Projects needed by small companies/entrepreneurs

[ocpaul20]

Hi Everyone,
I would really appreciate a few opinions on my website www.umkeyra.com please. I realise you are all busy with your own stuff, but if you could tell me your first impressions and maybe a few helpful suggestions, I would be most grateful.

Current marketing is in the form of articles, and forum posts. I have written some articles and placed these on Hubpages (as a start) and I have been posting on student forums in order to get students to visit the site.

However, I am finding it difficult to get students to sign up when there are not (m)any projects placed by companies to attract them. Also I am finding it difficult finding companies who will place projects there too. Maybe this is a classic chicken/egg situation?

I have a gut feeling that this is a good idea (doesn't everyone?) as there are only a few other sites that do this kind of thing, but none seem to offer this service free for the first x months to both students and companies as I am doing, to get it up and running.

Surprisingly, most of the current signed up students are from India, although I have not promoted the site there. I get interest/hits from UK students but not many appear to register.

As far as I can make out, searches would probably be done on terms like projects, jobs, student, university
but all these are just too vague and can be combined with so many other words to produce a search term that is not at all relevant to my site. I have done thesaurus lookups and included these words in my keywords too.
The website hits to the articles section is reasonable with the article on concentration being the one most read.

I assume some sites that offer general broad services do not lend themselves well to keyword selection and optimisation, but maybe you can tell me how these kind of sites select the keywords they promote please?

The other thing I should mention is that I am not physically present in the UK much so it is difficult to network in person by joining small business breakfasts etc.

Anyway, I won't go on. Thank you for any suggestions you may be able to give me.
Paul

[fisicx]

Hi Paul,

It's never going to work until you can show potential investors/students the current projects.

People won't be signing up for anything unless they can see what's on offer. Use your homepage to promote the current projects and use the students to write articles about how each project is progressing.

From your articles I see that your are a programmer. It might be worth teaming up with a website designer to improve the site design, it's very plain and doesn't have any impact. It doesn't have to be complex but you do need to consider the way colours, fonts, borders and backgrounds can all enhance the way the visitor uses a website.

[dependx]

I would have to agree with Fisic. on this one -- you need to complete it. But, I was very fortunate to promote a class without all the nuts and bolts in place.
(using my blogs as proof)

however, my first impression was that it would be great if the site served an in-house message board, else I think that you could have mustered a better looking project.

I really am thrilled by the opportunity to construct a blog THEN a site to follow. Something I am still working on.

[ocpaul20]

I agree, it is plain, simple, and maybe un-interesting, however you should have seen it before! I do not have much artistic talent but I was trying to get something both simple and functional.

It's never going to work until you can show potential investors/students the current projects.

Unfortunately there needs to be some projects for me to show them, and in the beginning, there will not be any. Hence this is why I mentioned chicken-and-egg. I will need at least 2 or 3 to show on the front page to get going.

As far as I was aware, it was complete. Surely people want a fast, functional website and one that delivers the goods, but I guess you are both saying that it is too un-interesting and plain to attract anyone to post projects on there. It needs more pictures/graphics and a better design?

So if I was trying to find out what stopped you from posting a project, would it be that you do not have a project to post, or that you do not trust the site, or that you dont think it is worth the effort? Why would your comments about the look and feel of the site, stop you from posting a project? .... just wondering out aloud and trying to get a handle on why I have not got any projects yet. :-)

[fisicx]

You don't have any projects because there is no incentive to add a project. If you look at your homepage it doesn't actually mention offering or accepting projects, all you have are links for registration.

I tried to register and nothing happened. If fact you don't even have a submit button just register.

There is so much work to do on the site to make it effective. It really is a case of going back to the drawing board and thinking again about your visitors needs and how they interact with the site. It's got nothing to do with your programming skills, it's all about marketing, copywriting, the interface, the navigation and so on.

[ocpaul20]

OK, thanks all for your suggestions and replies. I will do as you suggest and go back and revise.

[refresheduk]

Hi Paul,

I don't mean to be rude here but your site is very bland and I took one look and didn't even bother reading it, it looks like a design from a 1990's school project.

Sorry if I was a bit below the belt but I can understand why you have no registered users.

Regards

Matt Innes
Freelance Website Designer

[finvik]

liked the concept. the basic aim of the site is good to target small industries and students to post their jobs.
fantastic
Vik

[agadapt]

I like the idea, but all the posts are right. A bit more work is needed.

Definitely let us know when you have done some revisions though!

Andy

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