I?m going to catch it back in the coffee room for this comment,
because I?m infamous for mis-spelling words and leaving needed letters
off the end, and even using the wrong tense when making fast comments?
but
First off the site looks fine, I?m not up on the various spellings in
the English language across the globe, so in your area, the words may
be fine on the inside pages. Unfortunately they do register with me, a
person use to US spellings, as mis-spelled. ?specialised? for instance
is specialized here. Grammar isn?t my strong point either, but the
paragraphs might stand a once over. The thought, which crossed my mind
first is, the message is telling me about your close attention to
detail, when details appear to be over looked within the message.
These are just thoughts on the ?ricochet? effect you are describing.
In order to get a true look at the stats you have given, it would be
good to know where you got them. The times you give aren?t enough to
read the pages, though the content, and the design aren?t the ?low
level? I would expect for those times. Ricochets are normally caused
by an unprofessional look after the first page. The owner of the
website typically has paid for a professional look on the front page,
and then winged it after that, which gives a bland effect (or worse)
to the visitor. Your site doesn?t come across that way, so I question
the stats you have given. If you could let me know what program you
are using to get those stats, perhaps an answer could be found there.
The repeat stat is interesting, but over what time period is this
?repeat? visit being made?
Same day? Same week? Same minute? You can see that the answer to this
is very telling. If they are coming back in the same minute, the stat
is meaningless. The browser simply refreshed, or they had it on a tab.
Same hour, could still be meaningless for the same reasons, but
unlikely. Same day or month, would be more interesting.
International is fine, but I know the pricing between here an OZ is a
little different (I have a few customers over there). The pop up
window though is not a good idea. If I?m sticking my Credit Card in a
site, I want to see the URL I?m putting it in. PopUps are too common
in the ?gotcha? areas. This is the greatest problem with your credit
card payments. Honestly, I?m surprised you get them at all.
Your trade may require a bit of anonymity, but if I?m giving you my
credit card number, I want to know who you are, and how I can reach
you. So, I would put a message phone on there, with a note about time
differences and office hours. You are dealing with people, and
customers. Customers like to know who they are hiring.
I run into the same thing with my business. I sell customized Internet
Programming. I don?t want to talk to customers when I?m coding. It
throws me off (more than they can understand), causes errors, and loss
of ideas. Every time the phone rings, costs me at least 30 minutes. So
I try to keep them on the email and fax, and normally they are okay
with this, because it benefits them to leave me alone and let me code.
However, if they didn?t have my phone number, I wouldn?t have their
business. They need to know they can reach me, if they are going to
send money. Once they have my phone, and have heard my voice, most of
them are fine with emails and Instant Messages.
What works very well for me is having the message phone, with the
message asking for their email address, and referring them to the
website for inquires. The message is professional, and sounds like an
office, where no one is available to take the call, please leave name,
number, url and email address. Then I email them. Eventually I have to
talk to them? I don?t know if you have to do that or not, but I do.
For some reason, they simply have to hear my voice for me to be real.
Okay, let?s get a bit more critical now. Hold on to your seat a little
firmer. As I?ve said, your site is basically fine, so these comments
are more or less, nit-picky aspects, if I was your webmaster, I would
bring up and question.
The site is difficult to read. The words don?t flow well, and the
spacing is odd. Visually it looks good, but actually reading it, is
difficult. The ?gun shot? bullet points on the about Ozpeopletrace
page are, well, annoying really. I don?t get past the second point,
before my eye scans down the page, to see all of the points start with
Ozpeopletrace, and then I just quit reading. The reason I quit reading
is because I no longer feel there is information here, I now feel like
I?m only going to get ?advertised? too, and who wants to do that?
The whole site, is less than ten pages, which doesn?t do much for
anyone looking for information. Communication, as stated before, is
almost ?forbidden? in context and in design. There are no forms, no
comments, no interaction of any kind, and basically, no information
either. The level of communication of this site is worse than the
typical blind date.
For instance, let?s take this paragraph:
?OZpeopletrace offer several different services, all of which are
conducted with diligence, reliability and painstaking care. We use
the latest resources and techniques, and have access to many
specialised databases. Your search will receive personal attention
within 24 hours of OZpeopletrace receiving your deposit, and you will
be kept updated on progress. ?
I know in your business, vague is a tool, but here it is not. ?Several
different services?, ?latest resources and techniques?, ?specialized
database???
What specialized databases? What latest techniques? ? See, you are
saying nothing really, I know less about you than I did before I came.
At least then I thought there was something here. But there isn?t.
?you will be kept updated on progress? .. Really? How? When?
My advice here, because I understand the reasoning behind the lack of
details, is to compromise a bit. Your competition probably knows the
?specialized databases? as well as you do, and if they don?t have them
already, then they probably can?t afford them. Tease the customer with
them. No trade secret lost there. Put up a page on what the service
does and why it is a good database.
The best idea I have for your site, may be a bit beyond your abilities
or resources, but I think it would help your web response a great
deal. Set up a login area, where visitors can fill out questioners,
upload photos, put in descriptions and get some type of feed back from
you (doesn?t have to be ?you? could simply be a computer generated
script) Example. The type is missing person. Relationship is son. Age
18. Visiting Oz for summer vacation before going to college. Place
Melborne. Hotel, Friends, Phone numbers. Just off the top of my head.
You know that a missing person is going to start with a set questions
?Did you call Melborne police?? ?What is the case number?? ?What is
the office in charge? ? and a basic set of follow ups you are going to
start with, which can be listed for the customer, and ticked off, by
you or the computer, in a regular amount of time.
The point here is, you have an interaction with the customer. You
don?t start until you get paid the deposit, but they can see, they
have interaction with you. (Even when they don?t).
I use a similar program for my customers. It has a list of things I
have to do, where I am with them. A place for them to upload pictures
and documents and put in comments. Since I?ve started using this
?project manager? I get a much better response from visitors to my
site, turn inquires into sales at a higher rate, and spend less time
on the phone. Over all it has been a very good decision.
That is the general overview. Quick recap, get rid of the pop up
credit card page. Check spelling and grammar in the text, possibly
look at having different spelling and grammar for US vs. England
visitors. Change text layout, so that the spacing is more readable.
Add some type of interaction to the site. Add more ?real information?
and remove some of the vagueness. Remove many of the Ozpeopletrace?s
(I know why you have all those in there, but so does everyone else,
the Internet is not the medium for this type of promotional tactic).
I would be interested in the method of statistics and could possibly
give you more insight with that information, however, I believe most
of your clues are in that last paragraph.
Thanks,
webadept-ga |
Request for Answer Clarification by
kotemaori-ga
on
13 Feb 2004 14:56 PST
Hi Webadapt
stats are from the Deep Metrix monthly reports on my server and are
averaged over the past 6 months.
Are you telling me that i should use a different version of the pages
with US spelling to please visitors from US? This is an Australian
site,not a US site,the URL has .au on the end.Do people from the US
really expect everything to be done their way and don't make
allowances for the fact that things may be slightly different in other
countries?
I understand what you say about letting people feel they can contact
us if they have a worry,(yes,the same reason you gave applies that
there is no direct phone contact,no work gets done with people phoning
and interrupting),so i will change the message to imply that time
zones prevent the phone being available.
Credit card payments,would it go someway to fixing the secure image
problem if the pop-up was changed to a page with the URL visible,even
though its a shared certificate (https.ozhosting/ozpeopletrace
etc)(and even though it has the secure page padlock to click on)
The site is difficult to read....its also written with ranking in
mind,and when your keyphrases are as hard to incorporate as this
particular ones are,don't you have to make a choice,nice to read and
rank low or keyword density and rank well.point taken about every para
seeming to start with OZpeopletrace BUT it does get our name in the
visitors mind subconciously,is it not better to do this than to have
flowing writing
i think there may be a slight misunderstanding happening,this website
is very narrow in its appeal,the only visitors are those needing the
address or phone no. of a person in Australia who has vanished to all
intents and purposes,(missing people are not really any thing to do
with it,although the term is used on the pages,many people think of a
person they can't contact as a missing person,the police find missing
persons),there are no more than half a dozen similar sites in the
world offering the same service in such a specific manner,although
maybe a hundred more selling software or operating from the US where
it is impossible to do the job well,if at all,use the keywords.i did
an analysis of the SE rankings of the sites i see as competitors and
this site is well ahead of the lot of them everywhere except
google.the most successful is peoplesearchaustralia,and i feel the
reason they are so successful is because "people search australia' as
a keyphrase gets around half of the hits on most search
engines,however the website is outdated,built on a tacky template,has
a page of b.....t about the owners,poorly designed ,they charge a lot
more etc etc
what i need to know is, what is on the website or not on the
website,to have a visitor look at it for an average of 50 seconds and
only view 1.6 pages,probably the index page and the services
page,although its hard to decide that from the stats provided on the
server.would a counter on each of the inside pages be a help in
analysing what page or feature of the design is making people leave
the site so quickly.
i questioned your answers at the start of this RFAC,not because i
think you are wrong in what you say,but because i doubt that given the
very specialised market and the limited competition,that those
factors are not the reason visitors are not converting to
enquiriers,but rather there is a feel about the site that is the
cause.possibly the lack of communication as you suggest.
If you can pin it down for me i am happy to show my appreciation and
buy you a few rounds.
i would also like you to put your idea of an interaction page a little
more clearly,maybe you missed the email form on the contacts page,or
do you feel that form isnt whats required,i can't really see what a
log in page would achieve,clients already signed up arent the ones i'm
concerned about,it's the potential ones who are going somewhere else
please tell me what further information is needed,the services are
explained clearly and priced,visitors are told where we are,our
address,phone,fax,email,(on every page),they are told that licenced
private investigators do the work for them,that the work is handled
diligently etc,it is a very inexact science,it isn't possible to give
time frames.You said to tell visitors about the databases and
resources we use,the reason most are looking for the service we offer
is because they have tried the free searches,the so called Australia
people searches from US companies and found it cant be done unless the
investigator is in Australia and knows where to look.Why would any
sane businessman tell the punters where he will be looking for their
son,or friend,who's vanished into thin air in Australia,they will go
and look there themselves and do the job free.It's not the other
investigators i don't want knowing how things work,i tell some of
them,and they tell me about new resources we've found,it's the
customer.
could you give a quick response to my query about cloaking and using
foreign domains for foreign markets,i'm thinking of .co.uk and .co.nz
at this point,and .com.ca if i can find a way around the new domain
laws
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