An Open Letter To All Affiliate Programs That Offer / Plan To Offer Hosted Free Sites

[Useless]

Originally Posted by SC Albert

This is good advice. I am sending this to our design team as well.

Frankly, that's often the problem. Programs are using professional graphic designers to build their free sites. They shouldn't. Free sites shouldn't be so graphically heavily and visually awe-inspring. I'm not saying that they should be ugly, but I am saying that ugly doesn't hurt. Pro designers enjoy showing their skills in every project. Keep them designing tours - that's where the awe factor should be - not on free sites and galleries. When a surfer clicks thru to a paysite tour, they should be stunned and impressed by the pure gorgeousness of the site. But if everyone puts the same level of graphic design into every gallery and every free site, the awe factor of a grand tour is diminished and, I believe, it hurts conversions.

[Linkster]

Bravo UW - you need to cross post this in the other thread as well- I dont think paysite owners get this - galleries and free sites that are done by graphic designers are getting to the point where they are fancier than the tour - and that hurts conversions in my book.

One thing that I remember from the old days - and it obviously still works today based on a few submitters I have that consistently make great ratios - UGLY DOES WORK - quite well as a matter of fact - text leads to sales - graphics enhances the closing part of the sale - if you are running a paysite you better know the sales game better than your local used car dealer cause thats all it is

For those paysite owners that think that putting up a bigger than FPA size graphic on a warning page helps sales - they are sadly mistaken - but then I guess thats less competition for me

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

Frankly, that's often the problem. Programs are using professional graphic designers to build their free sites. They shouldn't. Free sites shouldn't be so graphically heavily and visually awe-inspring. I'm not saying that they should be ugly, but I am saying that ugly doesn't hurt. Pro designers enjoy showing their skills in every project. Keep them designing tours - that's where the awe factor should be - not on free sites and galleries. When a surfer clicks thru to a paysite tour, they should be stunned and impressed by the pure gorgeousness of the site. But if everyone puts the same level of graphic design into every gallery and every free site, the awe factor of a grand tour is diminished and, I believe, it hurts conversions.

Originally Posted by Greenie

...Designers: 1st off, when you pick a designer, do not just assume that because they make Hosted Galleries (HG) that they can also make HFS's. HG designers have a very simple process: they make up a template with general sales text & they reuse that template by inserting different sets of content into them This does not work for HFS's. So if your HG company says they can make HFS's, make them prove it to you 1st by showing you Free Sites (FS) that they have built & submitted to LL's on their own that are actually listed. Make them prove to you that the FS domain is owned by them, that they submitted it to a couple of LL's & where it's listed on those LL's. If they can not show you personal sites that they have gotten listed, run away from them. They do not know how to make a FS & have no business offering people HFS's services...

If any sponsors would like us to review any Free Sites that a design company shows you, we'd be more than happy to help

Please go to the Link List & Getting Listed Forum & start a new thread (otherwise, it'll be a mess in here)

[Linkster]

Greenie - unfortunately - while we always offer to do these things - and we make our suggestions based on years of experience in the free site game - most sponsors brush it off as "they know more than we do" about their own paysites - so Ive decided that Im certainly not going to offer to do that anymore. Ive obviously been wasting my time making suggestions

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by Linkster

Greenie - unfortunately - while we always offer to do these things - and we make our suggestions based on years of experience in the free site game - most sponsors brush it off as "they know more than we do" about their own paysites - so Ive decided that Im certainly not going to offer to do that anymore. Ive obviously been wasting my time making suggestions

I'm in the same boat, because I'm sick of telling sponsors that their HFS's suck (the last one I rudely tried to help kept mentioning how good their galleries are)

I'm just throwing that out there for sponsors that read this thread & then come here & seek advice - I think any sponsor that actually did that (like BV Cash) would get a tremendous amount of help.