Re: Evaluation of Web Site

Ed,

I'd offer you these comments:

1) Intersperse your testimonials throughout the site, including at
the start of your first page. Don't hide them on a "testimonials"
page that no one will go to.

2) Make your font size smaller so people don't have to scroll so far
to read your content. Move the navigation links either to both the
top and bottom or to a side column.

3) You make it waaay too difficult to order. Put an order form at
the bottom of each page, not on a separate order page. Don't make
people print the thing and mail it -- virtually no one is going to do
that. Put up a real web form with boxes to enter the information,
and have a cgi script written to email you the form results. It is
not trivial to set it up, but if you are serious about this you need
to use a secure form and take credit card numbers, and set up with a
merchant service to process your credit card numbers. You are using
the Internet -- and you MUST make it possible for your buyers to
order your product online without having to mail you anything.

4) Recognize that the online market for niche tennis products is not
very strong, regardless of your efforts. We find that the
discounters that offer a wide range of products at competitive prices
do very well with their advertising results on Tennis Server. We
don't have a ton of experience in the tennis travel arena, but expect
that advertisers in that area will do well if they offer travel
opportunities that appeal to individuals in broad geographic areas.
But finding a profitable way to sell low cost specialty niche
products is going to be a continuing challenge.

5) This is far less important than the above, but you should be aware
that your choice of colors, fonts, button style, bar graphics,
layout, etc. presents an image similar to what someone would likely
have creating their corporate brochure using their word processor and
then running it through the photocopy machine -- not very
professional looking really. Tenagra (the company that owns Tennis
Server) has provided web design support for companies ranging from
IBM and Shell down to small one person shops, and it is possible (but
not always inexpensive!) to provide a sophisticated look and feel for
any size organization. Take a look at a site we just did for a 1
person company at http://www.solus.cc/. This site is no larger than
yours -- but it provides a designed look and feel to it that
hopefully gives the viewer greater confidence in the product offered
and an impression that the company behind it is not a fly-by-night
operation. One of the biggest advantages of the Internet is that is
allows a small organization to look much bigger than they really are
by using sophisticated design and copy online.

Best,

Cliff Kurtzman
Tennis Server
http://www.tennisserver.com/
The Tenagra Corporation
http://www.tenagra.com/


Received on Fri May 26 2000 - 08:37:56 CDT