Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hello all,

After getting some great feedback about 2 months ago I redesigned a lot of the look and feel of my site and have gotten lots of good response to it from the visitors I`ve spoken to.  I`d love some more opinions about the site, both the look and feel and even more importantly the concept and the clarity of the concept as the site portrays it.  Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

Site:  http://www.myfriendsuggests.com

Thanks!

Why do you have a default set to New York? That`s irrelevant to me, to
most people, except New Yorkers. I get turned off by irrelevant
information. Instead, I would have your home page be a simple,
enthusiastic introduction of the site only without place-specific content.
Though most popular neighborhoods would be good to include on that
page to give users an easy click to their info.

Right now, I have no idea what I`m supposed to do or get from it when I
go to the site. There is a lot of text, none of which grabs my attention.
Almost everything is in some sort of list form. Lists are great for easy-
to-digest info but you kind of overdo it. Many sites suffer from the big
paragraph syndrome and lists are a great way to break that down. But for
you, I`d like to see a short paragraph explaining "Why..." along with the
lists.

It`s a huge improvement over your last version and you are growing the
site well. Keep going!

Here`s another thought.

I`m not finding the site very `friendly`. The whole concept of "My Friend
Suggests" brings up a personal touch. Who are my friends? What do they
suggest? How? I think you need to put more emphasis on the "Friend"
part of it. There are lots of other sites like this but what makes you
different? "From those that know you best" indicates personal
suggestions. But I don`t feel that in the site. It feels corporate, as if
Google or some yellow page company are making suggestions.

Here are my suggestions:

Put more emphasis on friends by rewording your review lists. Here`s what
you have now:

Tonic & The Met Lounge * * * * *
By: Kerry P. of Valley Stream, NY
Great bar for...

Make it sound more like a friendly suggestion. For example:

Kerry P. suggests
Tonic & The Met Lounge * * * * *
Great bar for...

See how that now sounds like a friend suggested someplace? I don`t
really care where Kerry is from, just that the suggestion came from
someone who has something to say. If I want to know more about Kerry,
I`ll click on the name. Also, keep the name of the place as the biggest
text size as that is still the essence of what users are looking for.

In conjunction with all this, I would also change headings like "Recent
Reviews in New York City" to more friendly words. How about "The Latest
Suggestions in New York"? Or simply "New York`s Latest". We already
know the site is about reviews and suggestions. Again, getting rid of the
corporate sounding language.

Instead of "Top Overall Users", how about "Our Best Friends"? Or "Your
Best Friends".

Instead of "Recent Messages", how about "Notes from a Friend"?

You get the idea. I want your site to talk to me as a friend would talk to
me. Be creative. Make it fun!

Cool idea! You`re probably inundated with suggestions, so I`ll just add a little
technical thought:

In the Neighborhood Messages section, when I click on the red "?",
instructions for how to fill out the field pop up. So far, so good. But when I
enter info, the box should go away. Right now (at least in Safari) it stays in
the foreground obscuring the "Find Messages" button.

That`s it. Good job!

I will agree that the feeling is very ... generic. Unfriendly, perhaps. But not very inviting. IMO.

Thanks for all the responses, sorry for taking so long to get back, been quite busy.

I plan on making some of the changes to make the site more friendly in the next day or so and will post again then to see what you all think.

Just out of curiosity, anyone have any thoughts on good ways to start to get more attention to the site?  Ways to drive some initial traffic?

thnx again