Black2006: Graphic Designer/Creative Director

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Black2006

Startupland, FL
United States

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Black2006

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By Black2006 1174 Days Ago
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Hello community, thanks for reading this thread. All your insight will be
appreciate.

I just started my website: egaroo.com, a strongly visual approach to
online directories PLUS search engine capabilities. You can search withing
its database using keywords or browsing thru industries, but instead of
displaying mere text results you`ll find 468 x 60 pixels banners.

To have a complete view about how it works and looks please visit my
profile. You`ll find more info in my blog as well.

Here comes my question to you all:

Is it an idea like egaroo something you may see as useful to help promote
your business?
Is its "visual twist" something you may value as an interesting new way to
communicate
your business` core values, considering a picture is worth a thounsand
words?

Another question is how much you may feel is a fair fee to pay for a
service like this.

Originally egaroo is been set to cost 100 dollars for a full calendar year of
exposition, independently of how many clicks your banner may receive.

Here I am in a crucial crossroad: Should I stick to the idea of charging for
being listed on it or should I make it free for everyone? If this later option
selected: any ideas how a business model based in a free service could be
profitable in the long run?

Does this whole idea make any sense at all? I`m totally engaged in making
this concept work, but there are always times when you need feedback
from others entrepreneurs.

Thanks in advance for your time and insight!
By tojealca 1174 Days Ago
0 points
Black,

I would pay for a service like that, but I am not sure how much. $100.00 seems like a fine amount, and while you don`t tie it to clicks on my banner ad, if I am going to pay you, I would want to make sure that your site gets a lot of traffic.

As for the other question. If you decide not to charge for the banner ad, you could have a set of bigger ads for sale. If a company wanted say a (using print media as the guideline) 1/4 or 1/2 or full page ad, then you could set price points for that. Or you could have the regular text link with a business card size ad for free and charge for clickable banner ad and still have the other size ads listed.

Hope that helps,

Tony
By Guideye 1174 Days Ago
0 points
I like to find out as much information about a business even before I click on the site. Your visual approach is interesting, but I am not sure it provides enough information for somebody looking to find out more about these businesses before going to their websites. I think a description page for each banner will help.
By iouone2 1174 Days Ago
0 points
Black2006... My store banner is placed on your site. I provided some advice to you in which you felt was wrothy of a limited timeline, free placement. I have had received a visit from one person to my site through your Egaroo site. It didn`t lead to a sale, and I don`t know if it was someone from SuN. All in all, I wonder if your site is really getting much traffic. If so, I wonder if those poeple are becoming long term customers or just looky loos. I personally would not purchase placement on your site as I get hundreds of visits from google and yahoo users... I don`t pay them to be listed. Some become sales and some do not.

I hope this insite helps.
By FreshYields 1174 Days Ago
0 points
I agree with Vince. $100 is a steep price to pay with no knowledge of what kind of traffic is generated to the egaroo site. Maybe you should offer a plan where the first 100 or so referrals are free? Of course, they would have to be from unique IP`s to be legit, but until traffic picks up, it may work.
By Eric 1174 Days Ago
0 points
Vince brings up an excellent point. The pay-per-click that Google offers is hard to beat. (You must have Google Analytics huh, Vince?) I would definitely go for free or pay per click.

I originally thought that the banner approach would be a quick way to scan the facade of a company just as if you were driving down the street but it`s not like that at all. Everybody wants to be clever and unique and artsy. It was really difficult to understand what each banner was pushing and I had to decide......`do I want to click that?`...`what is that anyway?`

Compare that with driving down the street..........Dry Cleaners....Auto Repair.....PIZZA.....Bakery.....Restaurant.....Bank.... It only takes a glance to know what these things are. When you pull in you already know even if just a little what could be available to you.

Text based search engines are the same. You go into the search with a word in your head......."Skateboard"......when the search comes up you see things directly related to "skateboard" but your amazing human brain can quickly scan the results for what you are really looking for. Prices, companies, websites, how-to`s, contests, parks, custom, etc.

I couldn`t do that with the banners though. I knew that the banners had something to do with the topic but I usually had zero idea what exactly was behind the sign. Combine that with the fact that if I didn`t really like the artwork, I would be even less inclined to click, even if it was Exactly what I was looking for. I just didn`t know.

I`m not saying that there isn`t a place for it or a way to make it work, I`m just saying that it may a hard sell. Especially if buyers are looking for results enough to justify the expense and even if that expense is only 100 dollars.

I`m guessing that the issues I`ve pointed out are things you`ve heard before or have considered yourself. I think if you had specifically designed banners for the purpose it would be a different story.

Best of luck with it!

~Eric

Eric2006-9-5 14:42:8
By Black2006 1171 Days Ago
0 points
Gentlemen:

I`m sorry I didn`t follow up this thread as soon as I get your interesting and honest feedback. Being extremely busy this last 48 hours preparing an alternative plan for egaroo.com

I will start with the 100 dollars fee:
Even though it may seen a fair amount to pay for a 468 x 60 pixels banner during a whole year (considering how much costs the same web format in other websites for a shorter time period) is undeniable that egaroo isn`t getting enough traffic to justify that fee. I`m soooooo glad Vincent didn`t pay anything for his banner. I wouldn`t rest at ease knowing he is not receiving what he expected.

About this point, we can`t deny the importance design plays at getting attention. One of the features included at egaroo.com allows you to change your banner design as many times as you want. For instance, if your former design seems not being working as expected, you may change it until it does. Another reason I might think is involved is the fact that my audience is not developed enough (yet) to cover even a small niche interested in hand made crafts. (I do have banners posted at egaroo that have received +100 hits since the same time period Vincent had his banner uploaded).

I would like to make clear that egaroo must not be considered a definitive solution to attract visits and customers. It would be an additional medium (among others) to
let people know about your business, ideas or projects, and an experimental new online advertising tool to display web banners.

By nature, egaroo is an odd and weird concept, ridicule if you want, but for the same reason suitable to media attention. I rely on that to start making some buzz and generate traffic. Even if things don`t develope as expected, it could become sort of a strange cult website due to it weirdness and uniqueness (in this postmodernist times of ours this shouldn`t be a surprise). Maybe you haven`t heard of it, but there exists an interesting success story about another "weird" and nonsense website. Please visit www.milliondollarhomepage.com. In four months a british boy, Alex Tew, reached one million dollars selling 1pixel at one dollar (I must note that its success inspired egaroo).

I have clear the limitations (and advantages) a system like ours offers. I know I must make some additional features available (for instance, when your mouse cursor rolls over a banner there should be displayed a text box with a short description about the site it links to).

So far the idea to make it free seems the more attractive to me. I accord with Eric about the issue of what happens when a banner is not clear enough to communicate it main message. It will be every banner owner`s responsability (and taste or objectives) to make it effective enough to attract visitors. As afore stated, I admit I will have to implement new features to help every owner communicate more effectively (as with the roll over description text).

Not charging a fee will also help me reach a broader audience, thus increasing traffic and creating enough buzz to get people used to play and experiment when bored with a traditional content search. Remember (I think I never stated it) that part of egaroo`s charm is to be an eye candy (with search engine capabilities). And being Gratis it will keep its original aim, that being helping people with no real advertising budget to get their piece of internet cake, no matter where they come from or what they do.

Thanks you all. I really, really appreciate your comments and suggestions. Being involved with people like you in a community like SUN makes this adventure more enriching for the opportunity of learning something new everyday.

Stay tune. There will be more surprises when the whole story about our struggle in this first attempt as a internet start up get revealed.
By tojealca 1171 Days Ago
0 points
I have a question for the people that voted "I don’t see the point in displaying banners in a website" Look at just about every web site and there is a banner ad. Just look at the top of this page.

Black, I still go back to the point of not charging for the banner ad, but increasing the size for some people who want to pay.

Also, a "roll over description" is nice, but why not split the page and have a short description of the compnay and services with the clickable link in the banner, just take some of the information from the home page of the company that has the banner ad?

Tony
By Black2006 1171 Days Ago
0 points

Tony,

You almost made the whole point in showing me the solution:

"If you decide not to charge for the banner ad, you could have a set of bigger ads for sale. If a company wanted say a (using print media as the guideline) 1/4 or 1/2 or full page ad, then you could set price points for that. Or you could have the regular text link with a business card size ad for free and charge for clickable banner ad and still have the other size ads listed."

Part of the magic about egaroo resides in its layout design: one banner next to other and above another or under another; all banner owners having the same size parameters; no one paying more to always appear first in any search. Your idea of spliting the page showing a small description souds real nice, and I think it would work perfectly in a 2.0 egaroo version. Until I got enough traffic and funding I`ll have to be content with keeping this version alive. There will be definitively an advanced version of egaroo.com with loads of new features. I think I will find the way to make a profit from it. For instance using adwords at the end of every page and square banner ads around the rectangular banners. I`ll keep you posted.

And please, I`d love the thank you all with a banner space at egaroo.
Maybe using it you may have a clearer idea about its possibilitiers. I`ll be in contact.
By tojealca 1171 Days Ago
0 points
I see, if you are coming from the standpoint of crativity, what you are saying. From the business stand point, do you want to make a profit, and if so then how do you charge and what do you charge for this service, then I just think that "options" are the key to the success. Advertise that you will not "charge" for the ability to be "1st" on the search. I think the idea, if you want to stay with the "concept", is to dedicate the same amount of space to each advertiser, and have them provide a "10 sec elevator pitch" for the roll over, or even better (I like it better any way), next to that the text so that people know what they are seeing and how it relates to them.

The key is to drive people to my site, if, say I search for Automotive, and 20 things come up with just the banner, I dont know where to go from there. I wount click on them all till I find them, and if I have to move the mouse over each one to find what I am looking for, people may leave before they see what they need to click through.

Just my quick thoughts on it! I will check back and see how its going, keep me posted!

Tony
By tojealca 1171 Days Ago
0 points
PS, thanks for the ad, I will let you know what the results are!

Tony
By cheiselt 1164 Days Ago
0 points
First of all, Black, I love the passion you have put into this.

I think that if you`re able to get a solid base of banners on a wide variety of topics, then generate a buzz, you may be able to establish yourself as a niche search engine.

If you don`t have some sort of reporting tool, for yourself at least, I would make that your first priority. Especially with something as unique as this, you have to be able to see how people are using it. What are the most common searches? How many people come back more than one session? How do those people use it? Which banners are getting the most clicks? Why?

Answering questions like these will give you a good idea for what direction to go and how to position yourself.

Also, I would make it as easy as possible for the users to find what they want and the advertisers to get the targeted clicks they need. One way to do this is to watch who gets the most clicks for each keyword and analyze why. My guess is that they are just flashy but provide enough info on their banner for the user to make a quick, but informed decision on where to "spend" their click. After you gather data like this, be sure to share it with the advertisers/banner owners so that they can improve.

Hope this is helpful,

Conan.
By Black2006 1158 Days Ago
0 points
Thanks Conan, passion is all we have, even when trying out new things
could end as a failure. The journey and experience itself is all worth it.

1. Getting a solid banners base.
I Totally agree. Currently working on that but it takes a lot of time, so this
first stage is gonna take longer than expected.

2. Using advanced reporting tools.
By now we are using TWatch for traffic analysis. It displays very decent
data but I`m totally conscious a more sophisticated tool will be invaluable
to our clients (and ourselves). Until getting more funding (that meaning
using our own small design studio capital to invest in better analysis
tools) we`ll have to be content with what we already have (harvesting as
much banners as possible).

Certainly there`re more advanced features that need to be implemented in
order to help each banner owner to communicate in a more efficient way.
I do already have many ideas in how to make egaroo more easy and user
friendly but it will take some time yet to build a 2.0 version. By now the
idea is to expand our clients base and getting enough traffic to bring
them a decent amount of clicks.

All your ideas are very interesting and in fact will be useful in the near
future to make functionality improvements. Thanks a lot. Messages like
yours keeps our dream alive.

What gets me excited is the fact that this project have been made by
regular guys without any funding (being made by ourselves, the only
expenses we have had to incur have been the server and the domain
name. Total cost: hum, maybe 300 dollars?). It is a very naive concept, I
know, but al least I hope it could inspire more regular people to try new
things -no matter how pointless they may seem-regardless your
background, budget or location (in fact we are located in a unusual place
not accustomed to witness an internet startup).

"Hope this is helpful"
You can bet it is. Simply knowing you can feel the passion in what we do
is enough to keep the fighting. May the force be with us.

Have a GREAT day!

Black.

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Graphic Designer/Creative Director

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Egaroo is a concept I developed to create a community of individuals and business of any size. Basically it is a Free Search Engine / Directory dedicated to display web banners. Being designed as a search engine, every user will find your banner (and service, company or blog!) depending of his or her search criteria. To see pictures of our startup everyday life, click on the Podcast Feed button: it`s a link to my Flickr pics.

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