Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hello,

My name is Ayat of INVESP.com.  We recently redid our entire site.  It`s part of our greater marketing effort.  I`m wondering if I can get input on what you think and any suggestions for improvement?

Thanks

Ayat

www.invesp.com

 

I like your site. I think it could be more driven towards helping people with writing reviews. For example, my company is small and may be thinking of advertising in a classified or may be thinking of advertising a large Ad in the local Newspaper, I would need professional help to review this content in Word 2000 or a PDF file. What services can you provide for that?

It looks good and is pretty clear. From an artist`s standpoint it is a little
boring like an overcast sky. Lots of grey. There`s nothing wrong with
conservative colors or layout but I don`t think the site is very engaging.
My suggestion would be to punch up some text here and there. Make the
headlines a little bigger. The green text actually does not stand out very
much. Maybe a little darker green for those headlines. Put some
emphasis on the phone number, for example. Don`t do too much since
you want to maintain the professional look it already has.

This is really good! I`d make one change, only for clarity:

Should be:

I`d then put a link to the bolded text, and set up a page tab "What is a Virtual Assistant?"

What with all the discussion here on SuN about the concept, term, business, and misperceptions by the open market, I think it would help a lot to explain your terms to your potential clients. Otherwise, I like the site.

(oops...fixed the "assistants")

Ayat,

I am not a big believer in posting pricing on a professional services web site. You are providing the viewer an opportunity to make a decision without ever contacting you. I have found that with VA companies, the pricing is all over the board and rightly so ... each person, each company is different and they provide different skills sets. You want people to call you so you can talk to them and ask questions.

Business is about relationships, not pricing. If you sell on price alone (and it appears it is an important part of your web offering), you shoot yourself in the foot right out of the gate.

The VA business is all about developing working relationships, IMHO. Eliminate the pricing page - just my suggestion.

R@ 

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

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

Hi guys,

thanks for the input, really helpful.  I know it`s not so colorful and bold, that`s something we`re working on.  I wish you saw my old site to compare.  However, as far as the pricing, many people want to see the rates.  I agree, it`s really per project, but clients like to get an "idea."  They become "weary" of even approaching us if they dont` get an idea.  For some reason, I guess the site looks too corporate, so people feel afraid that our prices are extremely unreasonable..so, we included it...it`s been a struggle.  Pricing is the most visited page on our site!!  Do you suggest that we don`t include it as a "tab" but rather under about us, it would just be a "link?"  Let me know.

We do a lot of editing, Press Releases, etc. for a variety of small businesses.  Is that what you are referring to raisecapital02?

Well guys, again, thanks for the input, I`m always open to suggestions and ideas to improve.  CraigL, I like the idea of the boldface for certain terms.

Ayat

Ayat,

The pricing page is your most-hit page because people have a tendency to ask about price ... and many, many sales people oblige. This is a bad practice. If you sell on price alone, where`s the value?

I preach this because I know it works. Without pricing in the way, the conversation can head in a different direction. However, if you disagree and wish to sell on price alone, so be it. IMHO, it is a mistake.

Service professionals are not about price ... they are about relationships and value. What do they bring to the table? You need to think about what you bring to the table and you will be surprised ... you are probably under-pricing your services ... and can get more when price is not discussed until a decision is made to use your services. This is my point.

R@

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

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

I am known for being quite blunt but please understand that these comments are not meant to sound harsh. I am actually a friendly guy.

The front page has far too many words and the copywriting quality is poor. Do you know that the front page has 244 words in the center column? That`s book report territory and most people won`t bother to read that much text. The front page is classic copy for a beginner: "Welcome to Invesp" and then "We are...". Furthermore, I don`t know what a "VA" is unless I spend a minute or two figuring out that it means "virtual assistant". Even when I figure out what virtual assistant means, I really don`t know how to connect the dots between a virtual assistant and your content authoring services. Makes no sense.

Let me dissect a sentence for you.

"Our team of VA’s has come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences including human resource management, software engineering, education, pharmacy, and much more."

[What`s a VA? What`s "much more?" This sentence isn`t even good English. Why not use "We provide writing services you can afford." as the tagline. That makes sense. Your writing samples are good but writing for the web is different. In fact, you spend this paragraph talking about yourself, which is a big no-no in marketing. First talk about what you offer and then have an "About" page if you really need to talk about yourself.]

The front page doesn`t really communicate very much about your offering. Or perhaps I`m confused because you have several stated market positions: writing and administrative services. Confusing. The tagline at the top says "Whether you need secretarial services or content services...". Which is it? How can you possibly do both well? Can you select one service instead and focus on that service? I don`t want to buy health food and hamburgers from McDonalds. I want health food or hamburgers but not from the same place.

The code of the site is very clean though, so excellent effort in that respect.

[I favor clarity, minimalism, and immediacy, in copywriting.]

CM.

I like you ... and your bluntness!

You are dead-on. Ayat ... heed his advise ... it is good.

Constructive criticisim is a good thing.

R@

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

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

Friendly Guy-

Whoa, that`s a lot of crticism.  I don`t agree with everything you`ve said, but I must say, you are absolutey right that the first page has way too much content, and we plan to reduce that.  It`s funny, our company is a small, family owned company.  My husband:  "the software engineer" did the code, so he was pleased to see your comment.  On the other hand, I was responsible for the content.

The bigger problem:

HOwever, we`ve had a dilemma, which is ultimately, how do we define ourselves:  as a writing service, or va`s?  We have great work coming from companies for va work, and also great writing opportunities as well...but then, just as Cookie Monster described, it confuses the potential client.  Now, we have two completely seperate departments, a writing department, and a va department (seperate professionals for each)...so what can we do to help better define who we are? 

Actually, I believe many companies run into this same problem trying to multi-task...is this a topic of discussion that I should post somewhere else on the forum?  What do you think?  Like I said, I`m new to startup, and I value all the criticism and critique of recieved thus far; it`s helpful to hear other professionals give their input. 

Well, let me know.  Have a great weekend. 

Ayat