www.venues4hire.org

[Peter666]

We are looking for proof of concept. Any feedback on the site and content would be appreciated.

 

[scdirect]

very old fashioned looking
very basic

 

[fisicx]

It works but it looks very dated and the adverts take over everything.

However, I get great results doing a search on Google with far more venues than you have listed.

Not much else you can say really. It's nothing new and there are some well established competitors out there.

And why .org? And why the awful 'cash4you' type domain name?

 

[Luc Durand]

There is zero traffic on your site ( i checked) and yet you're already advertising using Google AdSense. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Whenever i see AdSense on a website i always associate it with non-professional entities or affiliate sites. Get some traffic first. Also I agree with fisicx, I think it looks a little dated.

 

[fisicx]

There is zero traffic on your site ( i checked)

How have you checked?

 

[Luc Durand]

I used SEM rush. I know it's not necessarily accurate but it gives me a good idea as to whether or not there is a ton of traffic or very little. If you want to make money with Adsense you will need a lot of traffic as you probably know

 

[fisicx]

And how does SEM rush determine the traffic? Unless it's tracking visitors to a website how will it know (apart from making a wild stab at the numbers)?

 

[LowPrices.uk]

What do you mean by proof of concept???

 

[Luc Durand]

And how does SEM rush determine the traffic? Unless it's tracking visitors to a website how will it know (apart from making a wild stab at the numbers)?

it is an estimated organic traffic based on ranking and click through rate. It is obviously not as accurate as it should be but it gives a pretty good idea of the potential amount of traffic a site may receive. If you tally this up with the domain authority (i use Moz) it all starts making sense. In this case, I doubt very much the site is generating a lot of traction hence the reason I recommend removing AdSense.

 

[fisicx]

But you are guessing the target keywords and won't know the CTR so the estimate is pointless. I'm not suggesting they do get any traffic but using SEM Rush in this case doesn't tell you anything useful.

As an aside, the estimator is wildly inaccurate. It gets it wrong by a factor of 4 on one of my sites and a factor of at least 2 on many others.

 

[Luc Durand]

I totally understand what you are saying.
It only helps guess what type of site we are dealing with. If you compare eBay along with some obscure site in SEM it's obvious to see that ebay gets a lot more traffic. In isolation it clearly isn't enough but as mentioned in my previous message, if you start combining other parameters such as domain authority and look at the link profile ( i use ahref for that) you can assume the site doesn't get a lot of traffic, at least through search engines.

 

[fisicx]

I...if you start combining other parameters such as domain authority....

But this is another meaningless figure. According to Moz my DA scores are the pits yet the sites rank well for a whole range of keywords. It's no better than the old pointless Google Toolbar PR score.

 

[Luc Durand]

But all sites are measured equally which at least give you a benchmark. These are all industry standard tools. I am very curious, what kind of tools do you use to gain insights into the competition or any given website?

 

[fisicx]

I use Google.

I look at the competition, how well they rank for the keywords my client is targeting and how they present themselves in the serps. I do use tools but rarely take any notice of any scoring they provide as it often leads you in the wrong direction.

 

[Luc Durand]

That works fine if you're only looking at a handful of keywords and 2 or 3 competitors. Sounds very labour intensive if you ask me since it fluctuates on a daily basis. Each one to their own i guess.

 

[fisicx]

It's not that labour intensive. I'm working with a client and we have filtered down 200+ keywords so a handful we feel are the right ones to target. It's taken us about 3 hours and we now have a really good feel for the competition and how to beat them. The tools don't give you the granularity.

 

[Luc Durand]

Ok, thanks for the chat and all the best with your client.

 

[UniHost2u]

site design is very bad.

 

[rizbit]

i agree with others in that the site seemed a bit 'dull' (no offence!) when the page loaded i did not know where to look there was no real focal point or attraction. I think a good site needs good design and good content. You have the content i think it needs to be presented better. it seems to compacted. keep the sidebar but expand and enlarge the other boxes/sections so maybe one section per 'line' not two as you currently have it.

 

[Pat Walsh]

Ads are a bit too prominent in the site for me - there's the large banner ad at the top, and then once you drill down into the site a bit - e.g. Venue Search/Castle/Cornwall - the site is overrun by ads, both in the main content stream and down the right hand side.

I think it would work better to have the venue search and results as the main purpose of the site, clean of external ads, and then using the menu/navigation to allow the user to see the other add-ons/services/ads.

 

[UACU]

Your website needs a makeover. Looks dated.