Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi guys,
I would be keen to get your feedback both on the site`s design and the service itself. (Including cost etc) on my new website www.INeedThingsDone.com. The site is now open for registrations and job postings but I haven`t announced it yet or done any promotion as I was keen to get some feedback first and really esnure I have a good launch plan. Perhaps you can help me with ideas on this. I`m solely an individual who wanted to help people so I don`t have a huge amounts of money, but I have ambition which I hope is enough.

Did I build the site myself, what was my goals.
I`ve built this site completely on my own. I`m not the best design wise guy but I`m pretty capable with coding. I`ve tried to the best design wise I can. The goal of the site was to get it up and running quickly and to make it easy to read, use and understand without making it to complex.

What my site is about.
The website is about helping people get jobs done, especially with helping out people who maybe struggling financially but still deserve to get things done. On the flip side it`s also about helping out people who have the skills to do work but perhaps can`t find work, are unemployed, working from home, stay at home mums or just having troubles finding leads. The idea is simple. People post jobs for a small fee ($3.50 USD), they`re alowed to post 3 pictures with the job either showing what needs doing or how they want something to turn out.They can also record and upload a video to You-Tube and embed this as well, and they have the option to choose multiple people. The jobs can be anything, home repair, car repair, design work, office work, pick up trash from my yard, deliver something...etc etc etc, the possibilities are endless.

From here the community offer to do the job. They can offer to do the job for standard price or offer to do the job for a higher price. If they offer a higher price they can post comments as to why the offer is higher. There comments will be visible to people.

The person who posted the job can look through the profiles of the people offering to do the job. The profile page shows information about them and also has previous job feedback listed on the page with pictures of their finished work. The profile page can also show a link to the users LinkedIn account to show their feedback on that site also.

The user chooses who they want and that person comes and does the job, the job poster pays the person and then comes back to the site to close the job. To close a job all they need to do is give feedback to the user. The feedback system is simple and also allows you to upload images of the finished product. This helps the user get more jobs in the future.

The system is about trusting people, but the user has to take this responsibility. If it helps people gets things done then I think people are ok with that. I also have RSS set-up so people can create feeds specific to their country etc. With these feeds I have created facebook fan pages so that jobs appear on users walls to help spread the word and empower the community. I`ll also be posting the feeds to twitter etc. (Example facebook page is here )

My mum is a pensioner and owns her own home, she can`t afford to get her house fixed up because quotes are way to high for her. With this site I`m hoping she can finaly get things done.

Let me know if you have any questions, feedback etc, would love to hear people`s thoughts and whether you think this is a good idea or not. I`m looking for any support for launching my site also. I`m happy to show links on my site to sites that review and spread the word about my site, I`m also willing to give all your members a free job posting with a coupon code specific to your site also that gives the users $3.50 credit. (That was built in for my launch plan)




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

Owner of www.INeedThingsdone.com

Hi Luke :-)

The first thing that caught my attention was the big embedded video. It`s cheap and amateurish, and right-away detracts from the whole site. The lighting is bad, and your voice has a room echo that`s distracting.

Additionally, nobody really cares about what YOU feel about the site. They`re more interested in what the site does for them. See?

It`s instantly obvious that this is a message board for people who need something done, and people who can do it. So if you don`t have something to say about the actual process itself, then lose the video.

The top of the site is very good, and works immediately. But the remaining content below the banner, and below/next to the video is disorganized. It looks confusing. The end result is again a sense that it`s a bit amateurish.

You could narrow the content area, maybe sticking with around 950 px wide. Focus on 2 buttons: "Post a Job Need," and "Offer a Service."

Your "Recent Jobs Closed" should be more on a testimonial page, not a major element on the site. After all, you`re a broker, trying to bring together people who need with people who can do. Right?

All in all, the most distracting thing is the video. The rest is "okay," but could use some cleaning up. It`s not a bad effort, it just needs a bit more professionalism.

There are many models out there for this sort of thing, and you can take a look at those sites to borrow various useful design elements. :-)

Gees thanks Graig, some great honest feedback that I think is going to make a lot of difference.

I`ll look at changing this and playing with it tomorrow (late here in Aus). I`m not to sure what to put in the content area on the home page just yet but I`ll focus more on posting jobs that need doing. Not to sure how to promote the offer services bit as the offering is more about people coming in and offering to do the posted jobs, it isn`t really a service directory.

Any more thoughts and ideas please let me know, that was great feedback, thanks mate.



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

Owner of www.INeedThingsdone.com

One thing you could begin with is to visit other sites that provide brokering services like this. People have a need, others offer to fill it.

In many instances, the home page is highly visual and has little content. The focus tends to be on the X Easy Steps. Using large buttons, it`s visually obvious: "I need something done. Where do I go? Oh, I see, push this button."

What I`m suggesting is that there are only a few good ways to write instructions. I used to do some technical writing, and also a lot of PowerPoint presentations. Over time, I began to see that there aren`t all that many options.

The best in my own opinion, is "knowledge on demand." Instead of writing out a whole series of instructions using bullets or numbers or whatever, electronic "books" offer immediate and contextual help. For example:

You`re using entire new pages to *focus* the visitor`s attention on the process and details. By the time they`ve clicked two or three buttons, they not only are learning more about the site, they`ve become personally involved. And that gets them emotionally invested in seeing what comes next.

Use tabs along the top, or a left-side menu in case people want to "jump" to particular information. That would be the "About Us," or "How It Works" information.

You can have 1 paragraph below each major question-heading, only to help amplify any possible ambiguities. But the overall design is very clean, a lot of space, and a major visual concentration on the Click Here buttons.

It`s only one idea, but as I said, in my own opinion it seems the best way to grab and hold attention. :-)

To me, the overall concept is OK, but there are too many lists on the front page, so I`m not sure which I should be concerned with. The "Category Experts" makes me guess what its` purpose is; I guess it`s how many jobs are in those areas, but if that`s the case, then it would make sense to make each line a link to that category ... "Recent Jobs" doesn`t do me, as a potential user, any good ... why do I care what services and help others have worked out?





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

M Hall
Website Critique Community
International Society of Curmudgeons

Putting a site together is only one step in the process.

There is not relevancy between some very important aspects of search engine optimization - title tag, description and key words.

I think you ought to focus on what makes you different and then market  it!



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


DIY SEO Coach and Mentor
WordPress Tutor

I`ve been playing around with the homepage, what are your thoughts on the new homepage? Ignore any missing links or strange things, I`m constantly working on it.


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

Owner of www.INeedThingsdone.com

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

Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter

Okay, the new version definitely is a lot better. You`ll want to fix it up a bit, because you want not only the actual text to be links, but also the "tabs." In other words, I don`t want to have to be so explicit in what I click in order to activate the link.

For example, the green "Post an offer..." I should be able to just click the green if I don`t exactly hit the words. On the "View jobs" pages, I want to be able to click the words as well as the tiny icons.

Make it very easy to click something so that people don`t think there`s no actual link.

But all in all, I`m a whole lot happier with this version. :-)

Another idea for you, although it may call for some education in programming, would be that when the visitor clicks on an offer, open it in a window. That way, people won`t have to click the "Back" button on their browser to see the next offer if they`re just browsing.

At first I thought the registration and log-in would be annoying. But since you`re showing everything that`s being offered, I think it makes complete sense to register.

To that end, perhaps move the "Register for Free!" to the middle, on the home page. Although we read left-to-right, we tend to first see what`s in the middle. Just a thought :-)

Thanks again for the feedback, I`ve made the changes to open in a new page, and moved the "register free" to the middle, all good points. I`ll have to play with the buttons at the top, but I`m sure I can change this over the next few days. I`ve also fixed up some of the SEO stuff too.

I guess I`m getting closer to launch and I`m really hoping it goes well. Like I said, I`ll be giving sites who want to do a write up about the site free job posting codes as one thing. Any other suggestions from anyone who have launched a "pay for" site? What else should I include in making the launch as successful as possible. I had in mind contacting big sites and giving their readers codes, I was also thinking of jumping into various forums and doing the same once I got permission from mods etc.

I appreciate everyone`s help here, the advice and tips have been great, what a great friendly community there is here, you`re all open to sharing such good advice.



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

Owner of www.INeedThingsdone.com