Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

We've been working hard on our website and product.  Please take a look at our website and share your knowledge!

http://www.fridgeartist.com

or

http://www.magneticcolors.com

This is an unusual critique for me.  A 9.9 out of 10.

Very easy to navigate, very well presented.  The colors were, at first, harsh, but for this product, thet are appropriate.  You get plus points for starting a Facebook page showing what people can do with the magnets.  You lost the last .1 point for your lackluster SEO.  All of your page titles are the same, and the page title is the best place for keywords, followed by the text in your site.

I just bought a set for my niece's birthday coming up soon.  This will be the perfect gift.

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Steve Mann
Internet Videographer
MannMade Digital Video
My Email

i went to fridgeartist.com, not the other URL, and agree with Steve that this website deserves a positive response!

one thing i wanted to click on, though, was an "ABOUT" page, profiling who you are, what's behind the innovation, the mission of the company, etc...

 

rich

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Rich Sloan , Co-Founder, Chief Startupologist, StartupNation

Thank you two very much for your quick and informative responses!

I'd love more from whomever is reading this now...  we need to find a way to increase conversions!  Affiliates, retail, licensing... so much more to learn.

Tonight's mission... removing some of the 'lack' from our lackluster SEO and a cursory About Us page!

Is this an SEO trick  fridge art magnet gift kit ?  I read that high traffic sites with keywords associated to our website link helps to increase our Google page rank... may as well give 'er a go.

I suppose we're at least on the right track if Steve decided to buy!  Thanks Steve!  I can't tell you how excited we get with each sale... it's almost a childlike type of giddy. We hope your niece loves the product!

I probably need to work on the SEO on this other page as well... but at least we have an About Us page on this one...it's a bit perpendicular to the Fridge Arist world... but we're hoping some of these seeds take root.

Steve, any chance your niece needs her own beach front property in Ecuador?  Her birthday is coming up you know!

http://www.ecuadorbeachfrontproperty.com

I'll also post this on its own thread for others to comment.

Thanks again for the energy you folks are putting into this forum and the Startup Nation pages.  What an excellent resource!  I spent the better part of the day exploring the site and radio programs.  Very cool.

Hi,

I have to disagree with the previous comments, it's definitely not a 9.9 in my opinion. You have a great product, I'll give you that, but the website design and usability can be so much more.

Your product is colorful, so making everything on the page and around the page colorful is taking away from your product.

The font is too childish, actually the whole site is too childish (in a nonprofessional way). Read this article What is your Business Image Worth? Your product is not only for children, you have links for adults and educators, so you need to cater to people who will actually buy your stuff. Yes, the kids will play and use your product, but the adults will actually be purchasing it. For example, take a look at http://www.lego.com the site overall colors are calm but the products take center stage.

I would strongly suggest showing your product up at the top, above the fold. It would be best if you can show the samples of designs that you can create or that others have created in a gallery or slideshow (again I'm referencing lego.com for this, see their main image with the arrows).

Add a promotion or some kind of call to action on your home to give people that hint to go deeper in your website. Your "share the designs and win" is great, just make it more interesting and bring it to the homepage.

Move your "addthis" to the top where it's more visible. Place a facebook icon on top as well so people can connect with you easier.

Here are a few articles that might help you with SEO:

Optimizing Your Website Content

Keys to Search Engine Optimization

Free keyword research tool

There's so much more that can be done to attract more people to your website. These are just few things that you can get started on.

great site.

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http://www.fridgeartist.com/

You really should add an opt-in form for people to give their name and email address to you.

Give away something for free in order to build leads; like 10 free design ideas or 10 tips to getting your kids involved in art.  These are off the top of my head but give something away your targeted visitors would get value from.

If you are getting the right traffic let's assume that 2 out of 100 visitors will buy.  Which means the remaining 98 visitors are gone and may never come back.

Offering something for free that a targeted visitor may be interested in generates a lead for you that you can email market to in order to convert to a customer.

Imagine you have 1000's of people on your list and it is Dec 1; offer a Christmas special and you will generate sales.

Cool product.

Chris

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+++++++++++++++++++++++++ Chris Reynolds Dir. Business Development The Internet Marketing Center chris.reynolds@internetmarketing.com 888 462-7006 ext 213 604 730-2833 ext 213 +++++++++++++++++++++++++

A huge round of THANKS to designleap, artistpainting, and Chris!

All of these suggestions are hugely valuable and we'll be integrating the changes you've suggested.  We are in the process of building a companion site... magneticcolors.com that has more of a web 2.0 feel and the more grown-up professional image suggested by designleap.

Based on recent website stats we have two very different markets, young kids and adult artists and crafsters... it seems like we will need two sites to to drive the appropriate traffic to each and to present the relevant material to the right audience without too much overlap...

That's the thinking at the moment.  The Free giveaway mentioned by Chris is totally key.  Thanks so much.  This is definitely an adventure for us... learning lots!

Please add your input so we can keep improving!

Thanks,

Tom and Lynn

After a late night or two... here is our concept for the Magnetic Colors site integrating a number of the suggestions made on this forum:

http://www.fridgeartist.com/testing.html

I still need to organize the facebook icons and get nice web 2.0 versions... coming soon.

Check out our facebook page as it takes form.  We have a few customers who have already posted photos of their artwork.

Facebook Fridge Artist Page

Thanks again to everyone!

Please keep those opinions and suggestions coming.

After a late night or two... here is our concept for the Magnetic Colors site integrating a number of the suggestions made on this forum:

http://www.fridgeartist.com/testing.html

I still need to organize the facebook icons and get nice web 2.0 versions... coming soon.

Check out our facebook page as it takes form.  We have a few customers who have already posted photos of their artwork.

Facebook Fridge Artist Page

Thanks again to everyone!

Please keep those opinions and suggestions coming.