Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Even though the TheFreelanceNation.com just went live, we are still
seeking design and UI critiques from potential target markets. See the
mission statement below and a list of questions at the bottom. Thank you
in advance for your feedback!

Our Primary Business
TheFreelanceNation.com is a network of 119 city-specific freelance job
boards designed to enhance the interaction between companies looking
for contract talent and those Independent Professionals who provide it.
FreelanceNation enables the self-employed to easily source, fairly price,
and successfully transact business and enhance their small business
through collaboration and cooperation.

FreelanceNation provides freelance work through:

• 100% blind bidding
• Customizable membership rates
• Search engine optimized profiles and projects
• 500 skill sets in 23 professions
• Self-employment support and small business support
• A professional networking forum
• Local to national search

…and many other features that make it an effective online business tool
and collaborative business community. Our goal is to continue to build
and actively promote the best website in the world that provides business
support throughout the self-employment lifecycle.

We are looking for critique on:
•     Load times
•     design
•     usability
•     understanding of purchase process
•     Ease of profile creation
•     Understanding of how to SEO your profile
•     Understanding and navigation of Bidding process
•     Are our unique selling points a benefit to the freelancer? (Bullet
points above)

Thanks in advance for your assistance and feel free to contact me directly
with any questions.

Thanks!

Jay

Jay A. Lohmann
Founder / CEO
FreelanceNation, LLC
TheFreelanceNation.com

Get LinkedIn with me! +2450
www.linkedin.com/in/JayLohmann

TheFreelanceNation.com[/
URL">TheFreelanceNation.com


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

Jay Lohmann
Founder/CEO
FreelanceNation, LLC
TheFreelanceNation.com – Just launched!

Get LinkedIn with me! +2500
www.linkedin.com/in/JayLohmann

Hi Jay!

I love it. So colorful and inviting..great navigation.Happier than elance..cleaner than scriptlance .It is almost like elance meets a social network with the profiles! user registration was easy.Posting a job with tags is neat! Making a network for that user profile is neat! I see It puts me in the DC network.I also love the small business support! Everything loaded very fast GREAT JOB!

Erin

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

Our Goal Is Your Success!
Founder Girls with Goals

too much color, try using color to highlight sections instead of just adding it for standard design elemets. you could ditch the whole center green box area for starters. Also the "start a project" text in the four buttons across the top are just too hard to read.

I like the color. I think it is pleasing to the eye.Just my opinion.

Erin

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

Our Goal Is Your Success!
Founder Girls with Goals

The colors are OK, but you should avoid underlined text unless it is a link.

•     Load times  - no problem, fast.

•     design - Too many options and far, far too many subcategories (empty ones at that).  Add them as needed or requested by the vendors.  (None of the listed subcategories come even close to the B to B services that I offer).  When 95%+ of the categories say "nothing here" it comes across as not one or two "page under construction" pages but hundreds.  You are a department store with a single pair of jeans on the shelf.

•     usability - I didn`t test the site that far, but the headings made it look easy

•     understanding of purchase process - Hard to judge since the site is mostly empty.

•     Ease of profile creation - It`s a form.  You fill it out and you`re done.

•     Understanding of how to SEO your profile - Didn`t see this anywhere

•     Understanding and navigation of Bidding process - Hard to test since I don`t have a profile.  Maybe you should have a dummy profile for testers that never gets to the vendor?

•     Are our unique selling points a benefit to the freelancer? (Bullet
points above)  - Of the half-dozen or so similar sites that I do subscribe to such as guru.com, you do have one USP that interests me.  You don`t take a cut of the project value or charge the vendor for totally useless leads (ServiceMagic.com).  For what it`s worth, of the half-dozen similar sites that I subscribe to, in four years not one of them has resulted in a single valid project lead. 

However, nowhere - absolutely nowhere - do you show the membership rates.  You have shown the new vendor very little to encourage them to list their services, such as how much will it cost?  Also, how will *you* market TheFreelanceNation.com?

As a suggestion, you might consider some period of free membership for new vendors in order to populate your vendors list. 


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

Steve Mann
Internet Videographer
MannMade Digital Video
My Email

I like the color too.

I agree with the underlining thing.

I think there is an overwhelming amount of information on the front page.

I think the FAQ is a bit wordy, but also too vague.

I was trying to figure out what RFP is.

So I tried signing up to see how it works, and it`s very awkward ... like it`s forcing me to be "listed" in one category which will cost me $4.95? Why can`t I just sign up and look myself? I don`t want to be "listed".
Plus it says it will list me in "Dallassomethingsomething.com" for "local exposure" but in reality it should be listing me in SF for local exposure.

I don`t understand the registration process at all and was surprised by the $5 charge to sign up ... it`s never good to surprise people with a charge!

OK so then, just for giggles ... I did sign up and pay the charge.
Only to find out on page #2 that this charge is actually monthly!
Surprise #2!

I tried submitting to a job just to see how it would work ... and it was a bit confusing. You put the project on my "watch list" ... but what does that mean? You said I would be contacted by the site owner ... but what does that mean? Will he email me? Send me a message through your system so I keep having to check back there every day until the project closes?
That whole process is really unclear.

Erin, Tikki, Steve, Nikole,

Thank you so much for your invaluable feedback!  

As we are hyper-attentive to the needs of our customers, we have already implemented many of your suggestions.  I�ll try and hit them point by point.

Underlined text
Removed. Great suggestions.

Color
We are happy people and love color, thus the bright, off-palette selections. They also separate us from our competitors whose sites seem to be overwhelmingly blue and flat. The majority of feedback has been positive.

Text
We went back and forth with this, but we traditional fonts just fell flat - literally.

Loading
Glad it is fast. We were a little concerned the programming �weight� of the graphics would slow us down a bit in the �real world.�

User Interface
Everything we have heard from customers suggests we nailed this. It is very fast and easy to navigate the site and set up a profile and load portfolios.  One of our photographer customers has done a fantastic job with his. http://www.thefreelancenation.com/profile.php?pid=33

Cats and Sub-cat selections
We have to hold our ground here. We did a ton of research and found that our customers (both buyers and sellers) look for specialization.  The great thing is that by selecting a category, you are listed under that general profession. If you want to be listed under a specialty, you can choose one for only $1.00.  

Suggest a Category
If you can�t find your specialty, we will gladly add it for free. There is a �Suggest a Category� button at the bottom of the category list.

Unique Selling Points
We have several, but my personal favorites are 100% blind bidding (eliminates all that perpetual under-bidding B.S. on other sites), 2-for-1 listings (national site and local site), Customizable Membership rates and SEO�d profiles.  We have more here: http://www.thefreelancenation.com/greatest_nation.php

Pricing display
Great catch Steve/Nikole and we�ve made the necessary changes to both the home page and the shopping cart page! We�re actually very proud of our pricing model as it allows you to choose how much you want to spend per your marketing budget and need for Internet exposure. A Category is only $4.95 and Sub-cats are a dollar.  I know the Internet is churning with free sites, but let me explain the power of our network.

Let�s say you choose one category and four sub-categories, That�s $9.95 a month for 5 searchable verticals. Because you get 2-for-1 listings (national and local), that puts your profile in 10 searchable verticals across two sites.  Plus, only TheFreelanceNation allows you to SEO your own meta data on your page.  That, plus the tagging feature really drives your search results (onsite and off) throw the roof.  See the previous profile link above and view his �Page Source� or look at his title tag and you�ll see how he did his. http://www.thefreelancenation.com/profile.php?pid=33

My last comment on pricing is that, having been a freelance copywriter for 13 years, I have learned that exposure is the key to success. Whether is it face-to-face networking, direct mailings, emails, SEO/SEM, affiliations or partnerships, you have to spend time and money to market yourself if you are going to be successful.  That is true for any business.  We tell it to our clients. We should heed our own advice as well.

As for free memberships�we�ve been tossing around the idead, but the four of you

Erin
Tikki
Steve
Nikole

(and anyone else who critiques us) get a free membership.  Just contact me directly through the site and I will COMP you.  Would love to hear your thoughts on the insides as well.  

Thanks again for the great advice!


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

Jay Lohmann
Founder/CEO
FreelanceNation, LLC
TheFreelanceNation.com – Just launched!

Get LinkedIn with me! +2500
www.linkedin.com/in/JayLohmann

Nikole....

I almost forgot!  You concern about being listed in your home city...that is a given.  You can choose your own home city.  What you saw in the shopping cart (DallasFreelancers.com) was a programming bug...SO GREAT CATCH!  It now corresponds to the "Home" site that you choose in the sign up.  For you, you would have one listing in TheFreelanceNation.com (Small fish in a big pond) and one in "SanFranciscoFreelancers.com" (Big fish in a small pond).

thanks again.. Jay


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

Jay Lohmann
Founder/CEO
FreelanceNation, LLC
TheFreelanceNation.com – Just launched!

Get LinkedIn with me! +2500
www.linkedin.com/in/JayLohmann

Thanks Jay! Much appreciated!

Erin

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

Our Goal Is Your Success!
Founder Girls with Goals

Speaking as somebody who might use your service not as somebody looking to become a freelancer.

When looking for a freelancer by location the list is in alphabetical order, since I don`t know where you would classify my location it makes it difficult if not impossible, for somebody (like myself) that is not in any mayor city to know where should I look. I`d suggest you make it by State then city.

I`m not certain of how to use the `Budget Range` in the search feature... think that needs to be clarified.

On the sign-up page to open an account `Log-in automatically` is a default/mandatory field. For somebody like myself that automatically empties everything in the browser (cache, cookies etc.) everytime I close the browser, that appears nonsensical.

On the `Terms of Use` I don`t like this
I would think that if you are going to change the agreement that I have agreed to, it is YOUR responsibility to make sure that I am aware of it. That being the case I would expect you to NOTIFY ME when YOU make changes and explicitly state what has changed. IF I am OK with those changes I`ll keep on using your site. That alone would deter me from using the site because there is NO WAY I am going to read all those agreements every time I am searching for a freelancer of some kind just to find out if something has changed. I read it ten times nothing changes, the one time I don`t read it wham! I`m toast. You should have in there something like "If we make changes we will notify you via e-mail if your e-mail address changes it is your responsibility to notify us" or something of the sort.

Once in the section `Vendors` it is self-explanatory, maybe it`s just me but I think there is something not right there... not sure what. For instance if I go to elance.com there is a clear section where I can find professionals, and another to find work, I know what I want, I know where to go. In your site the `Vendors` section I don`t know what it is... a listing of vendors, vendor`s ratings, work for vendors... etc. it could be anything. Once there and three or four clicks later one can figure it out but it does not jump at you before you do the exercise.

`Small business support` takes me to the `view search projects` so I figured DC is closest but that takes me back in a vicious circle to the same vendor page   ??? finish it or take it out.

Overall a good job but needs some polishing.

Elí