Hi everyone,
My site is www.best100ideas.com.
I am doing OK on the search engines for the specific keywords I need (high on MSN and Yahoo, still working on Google).
The most important question for me now has to do with this page: www.best100ideas.com/ideas01.shtml - please look at the text and layout of the page and advise what might I do to increase the conversion rate for buying the e-book.
Thanks,
Amir

The information in the center is difficult to read because it seems to be squished. What I would suggest would be to take out the right side nav where you have the "100 Creative Presentations Ideas" and move it over the below the left navigation. In regards to the background color of the left nav, try a lighter blue. The yellow contrasts too much with the blue header.

I think by taking out the right nav the site will balance better. Regards, Dave

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I'm an artist that has taken my creative talents to online development.
www.CommanderDave.com

Hi Amir,

I visited your site and I was thinking that is great for me to learn business. But in the end I was quite disappointed that you only put two or three tips for free. You try to convince me to buy your ebook, but you promised on the front page to say I can get some free tips which I have difficult to find.

Just my 2 cents


Regards
Leigh

Does anyone still believe these $150-Value-Extra-Bonus!!!-long-page-off-the-screen-book sites?

I think this style is past its sell-by date. Sorry, I'm not sold.

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Paul Bilton design services ~ Sites not Sights

Will look into taking off the right Nav.

As for more free ideas - look into the newsletter available on the site and sent free by e-mail each month - some creative small business PR ideas there, creative ideas for rewarding employees and more. Also more ideas and tools found on the articles.

The bonus - interesting point you raise - this is my first attempt at selling on the web, so it's important feedback to learn that it is considered an outdated technique. However - I promsie you that the bonus is really given and is of high value - many creative ideas and directions should be produced with the online chat. The value of the bonus is more or less the live facilitation innovation fee.
Thanks for your comments, everyone.

Will look into taking off the right Nav.

As for more free ideas - look into the newsletter available on the site and sent free by e-mail each month - some creative small business PR ideas there, creative ideas for rewarding employees and more. Also more ideas and tools found on the articles.

The bonus - interesting point you raise - this is my first attempt at selling on the web, so it's important feedback to learn that it is considered an outdated technique. However - I promsie you that the bonus is really given and is of high value - many creative ideas and directions should be produced with the online chat. The value of the bonus is more or less the live facilitation innovation fee.
Thanks for your comments, everyone.

Took the right nav off.
How does it look now?

being a believer of the whole 'medium is the message' thing, i wouldn't buy ur book.

you should really work on the presentation...it's just plain bland! there's no 'creativity' put into it.

just my two cents.

Amir,

I think you're really onto something with your content. I think you've got all the right pieces and parts. Some calls to action, some longer descriptive, teasers, partial commits(the newsletter), and your bio stuff(credibility). I think your copy is good and I enjoyed reading further.

But, like some of the other reviewer's mentioned, the visual style and layout is a little hard to follow, or maybe another way to say is that the eye struggles a little to scan the page.

This is very subjective, and I don't have any credentials, but I've noticed that I don't mind reading or scanning down blocks of text, when I can clearly see the calls to action or product offers presented graphicaly to the side or top of the page. I am at ease since I've got the navigation easily understood at a glance, and my eye can rest on the text while I'm deciding whether I am further interested. I think sites like SitePoint.com do a good job of this and I find myself signing up for newsletters, then getting tempted to by the book.

I'm struggling to understand what good design is about, but some recommendations that I liked from other sources include.

Use sans-serif type on the web. Contrary to print recommendation, but I believe serif type is dated on the web.

Limit font size, bolding, italics to a very few variations.

Use pleasing colors and whitespace.

I think with some good graphics and more modern typography, you could really have a winner as personally I found your content very interesting. I think your calls to action and teaser offers are fine, and you have some good credibility in your bio information to make the offers come off legit. I think some of the info is just getting hidden and explains some of the other reviewers reactions.

I'm also looking for feedback on my site, www.okfoundrycompany.com, posted just below yours.

Cheers,

James

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Architectural Iron Castings
www.okfoundrycompany.com

Thanks James - for both the comments and compliments...
I will try to find the time to review your site. In the meantime, in case you find it helpful - I would like to offer you an innovation online consulting chat on a subject of your choice. I will send you an email about it.

I started to get a bit upset following previous remarks. It is my first attempt at a website and I did put a lot of effort into the content and concept of the site.
Obviously design requires much more experience and a different kind of knowledge so I know I am behind on that front.
Will have to think about redesigning the site, though I want to do so gradually as to not damage my search engine performance which is getting better all the time.

Amir,

Too bad you were feeling a little blue about the feedback. I think you've got some great ideas and so much great material for good copy that maybe there's too much focus on design.

I've been so focused on trying to learn design lately that I forgot about some great copywriting sites I found early in my web marketing research. Just to make a point many of them use fairly crude graphics to show how good copy is more important.

I can't find my old links, but here's a great example I just found.

http://www.adcopywriting.com/

Here's a good example of good copy and free consulting in action. (Well, I bought it, I don't know about others.)

http://www.dandbconsulting.com/freeoffer.htm

And finally a very well regarded investment research site, that I think does a great job of creating compelling Call to Action copy.

http://www.schaeffersresearch.com/

Just sign up for a free newsletter and see what a great job they do of follow up and direct e-mail marketing. Not very pretty, but IMHO compelling.

I think you've got a big head start on a very effective marketing strategy and there are a lot of great examples of very simple direct web sites that are leveraged for excellent results with good copy.

Anyway, you may have your focus already really on target with your web marketing approach and the design will work just fine. It's some good things going for it already and no more than a few tweaks might be all you need. Don't get distracted from your strategy by worrying too much about the design.

Cheers,

James

__________________
Architectural Iron Castings
www.okfoundrycompany.com

Amir,

I am sure the above feedback is simply frank and honest even if it sometimes feels rather harsh.

I think it may help to concentrate on what the reader first sees, i.e. the top part in their browser before they scroll down or go elsewhere!

Perhaps think in terms of making your pitch in that very first part of the page. Maybe reduce the two pictures 'failure' and 'success' in physical size so they fit side by side. Possibly increase the width of the presented page. Certainly change the main fonts to something like normal size Verdana. Consider sticking to two or three format styles (I’d try and avoid combining bold and underline). It would be nice to get as far as the 'buy now' button in the same initial browser view (before scrolling). And as well as 'buy now' how about covering your bases with an adjacent button(s) such as 'find out more', 'want to learn more', 'testimonials' etc. After all, you want to keep the viewer's attention if they're not ready to buy yet!

I understand your concern about “redesigning the site…gradually as to not damage my search engine performance”. However, since the robots and human viewers see different things you should be able to make successful big-step changes.

Good luck.

Thanks Mac,
Already implemeted some of your suggestions.
I know search engines don't "see" like humans. Still I need to plan the new design so that the page names and content remain very much like the original ones I have now.
Also - does anyone know if changing form a table based design to a CSS DIV based one should hurt my search engine ranking?