Lotta Reviews Part II - A correction to the original Lotta Reviews post.

Instead of starting a new discussion, next time just edit the post (ie, click "edit post" near your name).

If you are having a "retention" problem after your visitors view the front page, I would think you should be asking "how can I improve the front page?" I also think you should be asking industry experts related to the website's content instead of webmasters who don't know anything about it.

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Joseph,

The retention problems we are having are not technical, but are a matter of aesthetics. We are looking for people to tell us why a person would decide that he or she did not want to stay there after only seeing the front page.

As for industry experts, we are them. Our web designers are some of the most creative in the world. And we have tested the page numerous different ways to assure that it worked correctly.

We are asking these hard-working webmasters to serve as an ultra-target group...helping to figure out why we are having these retention problems.

You stated that we shouldn't waste our time with "webasters(misspelled) who don't know anything about it." But you are wrong. The people here in the Webmaster Forums, both moderators and members, have been extremely helpful to many, many people. They are the best kind of experts.

Oh, and the reason we had to post again was because, even though our password was excepted when posting new messages, our password was not accepted when editing our post.
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Everyone Else,

Sorry about the misunderstanding. When we asked for help we meant to specify CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM. Sorry about that.

Thank you for your time and your help. Please keep the CONSTRUCTIVE comments coming.

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- The edit post problem is being worked on.

I'm not going to take sides here but can we just get back to reviewing please. I don't want to close this thread. Thanks.
JP

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The Webmaster Promotion and Resource Center.
http://www.what-next.com

IMHO this site has more of a personal home page 'feel' to it than a prifessional movie review site. In my surfing experience I see a drastic difference is the way a personal site and a buisness site look. That may be a reason, someone may say "oh this is just someone's personal page and therefore holds thier views." Also the very FIRST review I'd be looking for at the present time would be Star Wars of course!!!!!!!!!!! That and maybe something on the final episodes of Home Improvment, Melrose,etc. Take a look at other review sites and compare, you can keep it unique, but I think it needs a more polished professional, buisness like look to it.
Roo

Just a couple of quick comments. A movie review page should have some movement. Make the spots move for goodness sake. The secondary pages travel even farther down the "UNIX text only road"

The second problem I see are the reviews are out of date. Shouldn't someone who has acted and directed extensively in LA-LA land be doing reviews that are current. Maybe even seeing the journalist preview and writing her review before the movie comes out? And if she has acted and directed extensively why not put some of her credits on the bio page to lend her some credibility. As far as I know she directs elementary school plays. (Note: I love elementary school plays just trying to make a point about her claim to fame)

Hope this helps

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My goal in life is found in Phillipians 4:8-9

Ah, but Mountain WorldWide, I never said it was a technical problem. It's a "content" problem. "Content" is what keeps your visitors at your site and makes them return. Without content, you can't have a website.

You are also confused about what I deemed "wrong" on your part. The webmasters here are "experts" at website development, not content development, which is the type of "industry experts" you should be asking for help. Let me site a post here:

"..reviews are out of date" - Jim.

The Internet changes the rules: content, content, content - not location, location, location.

PS. This is all constructive "CRITICISM", how you take and use it is up to you.

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just another 10 cents:
Re: the professional look
I have to admit that I am schooled/trained/experienced in graphics/communications etc.....
first rule in communications is to appeal to your audience. (I'm talking design not traffic)
this audience is NOT corporate execs taking a 10 minute power lunch (they most likely will surf over to CNN or ABC to check out their stock quotes---movie reviews, before heading to yahoo's "married and flirting" chat room).
This audience (best to take a look at the whole cyber soup site to exactly see who this audience is) is most likely home users -- G-rated family folks looking for a little light intertainement.
As a stand alone movie/TV ratings site I don't think this lotta reviews is trying to compete with "mr showbiz" but is more an extension of a larger entertainement "cyber soup" site. In this respect, I feel "my opinion" that the design of this site (fun, lighthearted) has been very professionally, successfully designed to appeal to it's audience -- A corporate/conservative design would not "fit" here.
If more home pages were designed like this I would be surfing a lotta more .

take care,

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Carolyn Jones
icq# 5351437

JP,

Don't worry that this will become an out-of-hand arguement. In fact, a little technical debate is good for everyone because it gets many points out into the open.
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Again, Joseph, you have missed our point. Perhaps that is our fault because, in the interest of saving space, we did not develop our point thoroughly. The reason we underlined that it was not a technical point was to illustrate that a team of webmasters had tested every aspect to make sure that nothing physical was detering visitors and, therefore, defining the problem.

You pointed out that we needed to ask industry experts about the content. And we stated before, we are the experts. Mountain WorldWide handles the search engine optimization, banner and email advertising, intrasite navigation and communications, demographics, public opinion research, etc. for numerous clients.

The first step to determine what is wrong with content is to analyze the content ourselves. The second step is to expand on that process by using test groups to help determine what else might be changed to help improve visitor retention. Instead of spending money and time at your local mall dealing with people who have barely even used a computer, occassionally we use the Webmaster Forums. Here we not only have the help of Internet savvy people, but ones who know a little about what goes on behind the scenes as well. Their opinion has helped shape a number of successful sites.

We certainly agree that content is very, very important. However, location is at least as important. Anyone who has made a web page and then waited around while no one came can attest to this. We agree that if there is nothing to keep visitors there a web site is worthless. But if no one ever shows up the web site is equally worthless. The key is to get excellent content first, then develop your Internet exposure second. We are currently working to develop the content so that when a full-scale promotion takes place for the site, people will stay there.

Joseph, we apologize for any bad will we created. Please, help us determine what else could be changed. Can you expand on ROO's point that the site does not look professional? What changes could be made to make it look, feel, and appear more professional.

Thank you Joseph, and everyone, for your help. Please keep the reviews coming.

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Two more thoughts;

The decriptive meta tag. Is it maybe too long? I thought I read somewhere that the search engines only go by a few words and ignore, the rest.

Also;

I'm wondering is where the page is black and the first thing you see is the lips if people maybe are thinking this is a porn movie reviw site. While I love black as a backgound and think red really goes with it, a lot of people automatically associate those colors with porn. Something to mull over anyway.

Yeah I think the look is light and fun, I just think it should have a different look for what it's intended for!

Also I agree with the content issue, needs to be updated constantly.

Another question, how many search engines have to submitted the site to, and if you've changes meta tags at all have to re submitted?

Roo

I'm not Joseph, but maybe I can help. See I have a personal site and am now working to see how flexible I can be trying to design a commercial looking site, which IMO should have a completely different look and feel. The main prob. is in your graphics, they would be wonderful on a page on your own personal site, but they just don't strike me as coming from a professional site, as they are now. (This as a surfer not as a designer.)I'd keep the text but lose 'Lotta', all of the graphics just come off as being those not belonging to a 'buisness type' site. Think of it as a website walking around in the proverbial navy blue buisness suit! Personaly I'd redo the whole homepage, layout graphics and all. The first thing that pushes people away is load time, (which is good) the second is how it grabs the eye. In this case if I were searching for reviews I'd expect something more commercial and buisnesslike looking. As I said before, my first impression would be that I've reached a page on someones personal site where they are giving thier opinions, if that isn't what I'm looking for, I'm hitting the back button. Hope this helps!
Roo

In my opinion and experience, location doesn't do anything on the Internet. A domain name is just a domain name. True, some automatically draw traffic like www.wallstreet.com, etc. I sold trade.com for $1 million last Feb, which only shows the importance of the domain name. But when you have a domain like www.time.com, location is not important, the content is. People will type in the domain expecting "content". Again, you need industry experts who can give you that content, not experts to market it like yourself. Get the content first, then market it.

When I worked at quote.com in 1995, our visitors knew what they would get when they visited the site, it was my job to deliver. They didn't care what the site looked like, just as long as they got stock market quotes. Yahoo has one of the "least" visually attractive sites I've seen, yet they get 150 million people a day expecting content.

In my opinion, the retention problem is lack of content on the site.

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Roo: Some search engines only allow you a few words in the description META Tag, while other let you ramble on for a while. We try to develop the tags so that they make sense displayed either way.

When you change your META Tags, or anything else on your site, you can resubmit your site to the search engines to make sure they have your most recent page. Each of the search engines send out spiders periodically to re-index your site and its changes, but it is better to go ahead and list it yourself because it could be weeks before the spider gets back to your site.

Thank you all for your replies. We are taking your comments and putting them into action so that future visitors will be more impressed. If you have any other ideas please keep them coming. What else will make the site look more professional? Will banners and advertisements make it look more professional (which will be there eventually)?

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Noooooooo..........banners, ads, popups are soooooooooo annoying they just plain suck! They can add to load time too, If you MUST for a joint url trade or if someone pays you to place an ad than fine but by choice, I'd say no, that will make many go for the back button.
Roo

Just looking back over this post. Boy was I rude. My apologies for the tone of my last post. Although I think the comments are still valid the wording of my post was to harsh. Please forgive me.

By the way I have read Lotta's reviews and have enjoyed her writing style. And the reviews have been in agreement with what I thought on the movies I have seen.

Again my humble apologies.

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My goal in life is found in Phillipians 4:8-9