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I reviewed before, and I'm afraid I can't say much different now. My review before was that I thought the profiles were not at all compelling, so I signed in wi
by DanielStraight 17y ago
I reviewed before, and I'm afraid I can't say much different now. My review before was that I thought the profiles were not at all compelling, so I signed in with the business account to see if I could do better. I can't. There isn't enough flexibility, and there's way too much focus on stuff no one cares about. I said it before, and I'll say it again: No one cares what your address is, what your primary, second, and third industries are, or what your office hours are. Most people don't care what your phone number is either since this is a website and they probably expect to use the web to contact a business on it.
There are also quite a few design issues. Sometimes bold blue text is clickable, sometimes it isn't. Something things listed in the left column are clickable menus, sometimes they aren't. I find it all very confusing. I thought for sure on the home page, I'd be able to click on "Find what you need" to go to some sort of search page, but I can't. The search box at the top gives no clue of what you should search for, and if you search for something that gets no results (or results you don't like), there's no indication of what you should do to improve your results. If search isn't your thing, oh well. There's no way to browse on the site, only search. In my opinion, the ability to search without the ability to browse works for exactly one website, and I think you know which one that is.
You mention plumbers as an example, but until you reach a huge critical mass, searching for a plumber on your site will not be practical. Craigslist is one of the only websites in the world where it's practical to search for local businesses, and Craigslist is huge. You are tiny. It is not practical to search for a local business that only lists 10 businesses in your entire country. What are the chances of actually finding one? One in a billion? Worse?
I think you would do much better to focus on business that don't have a "service area" (conveniently eliminating even more from the site that no one cares about). Freelance tech people would be a good target audience as far as businesses go. Software companies are also good. And then you need to give people a chance to actually show themselves on their profiles rather than a bunch of information that, I want to reiterate again, no one cares about. For comparison, this is what a good profile for a designer looks like:
http://www.ganato.com/index.php http://www.ganato.com/index.php
It is simply not possible to make something that compelling on your site. On your site, it would look like:
Location: Santiago, Chile
Service area: Worldwide
Name: Lidia Gana
Primary industry: Web design
Secondary industry: Interface design
Then there would be a comment area that contains a few good testimonials, perhaps the only thing compelling that could be worked into the profile, a list of business contacts that no one would care about, a discussion board that would not have a enough critical mass for anyone to care about, and a fans section that no one would care about.
Finally, there would be one single solitary chance for the designer to show what she can do: the video, but given that the attention span of users is very short and that there was nothing in the profile to compel them to care, many probably won't bother watching the video, especially if it's longer than say, 30 seconds. With 30 seconds, the designer could show only a ridiculously tiny portion of what's on her website. She certainly wouldn't have a whole page that exudes her design skill. She certainly wouldn't have a section where she gives away free stuff to show off her talent.
Think of it like this: eHarmony commercials complain that other dating sites give you just a picture and a paragraph and how useless that is. Your website gives businesses and customers just a picture and a paragraph.
- petervandijck 17y agoAgreed with all of this. You need to figure out how this is useful before 100,000 businesses sign up (which may never happen). Plus that value proposition: "Prospect Vista helps you connect in the marketplace" - what does that even mean? Finally, have you actually spent the money to trademark "Go Commercial"? If not, don't use the tm sign. Honestly, I think you're in way over your head.
- ABrandt 17y agoTechnically, you can use the TM sign on anything that is covered under trademark law. That indicates that the logo, tagline, etc. is a distinguishable visual cue unique to your business. To gain the most legal protection, however, you must register it with the USPTO and use ®. Surprisingly, I couldn't find an existing trademark on "Go Commercial" so it appears the OP is in the clear.
- leftnode 17y agoThanks again for the great feedback. You make a lot of excellent points too. Ok, what about the new app from 37Signals, Haystack? Design issues on my site aside, Haystack lets a (specific type of) business advertise for free with 1-6 images of their portfolio, and a link to their site. Thats $99 a month. I would assume you would like Haystack better because of its minimal design and focus on the company. Looks like its back to the drawing board, but I do honestly appreciate your feedback.
- sebg 17y agoIf my understanding is that you want to build a website like "yelp/local business"...then I think you need to go out and talk to local businesses about how their needs aren't being met by craigslist, yelp, etc. Also from the description, it looks like you might be going after too many things. For instance - if I am a small town plumber, chances are that I am not going to have a commercial to upload. This will make me look less professional on your website and I won't like it so I won't use you. On the otherhand if you had statistics like the number of "jobs" that I have done in the last month at or under the price quoted, then this would be helpful for me as a customer. Perhaps the way to go is to make a website that lets very small local business construct advertisements that don't suck. Make it painfully easy for them to do this and they will pay money.