follow-up

[Steve Wargo]

We get about 20% of our business through search engines and the remainder is networking or referrals.

I did forget to mention that your site is very clean and to the point. I found it extremely easy to navigate, fun in fact. It shows that you think outside the box.

However, the voice behind the video clips was very flat and lifeless. I don’t do my own for a very good reason.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD .

[Dan Asselin]

Agreed on the voice for sure. As soon as I get the time I’m going
to replace myself.

Thanks Steve;

Dan Asselin

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Dan Asselin
Effective Business Video
Core 2 Duo 2.6
2 Gig Ram
Pretty Well Adobe Everything

[Chris Blair]

I’ll throw in my $.02. You can get both the search engine traffic and the referred traffic by simply editing keywords into the HTML. Search google for how to insert metatags into the code for your web authoring program. It’s very easy to do and you don’t need any text on your site to get really high rankings very quickly.

On the site itself. In my humble opinion, busy business people aren’t going to take the time to watch all those videos just to learn about what you offer. Even though the videos are all on point, there’s an awful lot of stock footage and animated stills in them. They’re not bad, but they’re certainly not top-of-the-line when it comes to corporate video. Ditto on the voice. Clients will assume that’s the quality of VO they can expect.

My guess is you’d attract clients that have small to modest budgets who are looking to “throw something together.” If that’s your target, great. But if you’re going for high-end corporate clients too, I think they’d pass your site by very quickly even after a referral.

There’s not a thing wrong with the design and layout of the site. It’s quite quirky and fun. But I know very few corporate folks who are in the mood for either. The corporate people we work with are overworked, stressed, harried, and being pulled in 6 different directions on 12 different projects. They want someone to take projects off their hands to where they can watch it and say…”change this, change that, replace this…etc.” They want stuff taken off their plates. So spending 20 minutes watching video on a website won’t be high on their list of “things to do.”

One other minor thing for me was there were a lot of images and icons I wanted to click on, but when I moused over them, nothing was there to click. Things like road signs, little guys with circular crossouts, etc. The main page also has music that plays that I couldn’t find how to turn off. That’s really annoying. There were 3 little TV’s with spinning logos in them. Neat, but again I wanted to click them for more stuff. But no dice.

I’m certainly not trying to tear you ideas or your site down, but from our experience with the corporate world, you’re going to eliminate a lot of people right off the bat by making them work for the info they want “right now.”

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com

[Dan Asselin]

Thanks Chris;

As you have suspected I am, at the present time, aiming at clients with small to mid-size budgets.

I know that I don’t have the patience for huge life-engrossing projects nor do I want to project that as a possible avenue at this time.

Your idea about embedding keywords into my code is one I will definitly follow up on, in fact I might pay someone to do this as I may have reached the limits of my Dreamweaver (6 weeks) skilset.

As for the music on the 3 tv’s page I am taking that out tonight as it annoys me too.

Thanks for your time Chris;

Dan

P.S….If I think of anything small and interesting to add I think it would be a good idea (as you suggested) to add some clickable items to some of the images and icons.

Dan Asselin
Effective Business Video
Core 2 Duo 2.6
2 Gig Ram
Pretty Well Adobe Everything