I launched 06-10 and constantly feel helpless and lost. What advice do you have? • Hacker News Board

Re: I launched 06-10 and constantly feel helpless and lost. What advice do you have?

#21

Post by agazso » Mon, Jan 10, 2011, 12:08 PM UTC

ihavetoblog wrote: post #9

agazso wrote: post #6

Checked out your site and as an avid backpacker found the idea pretty cool, but yes, it feels empty. My experience is that backpackers tend to use Facebook a lot, so integrate your login with Facebook Connect for starters. Make it more social by hotels/restaurants/etc. having Like buttons that points to your site. Create a Facebook group, where these people can get to know each other. It is also a good opportunity to…

Facebook Connect is in the works. I was thinking of having an internal like button to use with the internal point system each user gets for being active. facebook group already exists and it has supporters. I will look into those sources to populate the site with info. Aside from it being new and empty, is there anything off the top of your head, as a backpacker, that would make you not want to use the site?

For me the main raison holding back is that I don't like to register to new websites. I like for example Hacker News' Clickpass authentication, because it's easy to use and I don't have to remember another password. But on your site Facebook connect would be even better, because it opens a lot of possibilites.

Another thing is that I don't know how the blog looks like because I can't find a link to it. So a Tour or Help would be nice, or a link to active blogs from the main page.

Other ideas:

Make a contest for newly registered users for a prize of something cool, e.g. iPhone4. Also make a mobile optimized version of the site, or an iPhone app, where the users can find, comment, upload images based on GPS coordinates.

Re: I launched 06-10 and constantly feel helpless and lost. What advice do you have?

#22

Post by ihavetoblog » Mon, Jan 10, 2011, 12:11 PM UTC

billpaetzke wrote: post #12

Make the homepage more focused. Have a primary call to action. Fake user content, for now, to breathe life into your site. Several respected people on HN have noted this works well. Issues: * I'm not exactly sure what I'm getting for clicking on "sign up." Is it only a travel blog platform or is there more? * I don't care "what's happening right now" on some map. That is prime homepage real estate that is being waste…

* I'm not exactly sure what I'm getting for clicking on "sign up." Is it only a travel blog platform or is there more?

Travel blog that scoops up recommendations to populate travel guides

* I don't care "what's happening right now" on some map. That is prime homepage real estate that is being wasted. Perhaps leave that for when I'm logged in on a "news feed" page; and then only show my friends (via Facebook or Twitter connections); also, you could show other site users in whatever town I'm now in (if I'm traveling now).

Brilliant ideas! I was already thinking of removing that section and was going to add search functions for the items on the left, but I like your suggestions a lot more!

* The Hot News and Travel Deals columns are competing for my attention. And I am repulsed from bothering to read them. It's the 50-50 column widths. And there's too many (10); try showing only the top 1 or 2 of each.

I was going to eliminate the Hot Deals section as it does get a lot of attention. I mainly threw it in there as a way to post deals via aff links and make money, but so far I haven't made a dime.

* You ask the user "are you a QT?" I don't get it. Maybe I'm missing something.

That was before I had any idea on call-to-actions and a poor attempt at viral. I am going to get all of these suggestions and redesign the home page.

Thank you!

On a side note, if you checked out the travel blog section, what would entice you to drop your blog and join this community?

Re: I launched 06-10 and constantly feel helpless and lost. What advice do you have?

#23

Post by ihavetoblog » Mon, Jan 10, 2011, 12:14 PM UTC

agazso wrote: post #21

ihavetoblog wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook Connect is in the works. I was thinking of having an internal like button to use with the internal point system each user gets for being active. facebook group already exists and it has supporters. I will look into those sources to populate the site with info. Aside from it being new and empty, is there anything off the top of your head, as a backpacker, that would make you not want to use the site?

For me the main raison holding back is that I don't like to register to new websites. I like for example Hacker News' Clickpass authentication, because it's easy to use and I don't have to remember another password. But on your site Facebook connect would be even better, because it opens a lot of possibilites. Another thing is that I don't know how the blog looks like because I can't find a link to it. So a Tour or H…

I feel an iphone app may be too much time/money spent when I don't have the base of the site fully functioning or very usable. Resources are tight now, so I would want to focus on the usability of the main site vs iphone app.

Same things goes for the mobile version. I've had this conversation with many people and it always ends up in the chicken vs egg debate. Some people argue that having a mobile/smartphone add will increase user base, others agree to focus on the main site and have those as addons after I complete certain milestones

the header Travelers section has the blog info, but I will probably populate the homepage with them as suggested elsewhere

Re: I launched 06-10 and constantly feel helpless and lost. What advice do you have?

#24

Post by shiftpgdn » Mon, Jan 10, 2011, 12:39 PM UTC

alexro wrote: post #13

dshankar wrote: post #4

Fake it. Create fake users, fake traffic, fake places they've been to, fake trips. Creating fake but believable data will drive real users who think "this is really cool, I love User1023's trip data."

Don't create fake data all by yourself - it will have your hand obvious, rather pay people to create content how only they can do it. You can give them the brief instructions of course.

Amazon mechanical turk is pretty decent for this.

Re: I launched 06-10 and constantly feel helpless and lost. What advice do you have?

#25

Post by ihavetoblog » Mon, Jan 10, 2011, 12:43 PM UTC

revorad wrote: post #14

If you just focused on providing people with clear information about embassies and visa applications, that would be a HUGE help. From my personal experience as an Indian with an Indian passport and lots of friends who don't have American or European passports, visas, even for holidays, are the biggest travelling pain. Suffice to say, I travel less because I hate applying for visas, not least because finding the corre…

Well, the embassy section is the most developed part of the entire site as it is the oldest. Most of the date is kept up-to-date in terms of contact information for the embassies and we have a widget that provides visa information for free.

The widget will also take you to a service that will help fill out your visa application and deliver it. Their fees depend on the service you require.

I also constantly email all the embassies/consulates in the database for updated information because, and many people don't know this, embassies/consulates in smaller countries are usually the house where the ambassador lives. So when they change (and they often do), so does all the contact info.

Re: I launched 06-10 and constantly feel helpless and lost. What advice do you have?

#26

Post by ihavetoblog » Mon, Jan 10, 2011, 12:46 PM UTC

revorad wrote: post #16

revorad wrote: post #14

If you just focused on providing people with clear information about embassies and visa applications, that would be a HUGE help. From my personal experience as an Indian with an Indian passport and lots of friends who don't have American or European passports, visas, even for holidays, are the biggest travelling pain. Suffice to say, I travel less because I hate applying for visas, not least because finding the corre…

An additional meta thought: one key reason for the huge success of social networks is that they've accelerated the flow of information between people all around the world. So, one heuristic for a good way forward is to look in places where information flow is still slow and broken. Embassies are a good example of that.

True, but when you search for keywords on Embassies, you directly compete with .gov sites that will always outrank you.

My idea behind the embassy section was to ensure that contact information was available when the sites go under, as they usually do, or cloak their information to not be bothered. Believe it or not, I actually made that database of 8000+ myself.

So, I have a great section that is useful, but hard to market. I rank least in embassy keywords even though my data is more up-to-date than other older sites.

I created an adwords campaign and managed to get $0.08 a click on my keywords with an average of 3 min/user to the embassy section, so I know it is useful. But organics are very, very low.

Plus, I don't want to violate the site with a bunch of adsense nonsense and the widget, which provides very little $$/lead has had 946 clicks in 6 months with 0 conversion

Re: I launched 06-10 and constantly feel helpless and lost. What advice do you have?

#27

Post by mgkimsal » Mon, Jan 10, 2011, 12:50 PM UTC

ihavetoblog wrote: post #23

agazso wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the main raison holding back is that I don't like to register to new websites. I like for example Hacker News' Clickpass authentication, because it's easy to use and I don't have to remember another password. But on your site Facebook connect would be even better, because it opens a lot of possibilites. Another thing is that I don't know how the blog looks like because I can't find a link to it. So a Tour or H…

I feel an iphone app may be too much time/money spent when I don't have the base of the site fully functioning or very usable. Resources are tight now, so I would want to focus on the usability of the main site vs iphone app. Same things goes for the mobile version. I've had this conversation with many people and it always ends up in the chicken vs egg debate. Some people argue that having a mobile/smartphone add wil…

As you make changes to the main site, just keep in mind how that same URL will render on mobile devices, and make changes accordingly. There are many 'full' sites I use on an iPhone because it's still easy to consume info, even though it's not a dedicated 'mobile' version.

Re: I launched 06-10 and constantly feel helpless and lost. What advice do you have?

#28

Post by revorad » Mon, Jan 10, 2011, 12:52 PM UTC

ihavetoblog wrote: post #25

revorad wrote: post #14

If you just focused on providing people with clear information about embassies and visa applications, that would be a HUGE help. From my personal experience as an Indian with an Indian passport and lots of friends who don't have American or European passports, visas, even for holidays, are the biggest travelling pain. Suffice to say, I travel less because I hate applying for visas, not least because finding the corre…

Well, the embassy section is the most developed part of the entire site as it is the oldest. Most of the date is kept up-to-date in terms of contact information for the embassies and we have a widget that provides visa information for free. The widget will also take you to a service that will help fill out your visa application and deliver it. Their fees depend on the service you require. I also constantly email all…

That's awesome. Your embassies page is quite good.

You could make it even easier to navigate by adding a map.

Instead of listing by embassies in a particular country, you should list by embassies of a country. To give you an example, if I'm thinking of going to France, I'm looking for the French embassy's website, not where I am applying from. That second bit of info is also needed, but you could ask that in the second filtering stage or by guessing the user's location.

Re: I launched 06-10 and constantly feel helpless and lost. What advice do you have?

#29

Post by revorad » Mon, Jan 10, 2011, 12:56 PM UTC

ihavetoblog wrote: post #26

revorad wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An additional meta thought: one key reason for the huge success of social networks is that they've accelerated the flow of information between people all around the world. So, one heuristic for a good way forward is to look in places where information flow is still slow and broken. Embassies are a good example of that.

True, but when you search for keywords on Embassies, you directly compete with .gov sites that will always outrank you. My idea behind the embassy section was to ensure that contact information was available when the sites go under, as they usually do, or cloak their information to not be bothered. Believe it or not, I actually made that database of 8000+ myself. So, I have a great section that is useful, but hard to…

Have you considered hosting your embassy section on another domain name with the keywords? It will take some time, but you could probably rank with some organic SEO for phrases like "how to apply for visa to france from london" by blogging.

See http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/01/24/startup-seo/

Re: I launched 06-10 and constantly feel helpless and lost. What advice do you have?

#30

Post by ihavetoblog » Mon, Jan 10, 2011, 12:57 PM UTC

revorad wrote: post #28

ihavetoblog wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the embassy section is the most developed part of the entire site as it is the oldest. Most of the date is kept up-to-date in terms of contact information for the embassies and we have a widget that provides visa information for free. The widget will also take you to a service that will help fill out your visa application and deliver it. Their fees depend on the service you require. I also constantly email all…

That's awesome. Your embassies page is quite good. You could make it even easier to navigate by adding a map. Instead of listing by embassies in a particular country, you should list by embassies of a country. To give you an example, if I'm thinking of going to France, I'm looking for the French embassy's website, not where I am applying from. That second bit of info is also needed, but you could ask that in the seco…

By map you mean a generic map with clickable countries to take you to the embassies of that country? I'll consider it. I'll have to see how size would play into the visible area of the page.

I have tackled the embassies in vs embassies of on the listing and quite frankly, I don't have enough points of reference to make a call. There is a nifty search box on the right that allows you to filter though