Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Well, here goes nothing! And hopefully all of your input will give me a vote of confidence or constructive criticism to improve the site.

I am constantly adding products to the site... please visit www.promotiondsept.us and let me know what you think.

Much thanks!


Jack

You misspelled the URL in the body of your message ...

Sorry  about that..


www.promotionsdept.us

There we are!

Here`s a link: www.promotionsdept.us

I think the site has a "clutter" problem, and also that it isn`t highlighting what you`re offering---promotional products.

The landing page has too much text. Explain your offering, and why you`re different from other promotional companies in about 100-200 words, with bullets or headings, and more "open-ness."

You can put the rest of your content on pages dedicated to those, like "About," or "History," or whatever.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I see various items but I don`t see them with logos or brand names on them. I see just the plain item, and I`m left to "imagine" how this would look as a promotional item.

I`d like to see some larger images that act more as a portfolio of how other companies have used your site to develop promitional items, y`know? For example, under "promotional cups," I saw a tiny thumbnail. When I clicked to enlarge, it was still so small, it really didn`t show me much. I wasn`t excited.

I looked at the pedometer, and other items, and it`s the same issue. I can`t see how these are useful as promitional items. Make up a company name, not yours, say, "ABC Marketing." Then do what you do with each item, so people get a clear, easy-to-see image of each item.

I`m not so sure I like this "new?" trend of putting an entire inventory on the left column, where navigation bars "used to" go. I`d rather see a button, "Products," then have those divisions OFF the home page. Otherwise, I think it just lends to the clutter.

In the banner, at first I thought "Your Company Name" and the girl with the towel was your logo. :-) Then I noticed (sort of) the wagon wheel or seal. It`s kind of buried in all that other stuff in the banner heading, none of which sold me anything. Well, okay...I got the idea that your product is putting names on towels.

It`s a nice site, good idea, and there`s some professional work going on here. But there`s no "show...." no pizazz! If you`re a promotional company, I`d kind of like to see some better promotion-ing goin` on with the site itself. :-D Right?

Craig,

Thanks for your evaluation. I see what you are saying about the clutter. I am  in the process of clarifying and revising certain areas of the site. I am in the stage of now that the site is up..do I work on adding more products, (which will give me better chances of selling), or do I work on promoting the site, (which will also give me better chances of selling). So much work, so little time!

To be continued...

Jack

I`d suggest holding off on adding more products until you have a more cohesive way to offer any products. In other words, the big problem is the very long list of categories on the left side of the page.

What I`d try to accomplish would be a conventional navigation bar, with something like "Products" as a single button. When someone clicks the button, they`re taken to a Products Page.

On that page, you might have thumbnails, all the same size, lined up in a clear grid, representing each category. So you would have a picture of a shirt, and below that, "Apparel Products."

When someone clicks that, they`re taken to actual shopping for all items that have anything to do with wearing apparel.

The problem is to develop your categories so they don`t exceed maybe 10. And that leads to an organizational challenge. How do  you link "back packs" with something? Well, you could link it with outdoor equipment, where you would also sell drinking items maybe?

Or, you would have Indoor, Outdoor, Entertainment (like audio), Sports, Housewares, and whatever else. Remember, on this main Products pictorial index or contents page, you can have 10 categories. Then within a category, as many actual items as you want.

In fact, backpacks could be listed twice, once under Sports, and again under Outdoor items. Does that make sense?

Hello everyone,

Just launched my site and would love for you to critique it. .

www.demonstrateme.com

its a software training website that offers free software training using flash videos. it works by user requesting videos. Mostly Microsoft software now , but plan to expand to other software.  It is created on the Open Source Content management platform call Joomla.

Mscott,

The site look clean and fresh. I looked at one of the videos. Great! All you need is some more video content. If you can add alot of these "how too`s" then you can start contacting folks to see if they can add a link to your site for free tutorials. What are you using to create these tutorials?

Erin

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Our Goal Is Your Success!
Founder Girls with Goals

I like the site as well, very clean and business like.

I`d like to make a suggestion regarding future videos. Office 2007 is giving people fits over the new interface. Some people like it, some people hate, but it is new to everyone. If you had videos on how to adapt key functions in the new version I think that would be pretty popular. I love the size of the videos and how easy they are to see.

Last sugguestions:

Targeting corporate help desks may be an interesting customer stream. I run a help desk and I struggle to find time to create end user documentation.

I would give thought to having the videos go through the "how to" process fairly quickly the first time and then repeat it a second time much slower.

Best of luck,

Michael