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I need feedback for my website.

7 points by ibudiallo ↗ HN
I have created s-crit.com and I do get some traffic. However it does not convert into sign ups. I posted a few links here on Hackernews, on reddit, and on some relevant websites, but the traffic does not convert well.

I understand that most people that come in are here to consume content, but on my website, at least in the beginning I need user generated content. It would help a lot to know what i can improve or what I am overlooking or what makes no sense at all.

Please let me know what you think.

Thank you.

20 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 56.2 ms ] thread
grumps
Initial thoughts are that the homepage's text doesn't immediately show the value add. It mentions being a web app blah blah blah. It should be something like "reviews of schools by real students" or "what real students have to say about dropping 100K on education." I'd probably shoot for featuring a review of school on the homepage, or a teaser view of it. To me - I should be able to understand what it is the site does and why does it benefit me immediately. That's just my $.02
ibudiallo
Thank you, i will definitely be changing the wording. after i read your feedback, i see the text doesn't add anything to the site. more like it takes away some things.
[dead] sarabellumac
The problem I see is this.

What is the user's motivation to return to the site that might warrant an account? Why create a barrier to feedback by asking the user to create an account?

If you want honest feedback, ask the user to authenticate with one of the many social sign-on options.

t0
You need a better slogan. "Welcome to S-crit.com" doesn't tell me anything. I don't want to read a paragraph to try to figure out what it is.

I might not even ask people to signup first thing. Give them some value first. Take some cues from ratemyprofessors.com.

Almost every major college has a subreddit. Post to some of those to get some targeted traffic.

ibudiallo
I can't believe something so obvious never came into mind. You are right, Welcome to S-crit.com doesn't say anything. and thank you for the subreddit advice, i will definitely check it right now.
dirktheman
It doesn't 'speak' to me. I don't particulary like the layout: there are no images that show what the site is about, just some text which isn't very descriptive.

You need to show me what the site is about, and why I would want to use it. what are my benefits for using the site? How is the site different from greatschools.com or school-data.com? What are my benefits for signing up?

So, layout and the value proposition is one thing. The second problem is content. I realize this is a chicken and egg problem, but if I were to stumble upon the site I'm not inclined to subscribe. The reason: the site is as good as empty! You need to fill it with reviews: rally up classmates, facebook friends, family to subscribe and review their schools. You could use Amazon Mechanical Turk too, and pay people to write a review. You say you're getting traffic, and with your improved site with the initial reviews, your chances of getting actual users have increased.

Building a site is relatively easy. Getting users is much, much harder. Good luck!

ibudiallo
By the layout are you referring to the page structure?
watershawl
Read up on how Reddit got started. They essentially made up a bunch of fake accounts and shared content to make it seem like they were bigger than what they were. That's how they got over the chicken and egg problem, but it might not work for this type of content.

A video might be a nice add to explain things and would add a nice content block to the home page.

dgunn
I can't imagine a video is necessary to explain this concept. It's a review website. Just make that clear and take away all the extra stuff.
bjourne
Personally, I almost never sign up for any site anymore unless it features social login. Giving away my email address, entering a password twice and waiting for a confirmation mail is way to much work. I can guarantee you that you will get a much higher conversion ratio if you let people sign up with their facebook, twitter or google+ accounts. As an additional bonus you get more credible reviews because people can see that there is a real person behind it.
moeedm
I redesigned it for you. Hope you don't mind.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12998184/scrit.jpg

ibudiallo
Mind? i think your work is amazing. I designed it myself, being a developer there are a lot of things that i tend to overlook. Maybe i should have started with having a designer work on it on the first place. I'm really looking at your design right now.
dgunn
I'm really confused about why someone would sign up. Why would 'signing up' be required to create a review of a school? Just accept reviews from people so you can start filling the site with content.
ibudiallo
it is not required, actually it says it right in the box that it is not required to signup to create reviews. Maybe thats a problem i need to fix, i give the idea that you are required to do so.
dgunn
It tells me I have to be logged in to vote?

I'd like to check your logic here a bit. I can't put this together. Can you explain why you want reviewers to create an account? I know that it's not required. I'm just wondering why it is something you're interested in. Just think of that question and put yourself in their shoes. What do they get if they sign up? Another important question is, what profit do you stand to gain from this side of your user base?

I feel like the majority of your traffic (and thus the most likely source of revenue) is going to come from people reading reviews because they will want to browse several colleges to read what alumni think of them. I suspect that most reviewers will only ever make 1 review and therefore give you roughly 2-3 page views ever. But that one review may get read thousands of times in the future by unique visitors. You simply can't afford to scare away a single review. It needs to be really simple.

Basically I'm saying that you need reviewers to create content before you can even begin to attract the traffic which could possibly provide some revenue for you later on. So make it dead simple for them to do that. Don't have them make an account cause they'll never come back. Why would they? They've already been to college and they already reviewed their school. Just give them a search field to find their school and set them on their way to voting/reviewing/doing what ever you need them to do to make this site work.

ibudiallo
My initial design was mainly catered for a power user, some who will do more than just write one review. But you are right what's in it for them. After reading your review I think I will have lots of changes to my logic.

- enter your name and your review for the school, period.

Thank you for your valuable input, I did the mistake I was trying to avoid in the first place : put the code before the user.

dgunn
Yea. I suspect power users won't exist with this app. School reviews just won't work like a product review site or something. You may buy and review several things a year. But you'll only ever go to 1-3 schools and only a few of them will ever make a review. But if you can rank, lots will read them. Your job (probably) is to cause the former to create reviews by any means necessary (Maybe talk to school admissions folks at different universities and work out a deal of some sort.) and create a business model around the traffic from of latter.
musiic703
Hey what's up! These comments are harsh. Don't let it get to you. I think it has potential. I feel like people that ask for reviews never get what they really want to hear. But a bunch of trash talk. Let me give you real feedback.

-I think it's actually not a bad idea. - ask friends and family to be your first subscribers. They'll prob your number 1 marketers for it to spread. - the site might need a little improvement on the UI and design side (like add a logout button lol). But than again craiglist isn't very pretty either. - dont give up and spread the word!

Good luck!

ibudiallo
Thank you, I really appreciate your feedback. I am starting to push everyone i know to right reviews on my site. Yes there are lots of flaws on the website but those harsh comments are blessings in disguise. I wouldn't have spotted a lot of it without them.