Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

Here are a few suggestions:

1) The front page says too much about Valpak and not enough about what your advertisers get. Talk more about how many prospects they can reach, the ability to target specific demographics, etc. etc.

2) Put several testimonials on the front page (where they're easier to find)

3) Proofread. I found several typos (Free (rather than free) gift in the Brookstone case study, resident's (instead of residents' and staurated list (instead of saturated) in the carrier route saturation example)

4) Instead of carrier route saturation, call it targeted zip codes, or something similar that doesn't require knowledge of technical direct mail jargon.

Add web analytics (Google Analytics) to measure traffic.

Talk more about the benefits of advertising (demographics, numbers, ROI) and less about your specific offerings on your home page. If possible, compare/contrast the benefit of using Valpak to your competition.

A big advantage you have is that Valpak is easy to recognize. The image on the front page (the paper dolls) obfuscates the "Valpak" that people are familiar with. I'd recommend putting the blue Valpak envelope as an image on the front page -- reinforces how well known you are. You might also include a selling point on the homepage about your reach.

I didn't immediately get what Valpak online is all about. Do consumers go to the site for coupons? Make that more apparent, and convince the audience that the site actually has traffic.

Make linked text all the same color, and don't put anything else in that color. E.g., on the homepage, "Put Valpak to work for you!" looks like a link.

Agree that you need more benefits statements. You also need a contact form -- not just a list of your contact info. A lot of your prospects could be dropping off at this point (they're too lazy to pick up the phone). And no, an email link is not enough. It would be a shame to get prospects all the way to the contact page and lose them there!

You have lots of case studies (very valuable!), but it took me too many clicks to get there. How about a link on the home page? Or, make the picture on the Clients/Case Studies page more relevant to case studies. It could be a rotating image or flash of relevant statements or graphs. Or, if you only have enough resources to do a photo, you could just change the photo as often as you can.

Also, I'd like to see the case studies better organized, so I can decide at a glance what I want to click on. No one will read the entire list. You could organize it by industry or by results achieved (more clients, increased sales, reached a new market, etc.). The summary under the titles is nice, but would be easier to read if it was in a bulleted list.

Can you make the case studies into HTML pages with a button to download a pdf or printer-friendly page? It takes a while to download those PDFs.

The font throughout the site is a little small. It works ok, but if you feel like testing something, you might try testing a larger size font to see if people like it. Hope that helps - good luck!

I agree with a previous comment that the font is kind of small, especially in the menu.

There needs to be a call to action on the home page. Get In The Next Valpak of Austin - should be a link where someone can get started. The site is very informational but does not make it easy for someone to get started. Most pages should have a very big "Get Started" or "Start Mailing" blue button. Make it very obvious on how they can start advertising

Mike