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Healthylife

posts: 7

Sep 19, 2008 4:25 PM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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We`ve been on the web for a few months.  We`re selling our products and wading through glitches along the way making as perfect a site as we can build.  We chose the pink dots background because most women love them PLUS the color goes along with the National Cancer Institute`s pink ribbon campaign, etc.
 
Blinkies is a NEW product designed by my biz partner and I out of a need expressed by her customers over a long period of time.  After much R & D, we finally came up with the manufacturing process.  Blinkies are very well accepted by persons with and without natural eyelashes.  And the eyebrows are as well.  Both are patented or applied for.
 
I feel like the site is OK but could probably be super good if designed by an expert.  Right now, our expenses are such that we simply can`t afford it. 
 
We`re on Yahoo, Google, and other search engines, but would like more exposure over the web. 
 
Can you give us some advice to help the look of the site and how to better expose it to the public?
 
We found StartupNation from watching Donny Duetch`s show the Big Idea on MSNBC.
 
Thanks for any help you care to provide.
 
 
guerrillaRed

posts: 61

Sep 19, 2008 4:44 PM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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blinkiesonline.com

found it through your profile.

Design is pretty old-fashioned, which is okay.  it seems like a pretty simple site I can`t imagine it would be that expensive to get it designed better.

As for as getting seen?  Check your keyword density, there`s tons of content on your site which is good, but make it makes sense and is geared towards promoting what you`re selling.

This kind of project might even be suitable for a wordpress solution.

guerrillaRed9/19/2008 4:49 PM
Healthylife

posts: 7

Sep 19, 2008 4:46 PM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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Oops, sorry!  It`s http://www.BlinkiesOnline.com
 
 
Healthylife

posts: 7

Sep 19, 2008 5:00 PM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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Thanks!  But what is a wordpress solution???
envymike

posts: 31

Sep 19, 2008 9:12 PM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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Wordpress is a blog system. Its free and you can apply it to your site, even customize it.

Agreed we know you are using tables, old school style.

Healthylife

posts: 7

Sep 19, 2008 9:27 PM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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Thanks for the clarification.  I`m curious why the "old school style" keeps coming up?  Flash, etc. isn`t what we want on our site but we do agree it could be updated in a better way.
We get lots  of compliments on our web site.  Of course we know you can`t please everyone and we aren`t trying to. 
CraigL

posts: 9051

Sep 20, 2008 1:31 AM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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I really wonder how much  a site like this, and many other sites gain by "new style" development. If the site is interesting, informative, has a strong sales pitch and customer action message, so what if it`s "boring" to those in the leading edge of development? I see a lot of these new sites that don`t actually work very well in terms of moving product.

I took a look (seeing white dots, not pink) :-D and got the idea immediately. I was a bit creeped out by the third picture to the far right of three, up there on the main banner, just under the "IES" of the Blinkies logo. The lady`s eye looked like she`d jammed a needle into it, all red and about to bleed red tears. :-) Maybe a better image? Even the first picture is showing that red-eye and could be cleaned up in Photoshop.

Are these waterproof, and can someone go swimming with them?

On the visibility, you might take a look at something Kathy`s just now gotten involved with: Buy it Sell it We`ve been increasingly disappointed with eBay, and a lot of commerce communities are trying to develop something better. One big problem is customization, and this particular site makes it easy.

The reason for the recommendation is that it does some automated submissions to places like Googlebase.

Another thing we found that seemed to help get us more visibility was to install Google Analytics on our site and pages. It just seemed that when we did so, we began to climb the results pages more than before doing so. It`s also free, and you can do it yourself.

Read the various forum topics here about Search-Engine Optimization (SEO) writing, and see if you can do something in your own writing. In your meta-tag "description," if you can keep it to 150 characters (letters, spaces, numbers), you`ll have a more concise message when someone finds you in a search engine results page. Your current description uses 323 characters:
Everyone can wear Blinkies sexy, glamorous false eyelashes with a permanent eyeliner! A revolutionary new product you have to see to believe. Several styles of premium human hair lashes.  Designed for Chemotherapy and Radiation patients and others with Alopecia Areata and other medical conditions that result in hair loss.

This will be cut off at 150 characters, with a "..." at the end. What you`d want to do is sell your product right from the results page. Just tossing out a general idea:
Blinkies: false eyelashes for chemo & radiation patients, alopecia, and other conditions resulting in hair loss. Reusable, made of premium human hair.

You want something that explains the whole idea in those 150 characters, then use your landing page on the site to go into it further.

The only other thing I didn`t see that might help on the first page, is a quick link to "How to Order." Even if people scroll only halfway down the page, they should have that fast option to buy right away. Maybe right below your list of basic features?
CraigL2008-9-20 1:52:4
Healthylife

posts: 7

Sep 20, 2008 10:35 AM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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Gosh Craig, you are a WEALTH of information. Thank you so much!  Your suggestions are so welcome!  We will get busy today and see what we can do to optimize our site using your ideas.  On my screen I don`t see the pictures as you describe so I`ll find more that appear better. And yes, the dots are white~!~!
 
We`ve been told Blinkies is a Godsend from so many customers that are without lashes and even those that have natural lashes.  No they are not waterproof.  And we recommend taking them off at night as your eyelids produce oils over time and that would lift them.  To my knowledge, none of the false eyelashes available anywhere are waterproof.
 
Again thanks so much for taking the time to give us a detailed critique!
 
 
 
 
envymike

posts: 31

Sep 20, 2008 1:57 PM ET    Quote  Report Abuse
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Sorry, Startup Nation is having a bug in firefox, I am getting windows vista banner in my post text form.

Anyways why Old School, Because tables were supposed to be used for data and not web design, of course many argue and some say it slows down loading speed and server broadband.Just because layouts and divs are cleaner code it can boost your web listing (that can be argued too). That`s my opinion, never sad its wrong to use.


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