How do you create a site that works? You can read a stack of books on HTML and still get it all wrong – this happens time and again.
The more you look at your own site, the harder it is to find objectivity. You may begin to see only the time you’ve invested in the graphics, the scripting, the programming – it’s possible to get so caught up in the details that you miss the larger picture.
The only clue many designers have that there is a problem with their sites is that they aren’t working. The sales aren’t coming in. At that point, the ego must step aside and allow brutal honesty to enter.
That, dear NetDummy readers, is where you come in. Today’s issue is not so much an article as it is a workshop – as a group, we take a cold, hard look at a reader’s site and offer up our opinions. Not as professional designers (with a few exceptions), but as regular visitors. The kind of people who make the e-commerce world go ’round.
The site in question is Shaddow Domain. Here’s what the Web mistress Julie Pedersen had to say:
Greetings,
My demographic covers a wider range than I originally expected. We get all ages and all countries. We get people who have a morbid sense of humor, people who just like black, we get medical personnel and funeral home workers. I would like to try to get a wider audience in the adult arena (not porn, just people with money), and I would like to make sure that my site is as trustworthy as it can be, with the content that it carries, which I realize appears to some people to be immature and ridiculous. I guess the people who see it that way won’t stay anyway…
Right now, my efforts at attracting customers have been, well, slacking. I haven’t had much time over the last little while due to problems in my own life, and I know it’s high time that I got back to the business of marketing. I am listed on several search engines, and I target search engines, top 100 lists, banner swaps, web rings and the like that carry any words that would draw the appropriate crowd.
I do all of the site myself, and I’m self-trained at HTML. I’ve had fairly good luck at finding the info to create any effect that I’ve needed, but I haven’t had much time with now running the physical store myself as well as the site.
I guess, in a nutshell, I need to know how to attract more customers, and how to make them trust me when they arrive. I am also very concerned about search words in the title, the head, and in the body of the site. I’m a little outdated on the best rules to follow regarding the use and frequency of my key words for the search engines.
Thank you so much for your consideration, and if you need any more information, please let me know.
Julie Pedersen
Shaddow Domain
Stop by Julie’s site site and take a look around. Keep her comments in mind as you look around – how can she improve her site? What problems can you spot?
Visit Shaddow Domain, jot down your thoughts, and send your responses to Jackie@NetDummy.com by June 18, 2003. Include a link to your own Web site, if you have one, and we’ll include that along with your review in an upcoming issue of NetDummy. You’ll get a mention and a link to your site, which just might help give you a little traffic boost.
Jackie Rosenberger is an editor with Murdok, Inc.
