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Brick No114: Five more websites to critique
By Matt Weston, Tuesday 23 November 2004 Sheila, take a bow It takes two hundred to tango. And that's how many of you showed at our first-ever National Reader Meet-Up on Friday at London, ExCel as part of the Business Start Up Show. We ran on an extra two hours at what was supposed to be a two- hour event. And I got to put 200 faces to email addresses. Everyone who made it should take a bow, but a special mention to Simon and Andrew Titcombe who made the journey down to the capital from Cumbria. As I mentioned on Friday, my inbox is bursting with your feedback from the last two or three bricks. Along with a couple of big projects I need to start this week, the plan is to clear the backlog by the weekend. At the start of the month, I ran my first batch of reader websites for you to critique . . . new sites, re-launched sites, and broken sites that generate traffic but no sales. The first five guinea pigs - Ken, Jenny, Gary, Paul and Julian - were selected using an ad-hoc scorecard that takes into account size of donation, speed of reply and desperation of the plea. And they all received a vast amount of really useful feedback from you. See the Bric-A-Brac at the bottom of Brick No110. So, to take the heat off my own inbox, I thought I'd give another five readers the benefit of your feedback today. Someday soon I'll revisit some of the best before and after sites, and will include some of your best advice. Five more websites to critique By the way: If you have a new, impending or broken site and want feedback, drop as many details as possible to this email . . . oh, and if you're giving feedback, make sure you send the feedback to the email address in the blurbs below not to me. Today's star turns: (1) Allena Clarke Appointments Tyneside-based Allena took the time to send feedback to Ken, Jenny et al, then realised what a good idea it was to receive feedback en masse. With Emily Gilroy, she runs Allena Clarke Appointments. Can you give her three ways to make her site work harder? Email Allena. (2) Purr 4 Cats Purr is Ben Ryan's secret formula alternative to catnip. The main purpose of Purr4Cats is to create a themed hub about cats, with a second objective to sell the product. But only 1 in 30 people who visit the order page actually buy. They've also had very few sign-ups for the newsletter, especially when compared to the signup rate from eBay customers. Email Ben. (3) Bizcard Booster Steve Boys made it along on Friday to ExCel. I've seen first-hand that people like his product (a new kind of business card), but they're not buying via his website. And Steve had hoped this would be his best route-to-market. Email Steve. (4) Les Farfadets Jason Jenkins runs Les Farfadets . . . an Agence de Baby- sitting sur les stations de ski Savoyardes. Er, a baby-sitting agency based in the French Alps. The site went live last month, and includes a link to business bricks (I'm easily bribed). Send JJ feedback. (5) Work Additions Few details here, as Matt Haikin's main question is "Do you understand what message the site is trying to get across?" It went live earlier this month, and operates in an unusual market. Matt is desperate for input. Emails to Matt. Remember to sign up: back to top |
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