choices (banner included) were mine.  I agree, the homepage banner could probably use improvement.  The pics in it are from Istockphoto.com.  Is there a better source for pics?  Please let me know.  I agree that I should fix the blog scrolling issue.  I also agree that "0" comments does not look great.  Of course, my goal is to begin generating comments.  I`d rather have people know they can make comments than not see there aren`t any.  Is there a way to do this?  Finally, beyond brokerage, we provide a suite of services in the following: design, development, prototyping, vendor sourcing, manufacturing management, quality control, packaging, and shipping.  Do I need to make this more evident/prominent on the website?

nhgnikole,
Blog excerpts indeed.  Yes, I`ll make subscriptions much easier and visible.  "Site Powered by Wind Energy" means that our servers are run by wind energy. 

CookieMonster,
           Copywriting...  We should be more specific about what we do in less words.  I do like the recommend feature, but perhaps we should change how we present it? 

Thanks again for all of your input.





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Um...no, this is a common fallacy that CookieMonster has been championing on SuN. As a writer, I concur with many of his articles and thoughts, and he`s gone a long way to helping educate people.

Copywriting is a technique of writing, not a fast rule such as above. It combines many complex skills such as marketing, psychology, writing, and conversation.

Better copywriting means analyzing the meaning of what you`re writing, then using that analysis to empathize (an emotional process) with a "target" customer mentality. That`s not just writing with less words.

Copywriting, like SEO writing, is very complicated. It goes well beyond writing a good story. In fact, copywriting is sort of like writing short stories. Those are often much harder to do than a novel or novella. The constraint of space, and the high-speed plot development make it complicated.

Same with writing commercials for 60- or 30-second spots. Think of the entire story you`re getting, in such high-speed development that you get the introduction, plot, process, and end, all in under 1 minute. That`s not because they just use fewer words. :-) Y`know?

Thanks for the kind words Craig. Craig has nicely summed up a very complex topic. The copywriting needs to be professionally written or you need to invest some time and effort in making it excellent. As Craig points out, better than I have in the past, copywriting is complicated. Though the end result is supposed to be very simple, the process of determining an approach and filtering the words is tricky. My advice: either spend some time learning about copywriting or hire someone to help. This tends to make a huge difference.

Hi,
      Just want to say thanks for all the input.  It may take us some time--but I`ve taken notes on your suggestions and will be implementing a number of them. 

Thanks,
Ashton


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