Need more sales!

[lupole]

Hi,

My site is on top of most search engines "within the top ten", but not receiving the sales I believe I should. My site has been out for a year now and I have done much to promote it, it is all over the web. My product is very good. All of my buy buttons take you to secure well established web stores such as, cdbaby.com, cdstreet.com, amazon.com, cdnow.com and towerrecords.com. I believe that my discription and key words direct my site to the proper audience. If there are any suggestions I would very much appreciate it.

Thanks

Larry www.larrylupole.com

[fathom]

Hi lupole and welcome WebProWorld.

Might I suggest "a picture is worth a thousand words", interaction is priceless, audio, video etc.

Your saleable items where not immediately apparent "on click" -- I has no idea what you or your site is about.

A assume you have Music CDs or maybe Casette Tapes not sure "and as most people beleieve they are busy" will not take the time to read (unless on an information site) thus if it doesn't stand out... they go elsewhere.

I would get some mp3 samples in the site, and song lyrics as added value.

[lupole]

Hi fathom

Thanks for your input. But I am not sure why you could not understand what my site is about. There is a pic of the cd at the top of the page and I copied and pasted the first paragraph which tells everything you said was missing.

"Independent artist Larry Lupole's hot new music CD Classic Fantasy, has something for everyone. Independent artist Larry Lupole knows that You'll enjoy his songs. On Larry Lupole's new music cd Classic Fantasy, you'll listen to music and hear the songs that were written and recorded for your listening pleasure. When you listen to music from this independent artist music cd, you'll know that it was written from the heart of one of the most romantic Independent artists around."

And there are Realplayer files as well as mp3 files that are on the sound files page. This is copied from the second paragraph which has a link to the sound files page.

"Larry has also employed Real player and MP3 music files of some songs from this CD for your listening pleasure. These clips are on the Sound files page."

I appreciate your input but am not sure how come you could not see this.

Thanks Larry

"

[janeth]

Larry
I would work on the website some. You have done everything right you have information on your front page your in the top of the search engines but love to read and the bold black font on the blue background looks like your yelling at me. I would get a realy nice logo put a nav bar under the logo, and put some text with a font that makes you want to read it. I would also go to a white background. You website just does not look like some where I would want to stay for very long.

[lupole]

Janeth

Thanks for responding to my request. I have been working on my site using some of your suggestions. Once you pointed out some of my problems I could then see them. Thanks again. You should see my changes. www.larrylupole.com I am working on a new logo

Larry

[janeth]

It looks a lot better now I would do a nice logo and put a nav bar under the logo. I think it looks 100% better already

[httpman]

Larry,

I went on your site, let's say : from my web designer point of vue I have things to tell. I do myself try to play music, trying hard to get good vibes from my old 77' telecaster, but never made any money with her, that's just for fun. Nothing to deal with you, my business is websites. Your is music, and you are a true artist.

So can I help you ? (hard to talk english for me, just try to talk french - could make me laugh, my turn !)

Well, with your site you should change a few things. Could maybe bring additional contacts, probably not, but will probably help to transform visitors into buyers.

1- the front page : that's not a page that calls. Coming there, what do you do or sell ? OK, you explain everything there, but it's long, so long to understand. You SHOULD put an image, animation or text (better a text) that says what you do. And it should be easy to read & understand for that average "idiot" which looks like a search engine (hard, so hard for me to talk your english language, I hope you understand coz I have very few words to use, so I could look thatg that "idiot"..)

OK, let's say : "Independent Artist" is probably telling something to you, but what does it mean to your visitors ? Humm, you should be close to understand my thoughts.

Try to put somewhere a text (not an image, because SE pbs) that would say : Larry Lupole - the all guitars performer. Probably that's not what you're actually doing, but the idea is : tell what you do, for people coming there for the 1st time, so they can understand in 5 or 6 words what you are. Not so easy, if you try to forget your technical words... This is a key point.

2- your site. I clicked on the main page menu "Sound Files" (coz I took the time to read who you are, but does everyoone do it ?).
Beurk !
The page background color changed to an awfull dark. Did I change of (or from ? excusez mon mauvais anglais) site ?

I try to go ahead, and downloaded "Classic fantasy". That's a killer !

Only 2 mn of heaven, not enough... Such a pain, for so few music : and moreover you just stop the music when the guitar start singing (please everybody there : dont download that music, its too hard when it stop). Larry, you are a Marquis de Sade killer (en français : lui aussi aimait faire souffrir). Why the hell don't you put a direct link to your musics from your main page, build a "portal page" or anything that will let people know what you do, and easily hear what you play...


JP

(nothing to sell, just like to talk with people like you)

[lupole]

Hi France.

I did take a look at what you said, and I did apply
some of your advice. You can now go to my sound files page at www.larrylupole.com/larrylupole3.html and listen to the total song Classic Fantasy. I also changed the background color of the page and added text to the top to help viewers to understand what my site is about. I will be adding the total song Street Sleepers soon. I am very happy that you enjoyed the song Classic Fantasy.

Thanks

Larry

[acornwebworks]

Hi Larry,

I'm writing at 10:45 PM Central time. (I'm letting you know because it sounds like you're revising the website pretty often right now, so I wanted to let you know what version I was seeing :-) Also, I am viewing your site on my laptop with a 14" screen set at 1024 x 768.

On http://www.larrylupole.com/, I see a small image of a CD cover that I can barely read.

I then see a navigation bar across the screen that says Sound Files | Biography | Harley | Horses | Links | Banners | Enter Site

Then I see a ton of text centered on the page that I find terribly difficult to read.

Too much "independent artist", the red links are jarring enough that they keep pulling my eyes from the small text I'm trying to read, and the topic rapidly changes from music to horses to motorcycles to where you live, etc., etc. And there was some very long scrolling message as well.

Stop! My eyeballs are exploding :-)

And, you know, if I weren't 'reviewing' this site, I never would have clicked on Enter Site because I was assuming that you simply had the same navigation throughout the site and that was just going to bring me back to the page I was on.

Imagine my surprise when I clicked on it and went to what looked like an entirely different site!
(I would suggest that you be more concerned with the links on the navigation frame than the image of the horses...on my laptop they were only one word wide in a column.)

But for all of that, you know...I have to agree with what Fathom originally wrote. It was hard to tell what your site was about.

I realize that *you* know what your site is about. But you have so many other things that are given equal weight...your horses, your motorcycle, your brother, your campout in addition to your CDs.

If you want to use this site to sell your CDs...then I suggest focusing on selling your CDs.

Have a separate site for your campout...which I am assuming is also a money-maker.

If you feel you need stuff about your motorcycle and horses, then put it under an About Larry page.

But focus on the main purpose of your website and don't distract those of us who don't know what you're about. The more we are distracted, the less likely we are to buy.

I hope this helps!

[lupole]

Hi Kendall,

Thanks for your input on my site. I did enlarge the cd cover photo on three (3) of my pages. I do want this to be visible on laptops as well as desktops. I also changed my text and dropped of some of those irritating links within the text area. I also took of the Harley pages. As for the independent artist words in the text area, they are to help with my keyword weight for relevancy. I am continuing to work on my site and hope it will be satisfactory to most.

Larry

[J128]

I noticed your article in Countryside Dec 05 issue, and I looked at your web site.
I created an image of what your website could look like: