Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

I'm skeptical about the site's ability to attract and drive a "random visitor" to use your services. The service is unusual enough that they not only have to find you, but also understand and value what you do.

The good news is that you can find out if my skepticism is warranted for very little money. Just create the "visitor" landing page and promote it with Adwords for a few weeks. You'll see what happens quickly enough.

The landing page, though, needs to be very specific to your "random visitor." It needs to tell them (explicitly) what the benefit is, so they know immediately "what's in it for me." Use a vivid image or two, and make sure South Africa is prominent on the page. You might even consider putting some traveler info on the site so they get immediate value from having stopped ... maybe exchange rates or flight schedules or local events or something like that.

Most importantly, make sure there's a clear and obvious call to action -- a button they can click on or a specific action they can take once they bite on your bait.

You might want to read (or re-read) Seth Godin's The Big Red Fez: How to make any website better. This book is "short and sweet," so you'll finish it in one sitting. (The link takes you to the US Amazon.com site for more info about the book.)

Good luck.

I think your content is very good, but the website doesn't do it for me. (I don't mean to be harsh, but here is my critique):

When I first clicked on the link, I definitely didn't think "shopping service". I was thinking -someone's personal website, a vet, or something to do with dogs. Maybe change the site to have a figure pushing a shopping cart.

You may want to brighten it up too. Black backgrounds sometimes work, but it seems like you need to brighten it up. Also, if I wanted to print out some information off your website, that would use up a ton of ink. If you don't want to change the background, you may want to consider having a pdf pricelist or a way to print out the "why you need a professional shopper" and the price list information with plain background and black text.

These are just a few things I noticed... I am from the US though, not South Africa.

Can you drive a random customer - "no". To get a random visitor, you need a way to get them to your site. That means either organic or paid links. To get organic links, you'll need to have a reason for other sites to link to you. What value can you provide to others? Getting paid traffic isn't hard, just pay-per-click (or pay-per-action).

Your home page has too many different options to explore. Just as I wouldn't think to go to a restaurant and auto repair business (under one roof), I wouldn't think that someone who can do personal shopping, teach me about diamonds, and shopping trips. I would strongly suggest that you create 3 different websites that describe your different offerings. Each of these 3 could target your audience differently, with very different keywords, and would result in better results.

Your home page talks more about you than what challenge you solve for others. I don't care so much about who you are, what your background is, or the techniques you use. I care about what problem of mine you solve. Identify the problem, tell me why I should care about solving it, tell me how you solve it, then I'm starting to get curious about who YOU are.

Is it appealing to international visitors? Probably not. Unless you have some secret insider knowledge, that your can prove with testimonials, I wouldn't travel to S.A. just to talk with you. Show me your experience, your resume (if appropriate), and tell me why you're the best at what you do. Then....I may be interested.