I need you guys to help with some ideas...!

I have decided to restructure my website and forum and open it up to the world. Previously it was designed for our local community in Australia...but the need for a local community forum doesn't seem to be great enough here (it's going well, but I think I was being way to benevolent offering something to our community when I really need to do something for ME).

A very wise person told me that no matter what we choose to work at it should be something we really enjoy...so I'm changing focus...and intending to attract people (to this great website and forum I have created) who are into the same sort of things I am into.

I'm asking for a really great catch-phrase, marketing ideas, something to give this site the IDENTITY that it deserves.

Here is what I have so far...

"If you are interested in personal development, healthy living, progressive business ideas and having some fun, then registering for this website could be just for you. Meet up with some like-minded people on our forum, share knowledge, support each other, expand your business and personal contacts and lots more..."

Help...I'm finding this a touch embarrassing asking you guys for this....just need people from outside to look in and give me some objective feedback / ideas / marketing suggestions etc.

Phew...I'll take a deep breath now.

Elizabeth

Well now... what a twist Starting out local and moving global seems like quite a big step... if you cut it up though, it ain't so big. If i were you i would broaden horizons to ex Australians, Aussies who have gone to work abroad if you will. As far as catch phrases go, why not work along th lines of "Australia's most interactive personal growth seminar" Make an emphasis on Australia... try push your search terms in that direction simply because anyone hunting for your service in your country will probably use the word Australia either at the beginning or end of their query. Emphasize financial and personal growth without the cheese (cheesy), nobody likes the get rich quick crap found all over the web.

Chances are you will find a lot of people looking for seminars in their area and i am fairly certain that if they can find great advice in your forums they will stop their search straight away. I haven't seen your homepage (wheres the sig link?) but if you put an article up that has the appeal of 'great advice for free" that should be the first step in getting them to investigate further into your site and join.

Including titles like, how to get your business off the ground, How i got my business of the ground, running a business in Australia etc,,, that should draw attention from people looking to start something. I am sure you have read Daves info on phrase based search terms, basically what it boils down to is people aren't going to go to google.au and type in business or growth or even personal growth. People will be searching for things that include the question and where they are... eg. how to fart the national anthem in Australia? the .au is irrelevant to the average joe. so always think global regardless. If you want more non-Australian peeps though, make sure you replace the use of any aussie jargon. Like with lalibela (game reserve) i have tried to incorporate what other countries would go for... like game parks, big game, safari lodge, game lodges etc... all of which not many South Africans would even consider.

Dont know if thats what you were after but i will be glad to throw in some design ideas when i see your site

Ryan_steyn wrote:

Dont know if thats what you were after but i will be glad to throw in some design ideas when i see your site

Thank you Ryan...I'll need to re-read your post at another time as I can't stop laughing about the Australian national anthem farting contest you have me thinking about...my website link is below my avatar...your ideas are making me think from a different perspective and that's what I needed...I appreciate that.

Elizabeth

i try.

First thing i would suggest, your styles are all on page? that defeats the point of css completely as it increase you page size (not to bad to start though) incredibly and makes the search engine spiders sift through it all before it gets to the meaty stuff you want the world to see. Move your css into an external style sheet. http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_howto.asp - its a very quick and painless process with large benefits. Once that is done you can pretty much get rid of all on page css except the one line that calls your css file.

Second... although i know full well that meta keywords are not that important anymore, you still want to keep them relevant to your site.

<meta name="keywords" content="South Gippsland,Prom Coast,Gippsland,Eastern Victoria,forum,community,business,singles,news,network,local,local community,discussion,Victoria,Australia" />

<meta name="description" content="Community Forum and Singles Network all combined on one dynamic website, for South Gippsland and Eastern Victoria." />

Singles? Prom? news?network? local?  Are pretty meaningless, a drop of water in the ocean if you will. Change all this to phrases, and make sure the phrases are in your content to determine their relevance. You will havte weed out the location stuff, its to specific for the global market.

Something pretty cool though is your code to text ratio which is 17.26 % - thats not bad, if you do the css bit it will increase that number which is even better. (my current site is 20% and my new one is 33% - my competition is all at about 10%)

This is starting to look like a site review my bad.... some people will argue that these changes wont make a huge difference but in an ever evolving online beast i dont see how cleaning up the code now is going to hurt anything... it can only get better

I like your site for the most part... the current lalibela site aint great as far as code goes.. hence the the revamp. One thing to consider though, it is a little intimidating.. .to much going on and i wasnt sure where to look first... im using a widescreen monitor so it should have looked emptier... but no... have you considered a less intense index page? perhaps a primary article in the center, recent forum posts on the right and a menu at the top and bottom? Perhaps create more open space and images to lighten the load on the brain.

Ryan_steyn wrote:

One thing to consider though, it is a little intimidating.. .to much going on and i wasnt sure where to look first... im using a widescreen monitor so it should have looked emptier... but no... have you considered a less intense index page? perhaps a primary article in the center, recent forum posts on the right and a menu at the top and bottom? Perhaps create more open space and images to lighten the load on the brain.

This is a really good point and one that's been raised before...I think I know what to do about that already - might take me a few days to pull it together though.
You are worth more money than they pay you Ryan...thanks again.

Elizabeth

the global expansion should be easy - simply replicating the system. I suggest looking at sites like craigslists etc that have one system repeated in localised offerings. Even myspace style sites but that offer regionalised opportunites.

The marketing is the hard part - you need to get some locals around the world to adopt their stae/city - maybe they get some percentage or something for their effort.

Also time in focusing on what the site actually IS ABOUT would be worthwhile - nice tight focus with good WIFM that is obvious.

Ah.. Good point matte, actually just made me think of something else, most towns/cities have their own tourism or regional websites, if you are targeting purely Australian businesses it would be a good idea to make contact with these sites. They will always be keen to link up to area related sites and will be stoked if you throw them a bone like  "Aussie tourism links". (determine how web savvy the are and pull off a no-index tag on your links page) only if you are really terrified of arbitrary links though

matte wrote:

Also time in focusing on what the site actually IS ABOUT would be worthwhile - nice tight focus with good WIFM that is obvious.

You're right Matte, (thanks for jumping in)...I have been unsure of the exact identity right from the start...

...but the major benefit is that members (including businesses, professionals and singles) get to create an expanded network of contacts in their local area. I don't think that's enough WIFM though.

Right now our members are predominantly singles...but singles market is so flooded I didn't want to go down that path...though the feedback I'm getting is that is exactly what is missing in the Internet dating world - connecting with people from your own area, not someone halfway across the world.

The right Identity is the key - what's the answer? I really need assistance with this.

ER

hmm... i dont know about that so much, i have been to a couple of dodgy sites (funny pics and what not) and i always end up with popups saying stuff like "Marie Venter age 33yr in Johannesburg South Africa is hot for you"... obviously it just checks my ip to see where i am and pulls people from the general area out and pops em on my screen but thats a pretty direct path if you ask me But as i said, if oyu want people (legit) from around your area the best bet is to go your general information sites in the area and get em to link to you.

Business model - I am usure as to the plan here? Is it s social networking kind of gig? There are pleenty of those out there, so you'd have to figure your ANGLE... why your site instead of any other?

Motivation - then we need to establish what prospective visitors want and lean on that to maximize conversions (sign ups?).

SEO - obviously the wider your market ( world wide over local) the greater the competition and more work involved in obtaining tartes that will achieve traffic. Be sure to max out the local stuff first (known as Geo-targeting).

Reach - In the end, as I have been on about lately, there is no free lunch. Often marketing is going to cost $$ these days. I may not be as much about a great tag line as it is about reach. If the target demographic doesn't know U exist, all the great work on the site won't matter.

There are plenty of social networking sites out there where people connect to 'talk' 'support each other' and 'make business contacts' and so on. Your up against some steep competition. What's YOUR angle.. WHY is yours a better choice? bla bla bla....


So, first off, what is the business model? How will you make $$$? This ultimately would lead us to establish what level of membership/conversions we would need to be profitable. We can then establish how much it would cost to attract/maintain that level of traffic. THIS will tell us how much time would be needed to break even/ turn a profit. Many times this excercise can show the viability of a project. A feasability study. In the brick and mortar world I used to do a lot of these as folks don't tend to throw away $50k without establishing the true potential of any business idea.

So.... what's the business model here? WHATare the proposed income streams and WHO is the proposed target market demographic?

Dave this is excellent - it's getting late here and I need some time to sit with those questions you have posed - I really needed that. I have to ask myself some questions and maybe do some more research as well.

I haven't even begun to do any serious marketing in the local area. Going to a networking business meeting tomorrow night. There is stacks of work to be done with Geo-targeting (learned something else today) and I know what I need to do - just have to do it!

I would like to talk more about the proposed income streams...I have actually got this setup for how I think it might work when we get a larger number of members...but will get back to you with my idea for you to run through your filters.

ER