What am I doing wrong?

shane101559 · #1 (**permalink**) 03-27-2008, 01:31 PM

I developed a bicycle, which I know is a great bike and a great price. Then I made my own website, which I think is good? I am having a few hundred clicks on my site every day, but almost zero people are filling out the pre order form, which is the objective ot the website. I am stumped as to what to do next. Does anybody have any suggestions, ideas, advice?? The site is OSOBIKE.com, Road bike and cruiser mix, Pictures
Shane

TessAnn · #2 (**permalink**) 03-28-2008, 03:27 PM

Shane,

I think your site looks great! A few hundred people is good, but don't be disappointed that you aren't getting the orders yet. You really do have to have THOUSANDS of visitors each day to get many sales.

What other advertising are you doing? Are you writing articles about bicycling, doing pay per click ads, Craigslist, Squidoo, all that?

Another thing, especially if you have your site optimized well for the search engines, give it a couple of months and your traffic will increase. Don't worry - it doesn't happen overnight, and does take time.

I looked at your source in your website, and it looks like you have great keywords but it looks like you may need to add a few of those keywords into your content on your home page to optimize your site a little better.

Just a suggestion - your site looks fantastic!

**crankydave** · #3 (**permalink**) 03-28-2008, 04:19 PM

First, nice looking site. Clean, concise, fits the bike well.

You're going to need to create a buzz. Competitive niche.

Have you issued any press releases? Good place to start.

The other problem is that your Pre-Order form is really little more than a "contact us" form. Use your Pre-Order form page so folks can actually "buy" the bike. Give them the opportunity to purchase one now and not just "first dubs". Which by the way I'd change to something like "Osobikes are custom made and available in limited quantities on a first come first serve basis..." then move that form to your contact page.

Also, you have no warantees or guarantees that I can see. You'll need to get that up as well.

What about servicing and maintainance? Parts? Need to provide information on that as well.

Also size... Address what size is appropriate for whom and why so they know what size they should select.

Dave

shane101559 · #4 (**permalink**) 03-28-2008, 05:50 PM

Tess and Dave,
Thank you for all your advice. When I get a little time I need to work on most of those things that you pointed out. I am very exited because yesterday three people filled out pre order forms, then today there were three more!
Shane

**crankydave** · #5 (**permalink**) 03-28-2008, 06:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shane101559

Tess and Dave,
Thank you for all your advice. When I get a little time I need to work on most of those things that you pointed out. I am very exited because yesterday three people filled out pre order forms, then today there were three more!
Shane

Terrific!

Dave

janeth · #6 (**permalink**) 03-31-2008, 01:24 PM

I do wish I could find a bike for my daughter with the coaster break. Those were the best bikes.

I would make some site design changes.

1. I would have the phone number in the header of every page.

2. I would make the picture smaller, cut out the gray background and wrap the text around the picture.

3. The video sold me on the bike. I'd move it to the home page.

4. I'd make the logo smaller and move it to the left side of the header.

I love the bike.

mtheory · #7 (**permalink**) 04-01-2008, 02:01 AM

I really like your logo. The site is nice, clean and simple. Maybe a little too much. I'd like to see something a little less institutional and sterile. Tan, green and brown are the colors that come to mind. Tighten up your copy a bit and use a smaller font. Loose the contrasting menu colors, they break up your navigation and is distraction.

Kick the professionalism up a notch and host your own video. Youtube screams "amateur".

americanchopper33 · #8 (**permalink**) 04-01-2008, 05:35 PM

I am no expert on the matter but maybe putting the "pre order form" on the landing page would help in conversions. Just a thought.

Cool site too!

max5 · #9 (**permalink**) 04-04-2008, 06:39 PM

I think many new webmasters feel like they are up to their eyeballs in what to do next. The site is clean and flows pretty well. I would take the suggestions for the keyword placement serious, thats always been a little tricky for me. Have you done any advertising at all?

Peter (IMC) · #10 (**permalink**) 04-04-2008, 07:14 PM

Ok,.. going quickly through the replies I'm afraid to reply,..

But I'll do it anyway.

Your problem is marketing. You are the developper of the bike which basically means you shouldn't try to market or sell it your self.

If I were you I would try to get a business partner that has marketing and sales as his specialty. Someone that knows online marketing. It may feel bad because you did all the work and this new guy (or woman) goes in and you have to share the profits. But it can make the difference between building 1 or 2 bikes a month yourself and having 100 to 200 produced in a factory every month.

Your site is missing everything that a visitor needs to trust it. Actually I wouldn't be surprised that you got those 6 pre-orders because of this forum. You gained trust and access to more people because they found you in here. (many people read these forums)

Your ideas on how to market it (quality and uniqueness) are great, and you certainly have a created a niche which is possibly bigger than anyone can imagine right now. But you lack the implementation knowledge and experience. You basically created a website which looks like the bike you created. That you get so many positive responses to it says more about the bike than about the website.

Really, the website is no good. It's amateuristic and focusing on the wrong things. You´re trying to promote the bike while you should be promoting the lifestyle, the sport, the fun, etc. The video is really bad. The wedding video music in the background is the worsed part, but the way you´re talking about it makes it look like you don't care. Which I am sure is the opposite of how you feel about the bike. I know your heart is in this bike, that it is part of who you are, but it looks like you don't care. Your logo is Great, really stylish, but you say: "well I needed a logo, and OSO looks like a bike, so I called it OSO bike." That really needs a better story...

My advise would be to get somebody with modern marketing skills involved (modern meaning they know how to use the internet too).

max5 · #11 (**permalink**) 04-07-2008, 02:20 PM

I think Peter is correct here looking at the site more. If you can note the things mentioned (lifestyle, etc) you might have a better niche for it. Many people look for bikes, but if you can get your target audience (those who will use it most) you can in turn take those keywords for the site, and use them for the marketing ads to get even more people through!

shane101559 · #12 (**permalink**) 04-08-2008, 02:53 AM

Thank you all for responding to my question,
Peter,
I think you are right. The problem is I don't know who to go to to continue with this. My preorders are up to 25, which is good, but I seem to have reached a saturation point. Up until now my form of advertising has been to go to cycling forums, talk about the bike a little, then ask people to go look at my site. I was getting a couple of people a day to fill out the pre orderform. But during the last week that stratagy hasn't worked. Just yesterday I spent about two hours doing that, and nobody filled out a pre order. On top of that several people accused me of sending spam because I was trying to get free advertising. So I guess I need to stop doing that.
I think a lot of successful people are successful because they surround themselves with qualified people. They have a good feel about when and where to spend big in order to get even bigger results. I wouldn't mind doing that. What I want to aviod is spending big and not get results.
So I guess the question is: does anybody know the name of somebody who could help me get results with this?
Shane

janeth · #13 (**permalink**) 04-08-2008, 07:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shane101559

I think a lot of successful people are successful because they surround themselves with qualified people. They have a good feel about when and where to spend big in order to get even bigger results. I wouldn't mind doing that. What I want to aviod is spending big and not get results.
So I guess the question is: does anybody know the name of somebody who could help me get results with this?
Shane

If it was me I would start by talking to Peter and see if there was anyway to get him interested.