Effective Web design

[Ricesnaps]

This is still raising a great deal of questions for me.

Lets take the comments about length of stay. I more than 50% of visitors stay less than 1 minute then the home page is not drawing people in. So those of you who have less than 50% leaving before 1 minute, what is it about your home page that encourages people to stay? I really do believe that there has to be something that catches the eye and makes someone want to stay and look further.

As for the market that I want to attract, I am sure the design of a site is key to that. But I am just concerned that as DJ's we actually don't really know what it is that attracts people. Sure we have stats packages which give us a clue, but what is it that really attracts our clients and how do we know what that is? You see I have a feeling that a wedding client looking for a classy well presented disco is not going to be particularly attracted to a loud bright site with lots of shots of the show, but an 18 year old after a laser show to impress his mates at a birthday party might be. But how do we know?

Add to that the google search phrases our stats packages show us. What they actually show is what people have used to actually get to our sites. But what phrases do our clients use that DON'T get them to our site. For example, as a DJ I might type in "Mobile Disco Suffolk" into Google, but I doubt any of my clients do - so how do we find out what they actually type?

[CRAZY K]

About to post last night and we had a mains failure--

Living in the sticks--doh!

Rice, I believe and know from my own web sites that different things appeal to different people--as Steve pointed out--so in theory you need at least 4 different sites ( in my opinion ) with different messages, colours, images etc to catch the whole market.

Realistically this can be time consuming (as I have found out) but I have proved these differences exist. You probably dont have time so why not try designing your new website making it totally different to your existing and run the two together? The cost is peanuts.

You wont be ditching your existing successful site in the process and finding you made a mistake!

Then see what happens--in the world of the Internet believe me people wont worry its the same Disco--trust me :teeth:

Otherwise you will spend the rest of your life trying to work out the best possible Website to secure bookings.

Also I dont attach a lot of importance to visits or hits---numbers emailing and phoning is how I judge success.And of course bookings that pay!

Darren--I do my soldering with the IRON REGIMENT-- :teeth:

Well I would wouldnt I ?

CRAZY K

[Candybeatdiscos]

Rice, you want to know what clents look for ina website, what makes them stay longer than 50ms, but you have established the fact that a DJ and a client will have diffrent views, ie a DJ will stay longer to see what his/her competitor is offering at at what price etc, we like to think we are all better than each other so we look for flaws...where as a client is looking for a DJ to provide quality, professionallity and reliability. So i think the best thing to do here is to perhaps question past customers and any leads you get...what made them stay a bit longer, could you have done anything different? Perhaps offer a 10% discount on your webpage for everyone who completes a questionairre and then books you its quicker easier, cheaper and more reliable than using say a marketing firm.

Post the results though so i can redo my website too lol...mines is dog keek and i am trying to rebuild it....but when you don't know HTML that well its really hard lol.....Q - why cant dreamweaver be easier to use?

[CRAZY K]

I thought Dreamwever was very easy to use?

I use Microsoft Office Front Page for my sites which seems pretty easy to a non tecchie like me!

CRAZY K

[DMX Will]

Q - why cant dreamweaver be easier to use?

It is easy

If you need any help, same goes for anyone, give me a shout.

[DMX Will]

I thought Dreamwever was very easy to use?

I use Microsoft Office Front Page for my sites which seems pretty easy to a non tecchie like me!

CRAZY K

Any chance of a link to your site?

Front page, dreamweaver, both have advantages. Frontpage is very friendly as its just like the other office products, with a few added extras.

Dreamweaver over-rules due to the fact it can handle code, aswell as html (frontpage doesn't, just html and shtml). So php, asp and perl coders (such as myself) use dreamweaver.

Professionals go on about how frontpage is bad, but providing your site looks good, and gets the job done, what does it matter!!?

[CRAZY K]

Hi Will--go to--

www.crazyk.co.uk
www.callerdirect.co.uk
www.barndancecallercentre.co.uk

The first two were built by someone else--the last one I built--

Not the best in the world--but they all pull the punters in :teeth:

cheers

CRAZY K