|
|  |
| |
|
| | The Un-Marketing Network is not currently active and cannot accept new posts | | Introduction and question | Views: 1190 | | Aug 07, 2005 11:57 pm | | Introduction and question | # | 
Jerry Goodwin | | Hi,
I just joined and wanted to introduce myself. I am a Certified Personal Trainer and Medical Technologist, a VietNam era veteran of the US Navy as well as a former Army National Guard Member. My wife and I operate BMG Services Fitness and Nutrition in Moultrie Georgia.
Actually the reason I joined this network is that I read some posts that were made and thought that the people here may be able to help me with my website.
I have put together a site at http://www.bmgfitness.com and I would like to have anyone that would go by and see if they can make suggestions on how to improive it. It is dedicated to health and fitness and mainly targeted toward the Baby Boomer Generation since I am in that age group. The suggestions there will work for others and I am adding more articles as quickly as possible. I am trying to add an article a week. There are 2 articles on the site now and I have one more that I should complete within the next day or so.
Ther are some links there to free software some of which is business related, some fitness related, some just that I thought was interesting feel free to pick up any or all of it when you are there.
Have a great day.
Jerry Goodwin Private Reply to Jerry Goodwin | | Aug 10, 2005 11:50 am | | re: Introduction and question | # |
David Brooks | | Jerry, you could start by getting rid of the popup. You could also change the background color to something not as bright.
You might then want to change the title tag of your page to something other than "My Page"
After you've done the above, remove the underlines from the text. Underlined text gets mistaken for links. Use italics or bold text instead of the underlines.
Have you thought about having a logo designed for your site?
Based on what I see, I recommend you look into a complete website redesign.
David Brooks
Marketing Director
MateMedia - Your Partner on the Web
http://www.matemediainc.com
Web Hosting
Web Design
Search Engine Optimization
Streaming Video I-commercialsPrivate Reply to David Brooks | | Aug 15, 2005 12:55 am | | re: re: Introduction and question | # |
Jerry Goodwin | | Hi David,
I have done a lot of redesigning of the site on my own and did use some of your suggestions. Yes I do have a company logo, but I am not at this time using it because it no longer fits my clientele. The logo I have is more for bodybuilding and not for health and general fitness of the baby boomer generation. I would like to have a new one designed but my budget is pretty low, so that will have to wait.
I was hoping that I would get more posts like yours that made specific suggestions on improving the site. What I got was a BUNCH of PM's offering me design services for anywhere from 200 to 2000.00 and only got suggestions from you and one other person. I realize that the people in this group and on ryze are for the most part here to sell their products or services so I will look at each offer and consider what I can do or what they can do, and let each of them know.
I do thank you and the other people that have responded to my question and will take any suggestions seriously.
Private Reply to Jerry Goodwin | | Aug 15, 2005 11:43 pm | | re: re: re: Introduction and question | # | 
Karri Flatla | | Hi Jerry,
Here are some simple but constructive suggestions for making your website more successful as a sales tool:
-> First and foremost: Do you have a marketing plan? The baby boomers are a HUGE market. Can you marktet to a subgroup within this demographic? This will help you do some "profiling" and then you can really hone your marketing message. ie. what is your key value proposition? Why you instead of all the others? I need to know this AS SOON AS I GET TO YOUR SITE.
-> Conduct some Search Engine Optimization before doing any redesign or rewriting of your copy. No point reinventing the wheel twice! Download GoodKeywords (free) and determine what key words you would like to include in your copy and header tags.
-> Now you can add appropriate titles and headers. Bold and italics is a nice way to highlight some of your keywords but don't overdo it. If you overload your pages with too many keywords (say more than 5-10% keyword density), the engines may think you are just "spamming" them.
-> Definitely decide on a theme for your site and logo. How do you want your target market to feel when they arrive at your home page? Excited? Relaxed? Soothed perhaps? Your home page must immediately build credibility in their eyes.
-> Put an excerpt from one of your articles somewhere in the top fold of your home page. Then use well chosen anchor text from that blurb to link straight over the full article.
-> Remember, usability usability usability. The more useful and user friendly your site is, the more the engines will probably like it and the more repeat traffic you will get also.
-> The photos are too small and don't convey a message to me. What is your key value proposition? Everything must flow from this! A few well placed graphics or photos complimented by tags (alternate text description) are nice to have and help your SEO a wee bit too.
Hope this gives you some food for thought!
All the best and let me know if I can be of further assistance,
Karri Flatla, B.Mgt.
snap! virtual assistance inc.
Don't just outsource. Outsmart.
Take our online Small Business Survey. Be heard. Give your opinion. Have fun! Private Reply to Karri Flatla | | Aug 18, 2005 3:58 pm | | re: Introduction and question | # | 
Kathryn Spencer | | So I'm new to this group too.. and I just visited your site.
It was ok. It's relitively simple in format which can be good. One thing I would change would be you links under FREE Software. They can be text that tells you what to expect that takes you to the website. The way they are now, an individual has no clue what their clicking on or who it's really directed to.
Kathryn Private Reply to Kathryn Spencer | | Aug 18, 2005 10:14 pm | | I like your site. | # | 
Joshua McElmurray | | I met you on the better barter network. I build websites for clients up in the Northwood's of Minnesota. I would be willing to build a website for you on a barter system. It only takes me a week or two to build a good site.
Otherwise, I like what you have done to the site. It looks like you put a lot of time into creating it. I agree with David though, you should add a little more pizzazz to the site.
A webmaster is talented when they can get a person to spend more than one minute on their site, and to accomplish that they need a Head Line that stands out and catches the attention of their target audience. Headline placement is very important, you want that to be the first thing people see and read when they view your site.
You are very good at getting your information down on paper, however, I would suggest going through your copy and everywhere you see the words "we & our" see if you can turn them into a "you the customer" statement.
I like how you listed toward the top "increasing fitness...etc", the only thing I would suggest here would be to use Bullets. Ufda, Bullets stand out and grab the viewers attention. You will be amazed at how the bullets stop the viewer in their tracks and read through them.
You do a really good job at adding on freebies at the end there. The only thing I would suggest there would be to give a little more description of what the software is... thus you would be adding more value to your offers.
At the end of the document there is an abundance of empty space. Just tidy that up a little.
The buttons you are using are nice. If you want to use buttons as your navigation, I would suggest visiting a site like http://www.freebuttons.com , or going to google and typing in "free buttons" and going down the list until you find some sharp looking buttons. Moreover, you could also create your own buttons with a graphic software like paint shop pro.
At the bottom of the page where you have "click here & discover the secret now" I would avoid any hyper linking over "click here's" - for instance, this would be better "Discover the Secrets Now!" Hyperlink that instead... click here is so cliché, it's common knowledge now anything blue and underlined is a hyperlink.
~wow, did I drag that out into one long sentence? whew.~
I learned this the other day - when writing copy, go through and take out the word "that" wherever possible. I was told "that" is a useless word and takes away from the copy.
God Bless,
Joshua
http://www.trustiam.com
http://www.petalsbeans.com
ps. if your interested in bartering, I am a college student and college is 30 miles away, so I am looking for a nice fuel efficient used car - just an idea. Private Reply to Joshua McElmurray | | Aug 19, 2005 6:12 am | | re: Introduction and question | # | 
Ron Amundson | | Personally I'd say the ads have to go. Your website should put your business in the best possible light. Advertsing for others takes away from that. Now, once you have established a strong personal brand, eg Dr Mercola, or even in the tech field Leo Laporte then it might be ok to do so, but even for those guys, its really limited.
I'd also say get rid of the pop up. That can cause people to hit the back button before going anyfurther.
Next, take a look at the fonts, they are random in size and type. Consistancy is important for a professional site.
Next review the colors, you have colored buttons on the main page, and the color scheme changes on some of the other pages, and its not apparent why.
Your articles are well written, and its much appreciated that you include bibliographic data. It would be useful to link to the abstratcs on pubmed. Maybe if you are lucky, their might even be full text available on pub med central.
As far as the business aspect goes... why not have an about me page. You are promoting yourself. Same deal with promoting your certification. As we both know, certs vary widely, ranging from send in the money, here is your cert, to the other extreme of study like a madman, send in your money, and now go pass one heck of a nasty exam, and we award your cert. Same deal with your continuing ed. You pay a fortune every year for it, make use of it for promo material.
You have a good start, and setting a goal and associated timeline for articles is key. Content wins over fluff everytime. Once you have the content, the rest becomes easy to DIY, or to outsource for a song.
Personally I tend to favor content management systems, as it takes most of the grunt work out of admin, and dealing with html and web stuff, and allows you to concentrate on writing, and working with clients, rather than having to fit in webmaster duties as well. Its perhaps not as flexible as a ground up approach, but the low maintenance aspects make it a real plus imho. There are a number of open source solutions to boot.
RonPrivate Reply to Ron Amundson | | Aug 27, 2005 5:33 pm | | re: Introduction and question | # |
Cathy Goodwin | | I agree with the suggestion to focus on your market. Before designing your site, you need to create a strategy. Identify your ideal target customer. Feel his (or her) pain. I'm in your target market. I love fitness and work out in a gym. So ... why would I hire you? You need to answer that question right up front.
I can understand your frustration with PMs offering services of web design (okay, I'm biased, but I think copy is even more important).
But people can spend years learning how to write copy and design websites. If you're anxious to get your business moving, why not take advantage of their expertise?
And it's not a question of advising you on what's wrong -- you need to work with a system to move from idea to strategy to website -- otherwise a series of suggestions won't make a lot of sense.
You can read some of my thoughts in a free article:
http://www.cathygoodwin.com/webtips.html
I've assembled a list of free and low-cost resources at
http://www.cathygoodwin.com/bizserv.html
From that page, I suggest you invest a small amount ($39 last time I looked) in Robert Middleton's Web Tools Guide and
also begin subscribing to Lorrie Morgan-Ferrero's copy
ezine. Middleton's ezine would be a gold mine for you too.
And you'd learn a lot from Alexandria Brown's ezinequeen.com ezine, reports and more.
Private Reply to Cathy Goodwin | | |
| |
| |
