By morgin on

Still a bit basic with a lot of work to do, but you can get the general idea: Xpert People.

Let me know what you think, what improvements could be made etc.

Many thanks, Neil.

Comments

lhtown’s picture

lhtown commented

I like the graphics. The font is a bit small on my Ubuntu Linux laptop for comfortable reading.

I am struggling with the tagline , "A subject matter expert community". It reminds me of the auto mechanic who had a sign that said something like, "We specialize in GM, Ford, Chrysler, Dodge, Buick, Mercury, Lincoln, Cadillac, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mazda, Oldsmobile, etc." In other words, it doesn't really tell me what the site is for. The idea is intriguing if I could just figure out what it is that the site does. I looked around for maybe 20 seconds and still don't know, and my attention span is only about 8 seconds for a new site.

morgin’s picture

morgin commented

for the helpful feedback town. basically the idea is a marketplace for experts. promote your expertise via blogs etc. so that customers can more easily find you.

hey, I think I just re-wrote and improved the copy... :-)

lhtown’s picture

lhtown commented

You say it is a marketplace for experts. That doesn't have a lot of meaning for me. Does that mean that experts can buy things or does it mean they can only sell things? Who exactly is an expert and what is there area of expertise and why would they want to participate? I am still a bit in the dark. I know the answer is on the site, but I don't want to take 5-10 minutes to figure it out.

morgin’s picture

morgin commented

no problemo, this is very helpful.

ok, best served through an example. you're a drupal expert, you join and post a couple of articles that demonstrate how skilled you are with it. I do the site marketing, and promote these to an IT magazine, draws in more traffic, someone contacts you about a job and bingo, more work for you. that's the core idea...

cheers, Neil.

tomski777’s picture

tomski777 commented

I think you need the help of a copywriter:
"A subject matter expert community"

Is a very confusing tagline & doesn't make grammatical sense, I had to double check where you are from (the UK), as its the sort of english used in spam!!!

It could be read as:
- An expert of subject matter? (i.e. an individual and their personal community)
- A community who are expert in subject matter. (what on earth does that mean??)
- A community of experts organised by subject matter.

Whatever, if its this vague, then it doesn't help communicate what you are doing.
Tom

><>tomskii
><>www.theanthillsocial.co.uk

morgin’s picture

morgin commented

Yes I agree with the sentiments that it is too confusing.

Any suggestions on better terms?

thanks, Neil.

blogserge’s picture

blogserge commented

Hay xps for your tag line instead of saying a community for experts you should try share your Knowledge also you should try moving your log in block.

morgin’s picture

morgin commented

hey guys,

I made these changes and tried to improve things, whadaya think?

Cheers, Neil.

lhtown’s picture

lhtown commented

I like the new tagline much better than the old one. However, it begs the question of what kinds of knowledge I am supposed to share. I know about computer hardware, Dobermans, websites, lawn care, and diaper changing. Decisions, decisions, which one do I write about?

I think you are at least seven years late to the "This website is for whatever the users want it to be for" party. In this day and age, in order to be successful, you pretty much have to be heavily focused on a niche market. That is especially true if you don't have a staff of people working with you or a large, ready-made community. Don't be afraid to declare exactly what the site is about.

A well-respected website that does something similar to what you seem to be working towards is alistapart.com. Another that is in somewhat the same vein is lullabot.com.

morgin’s picture

morgin commented

well in terms of what to write about, the purpose of the site is promotional, so it's a question of what you'd like to be promoted for. are you looking for clients for diaper changing or lawn care?

sure I know, I find sites like digg etc. quite tedious, so it is very much about specialisation, it's just that the overall brand is one of general expertise. as you point out people are expert in many categories so I'm looking to cater for that initially, and then the specialism through approaches like this, e.g. http://enterprise-2.net.

for this the best model to think of is actually book publishing, so you might like to start from a logic of writing about e.g. 'PHP for Beginners'. I'd work with you in the same kind of way as a book publisher, promoting it etc.

cheers, neil.