Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi,

  Anyfeed back for the www.mutualwin.com website would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks in advance for your time.

Sincerely,

Michael B

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K. Michael Bernstein Founder and CEO MutualWin, Inc (800)975-6461 Ext. 704 http://www.mutualwin.com

Michael - good idea, you may be on to something. I guess the "win" for you is in the paid posts? Just wondering?

R@

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Richard Arnold · Key Concept Writers · Business Communication: The "Key" To Success· Law of Attraction Blog · Life Ain`t Brain Surgery Blog

Hi Michael :-)

I`m on a soapbox at the moment about "theme" in a Web site. It`s like branding, and I believe a site should immediately give the viewer a "sense" of what`s going on in that site.

I`d like to see something in a heading-1 tag like, "Find unclaimed referral money! Make $$$ referring clients to businesses!"

Yes, it`s hokey. But the more I read about marketing online, the more I believe that we see it all the time because it works. It isn`t spam, it`s not an active "push" to the viewer. It`s only a large way to very quickly indicate why your site exists.

I also prefer elegance, understated taste, and so forth. Unfortunately, that`s starting to go the way of manners, courtesy, and morality in my opinion. To that end:

I`d like to see subheadings for your paragraphs. They may not mean that much to good writing, but they definitely mean a lot to SEO! The subheadings should include your #1 and #2 key phrases.

In your search option, you don`t specify what to put in for "where." It should be a ZIP code look-up if it`s only 1 field. Otherwise, you need a city AND state. I tried it for 60510, and ended up in another search. I then put in Batavia, Illinois, and was back at the window.

You should have an error-trap that if there isn`t anything found, say so. I wasn`t sure if I messed up or there isn`t any result. Plus, you should develop a proximity search (like Switchboard.com) so that if I don`t find an opportunity I can get two results:

• The first is that I have no particular thing in 60510, but there is an opportunity in my chosen category within 10 or 100 miles, in such a place.
• The second is that although I chose Cellphones, there isn`t anything for that, but there IS something for....and name other available referral opportunities.

Finally I see no point to a "keywords" field in your expanded search window (not to be confused with SEO key phrases!). I have no idea what referrals even exist (or I would be doing it already). I`m taking your expertise to show me categories, and don`t know anything about what key words I would even use. I`d bag it, unless you first have some instructional material for me to read, after I`ve created a login account.

I`d also make it clearly separate if I want to "find" opportunities as an individual, or if I "have" a deal as a business. Maybe one tab up top could be "I have a referral!" The other tab could be "We need referrals." Something like that?