wow, I rock! Included muse url this time...

[adversary]

Sorry everyone here it is, my market test website.

www.moodwell.com

Tell me what you think.

[webgal]

Cool. I've been wondering whether I should share my site with the masses as well. It looks good.

[Grayman]

If you will be analyzing web traffic for your site make sure to pay attention to visitors coming from this site. Most of us won't be interested in your product (not saying it's not good though) and will be just curious so take that into account when judging market interest.

My two cents on the content: You offer your complete money back guarantee right at the bottom of the site. You should maybe mention that again "above the fold" so that potential customers can see it if they're just browsing quickly.

Also the title of your page (the one that appears in the title bar of the window) is "Home" and it should probably be "moodWell" or something. Congrats on getting to this stage too, I'm jealous!

[Overcoming_Negativity]

Looks really good - let us know how it goes.
Made me want to buy your product :)

[kingfish]

Awesome I'd love to hear how you got this idea and went through the process of finding a supplier, developing the product and such.

[Marcie]

Good job!

I noticed what appears to be a typo on the FAQ page (near the top): "moood".

Also, I wonder if it's a good idea to list out the ingredients exactly? Couldn't people just go buy the ingredients and make it up themselves?

[Vacman]

adversary,

Great start!

Only testing will tell if it will work.

And if people are trusting your product.

One thing that really stands out that you might want to change is that I have to scroll to the right to see all the text and my monitor is at a 1024x768 resolution.

People with 800x600 will have to scroll reallly far to the right and then back to the left again to see your entire message.

This barrier will probably cause a lot of people to just back click and be gone from your sales page forever.

I'd centralize the info in your page and keep it centered. Just like this forum is. Notice that there is white space on the right and left of almost all popular websites? The scrolling is the reason why.

Just check out like.... www.msn.com for example.

Hope this helps.

[Labayu]

I'm on a laptop and I know that things can sometimes look slightly different depending on screen size...

and I can't tell you how to fix it (but type "warrior forums" into google, join their message board and you will be able to get step by step instructions on any tech problem within mins)...

but the first thing I noticed was that the page was too big for my screen (ie I had to scroll accross, not just down), this would put me off slightly. More to the point it means I have to think about something other than getting sucked into a cure for "my" problem.

Def put the "no risk" guarentee at the top also, don't call it a "money back guarentee".

When you press the "order" button you don't say if all the info is manditory or optional. Some people might not want to put their phone number in so it needs to be clear if this is optional or not.

On the inital order page it says that shipping is free in the USA. It might be an idea to provide other shipping charges on that page. (eg $x for canada and $x anywhere else in the world). If I'm from overseas I'm not going to start the order proccess if there is a chance that you don't ship overseas or charge $1000 S&H for a $50 order. Likewise, if you only ship to the USA say so when you say shipping within the US is free.

I would personally not just list the ingrediants on the FAQ page but maybe do a little blurb about each one... or a "testomony"/quote from a doctor/scientist etc about the benifits of each product. You don't need to pay anyone, it should be "fair use" to use a factual quote about folic acid for instance.

You need a ton more info on ordering. Make it clear what payment methods you take (with logos- people like logos because it matches with their cards) eg credit cards, bank cards etc. What payment processer do you use (paypal, phone orders, 1shopping cart, business bank account) and why is it safe for the customer to use the method? They want reassuring.

They also want reassuring about how long they should wait for the delivery, (maybe how it is sent), an email address and pref a phone number/address (use a mailing company and get a biz phone number fowarded to a mobile answerphone if you must, they want to know they can contact you if they need to, it's reassurance again).

Add a testomonies page as soon as possible. Activily solicite testomonies from customers and consider offering people free samples in return for testomines (don't offer through your website or link to it when making a free offer). Ask people if it is ok for you to send them a questionaire every quarter for research in order to make ordering better (or any other excuse you can come up with), you can then mention special offers or cross sell in these emails too.

Your homepage should be "moodwell dot com" not "moodwell dot com /index"

give people more than one ordering option. If you are only selling one size of bottle. let them order 2 or 3 or more at a time and consider giving a discount for bulk buying.

Ok, I did decide to test the order proccess! You required people to leave a comment/question before letting them through... I'd change this, it's anoying as a customer.

I can copy and paste your sales page. You need to find html code to put the no copy and paste option on most of your pages (not the thank you for ordering/if there is any problem contact us at 3336666774 or "whatever at whatever dot com" pages. That will worry people.)

What does J.D. mean after your name? If it means something it needs to be clear, if not it makes people ask the question I just did. Is it to make you look more intellegent? That you are like a lord or knight? That it looks like it could be "junior doctor"? When people start questioning you you are in big trouble!

Are the pictures stock photography? (if they are can you post where they're from, I'm looking for people stock photos that could almost be a really good amatuer and the photos on your site made me unsure as to whether youre a great photographer or whether its commerical...just the right amount of gloss) You've got a picture of a woman and a girl. I'd consider seeing if you can get one of a guy as well (but it may not look right).

All in all though your site looks great.

[adversary]

Hey, thanks for the feedback. One key for me in getting the idea was something Tim asks in the book--Do you have a success or rags to riches story, something you've overcome? That and noticing that, while Tim doesn't recommend doing a consumable as your muse product, that is in fact how he succeeded...

I found that this took a lot longer than he implies. I've never build a website before, and even with yahoo's sitebuilder this took me forever. And I'm still trying to understand adwords well enough to run a test campaign.

For manufacturers, it was surprisingly easy...I think I used Thomasnet, searched around a little, that's it.

For stock photos, I used a site called stock exchange, http://www.sxc.hu/index.phtml

I looked at flickr but seemed like I'd have to pay or get permission.

Thanks for the detailed feedback, I'll go back through and look at the stuff people brought up. And I'll report on the results of my test campaign.

[webgal]

labayu- That was thoughtful of you to take the time to offer those points.

adversary- I have to tell you that you inspired me. I need to take more time to review your page but yesterday but something was bugging me and I was feeling more like I needed to order the formula than critique the page. You were so excited about your muse and I wasn't feeling that way about mine. I woke up at 3am last night and couldn't go back to sleep. I'd finished my test site, it's uploaded I was working on the adwords campaign and I thought, "I don't want to do this." I was dreading the part of following through with making the product. Dread.

So I did an about face and changed my mind completely. I worked all day today on it and I'm pleased with my muse now. It's different but I'm excited about it. I now have that "I rock" feeling, too. Thank you for that.

I can tell you put work in that site. If it's your first, I bet you were ready to tear your hair out.

And you can cut and past any ordering page if you use ctrl c and ctrl v. You can get some javascript to prevent the people who won't move past right click, however. Just google "java no right click" or "java no copy text". It should come up. I've used it before. Then you insert the code, probably before the </head> tag . If I remember correctly, you can even put a message in there and you can have fun with it.

Thanks for your inspiration adversary. I bet you didn't know your emotional high was contagious. I wanted to feel that, too.

[webgal]

Page width. In looking at your code, I see that the banner visual is 760px. Tough for a laptop and it's getting bumped further to the right due to the menu. You want your page at 760px, not the banner by itself. Subtract the left and right border widths and cut the banner by that much.

Below is the visual I'm referring to.

moodwell.com/clipart/pageHeaders/clioudSunRays.jpg

See if you can crop that visual by about 40-60 pixels or so in width. You can remove some of the blue and it will still look blue across the top. You could also set your page width to 100% instead of a set pixel width. That way it will adjust according to people's screens. I don't think it will mess up your design in this case. But make a back up of that index (index2.html) file. Make sure you have a back up copy of that visual as it is now. Easier to have a copy just in case.

[adversary]

Hey everyone, thanks again for the positive feedback on this. Since I haven't made a dime off it yet, it's nice to have people tell me it looks promising, like I'm not just spinning my wheels.

Webgal, I think I know what you mean. I find there are higher psychological barriers to actually finishing something, getting it to a final, ready for the world stage. It's easy to start but feels more and more uphill the closer it gets to release. With this I just kept making little lists of the steps I had left to go and doing them until there weren't any. I'm glad yours is moving along now.

I've got some questions about some of the suggestions people made. I'm trying to keep in mind that my goal for this is to test the market, that's all. But I want things to look good so I get a real test; I don't want to abandon the project because no one clicked "order", when in fact they didn't do it because my website looked ratty.

So I'll definitely fix the typo, and page width, make the information I request optional (except for email), and put the guarantee in sooner. J.D. stands for Juris Doctor, i.e. attorney, which I am. It's irrelevant to creating a nutritional supplement, but I thought it might add a little credibility somehow.

Design issues

As a newbie to web design, I don't get what the issue is with making it uncopyable. Is it a security thing for credit card info, or just so no one steals my deathless prose? I used no HTML in creating this, just sitebuilder, so learning how to insert HTML is a hassle for me. If I start actually selling, I'll probably do as Tim suggests and hire a professional. Likewise, /index is what sitebuilder calls the homepage, I'm not sure if I can change that.

Fair Use/ingredients

Personally, I wouldn't order something I was going to ingest without knowing the ingredients. Tim lists them on brainquicken. I'd actually love to include quotes from research, but I'm not at all sure that would be fair use. I'm a lawyer (though not in IP), and I couldn't figure that out for sure. It's commercial use, which is a strike against me. I can see how if I put "Dr. John Smith of Harvard found that 5-HTP relieves depression symptoms in 45% of patients," it sounds like Dr. Smith is promoting or endorsing my product. I bet I'd need his permission. Tim, on brainquicken, mentions all the scientific studies, but his actual quotes are all (I think) testimonials.

But if I'm wrong and someone can convince me otherwise, I'd love to add some research quotes.

Suggestions welcome, and I appreciate the help so far.

[Marcie]

Personally, I wouldn't order something I was going to ingest without knowing the ingredients. Tim lists them on brainquicken.

You're right, I guess he includes the "nutrition label" - I'm not sure either the legality of needing this or not, but I know on a label such as this there are things the FDA requires you list and things you don't have to (like certain spices - my experience is with food products). I can tell you that the NC State Food Sciences Department (http://www.ncsu.edu/foodscience/) can provide such a nutrition label for $100, but it's not clear if they do this for supplements. Specifically, see this page: http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/foodsci/ext/programs/ncfood/labeling_info.htm

Also, do you have liability insurance? I talked to Tim once about the costs of consumables, and he mentioned this as another reason to be very careful about this kind of muse...FYI.

Good Luck!

[dukejen04]

To be honest, I think your idea is good, but if I were a potential consumer, I might be frightened away by your page. Not that it isn't good (its true, you can tell you've put a lot of work into it) but it looks like a personal homepage, NOT a professional page or a corporate page.

In my opinion, "looks" are really important, especially when someone is ordering something that they are going to ingest. They want to be reassured that they're not being ripped off or poisoned (great about the guarentee, but this isn't a lean-mean grilling machine, they are putting this INTO their bodies , they want reassurance before they try it).

I would consider investing in having the page re-done by professionals. Right now when I visit the page, I get the feeling this is some guy selling some stuff out of his garage, and that wouldn't make me want to buy it. For all I know I am going to get a ziploc bag filled with home-made pills.

I think your idea is good, but right now, what is going to sell this product is a consumer's BELIEF that this product can work. You are selling hope. To gain people's trust, they need to believe that this totally legit (which I'm sure it is, but the appearance doesn't lend itself to that). Even if it doesn't come from a pharmacy, you want them to believe it is just as effective and reliable, so the frills count.

They might want to see a picture of the bottle, read some testimonials, and maybe see a quote or two from some kind of expert/medical specialist.

I also said this for the piano guy, but I will say it again here. You are advertising your expertise, but it is clear you are not an expert. I would remove the first person and let this sell itself. Who are you? From what I can tell reading your page you are a formerly depressed lawyer who read a few books. How does that qualify you to mix chemicals and amino acids and know their affect on the human brain? You're not helping the credibility of your product there, you're opening yourself up to questions.

What you say is correct- but rephrase it to sound more scientific and less personal. You're not selling a book about your personal experiences with overcoming depression, you are selling a "scientifically-based" product. Sell it with science. Explain the science behind depression (briefly) and how your product "fixes" these problems. Include scientific references and expert testimonials if you can (find a biochemist to confirm your formula is effective, that will go along way).

I think this definitely has potential to succeed, good luck!
Jennifer

[PerceptionsMatter]

Hi.
First, let me congratulate you on taking action!
Also, your page content is well wriiten and you use photography well.

Second, the site needs work; mostly becuase of using yahoo's site builder.
A: The site is too wide for my 1024x768 monitor - it should not require scrolling, especially at that resolution. You would be better served getting it down to 740 pixels wide as there are stll many people using 800x600 resolution.
B: When I tested the site, it took me to a yahoo page and asked me to sign in with my yahoo password - I would wonder what was going on if I was an average internet user - most internet users would wonder why they were being transferred to yahoo. It might serve you to get regular credit card payment capabilities, or at least to explain that the next page will be a yahoo page and that you use them for payment processing because of their security.
C: You need to change the page title from HOME to something that will generate search engine traffic. There are also many other things you could do to generate search engine traffic naturally.

Good luck!

[adversary]

Dukejen, thanks for your comment. I was afraid my website would give that impression. My goal was to do a 4HWW style test with minimum investment, but that means a tradeoff in quality, at least if you are an amateur like I am.

I just ran a market test and got 50 clicks but only 2 people who stayed through the order process. Knowing that my website comes across this way actually encourages me that with a more professional site more of those clicks might become sales.

[dukejen04]

I didn't mean to be harsh, but I really think your idea is good and viable. Really. I really think for you it isn't your idea, bu the packaging.

I would liken your market to that of one like ED, it is a medical condition and a HUGE market for pharmaceutical companies and also alternative therapies. There are a LOT of people suffering from depression, but many who do not want to use conventional drugs (or have already tried and don't like them), don't have insurance/can't afford it, or do not want to go see a psychologist.

Great for you- then it just becomes marketing. So, wrap it in a pretty package and I think it will sell itself with good ad placement :)

Good luck!!

[Dustin]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't 4% (2 orders out of 50 clicks) a good close rate?

[hottoddy]

[QUOTE=adversary;4411]
For manufacturers, it was surprisingly easy...I think I used Thomasnet, searched around a little, that's it.

Hey Adversary,

Good job on the website. Notwithstanding all the constructive critiques already provided, it looks really good.

Regarding the manufacturing of your product, you contacted a contract manufacturer from Thomasnet. Since my muse also has to do with supplements (not related to yours) I was interested in understanding the relationship between you and the manufacturer. For example, isn't it possible that if you give the manufacturer the specific ingredients and proportions of those ingredients, that they could simply make the same supplement, change a few things (or not if there isn't a patent), slap on a different label and sell it themselves or to another customer? This could be especially concerning if your product becomes a hot seller. How do you protect yourself from this potential issue? You are an attorney so I would anticipate that this is something that you considered. How did you reconcile it? Also, how did you come up with that specific formula of ingredients and ratios? Did you work with a chemist? Did you consider contraindications with other vitamins and medications? How does it work with the manufacturer? Do you simply provide them with the ingredients and ratios and ask them to develop something in a vitamin form? Once they have created the final product, will they manufacture, bottle, label and ship for you when you submit orders or do you need to purchase inventory and bottle, label and ship yourself? Or do the vitamins go from the manufacturer to a fulfillment operation?

I was considering patenting my formula (by doing a provisional patent) before contacting a manufacturer but do you think this step is unnecessary? I know someone can simply change a few things but at least my specific formula will be protected, albeit, for a limited time. I wish I could simply keep it a "trade secret" but I'm not sure how this can be done when the ingredient label is basically the recipe for the formula. It's not like Coke.

Anyhow, sorry for all the questions but I'm really curious as to how this whole process works.

Cheers!

[thinkthroughfollowthrough]

nice. I agree it's too wide, I had to scroll.

also why is there a photo of a young girl? that is a bit odd imho.

good luck!

[HWilley]

Adversary,

It has been 2 months since you got all the feedback -- what are you doing? Don't procrastinate -- get a move on!

4% is a GREAT click-thru rate, especially for a site that looks handmade.

Get over to eLance or Scriptlance and get a professional design done. It shouldn't be more than $100.

And use Tim's advice: Ask the bidders to parrot back to you "in their own words" what you're looking for. I'm taking bids on my project right now and will hopefully have the test site up by the new year.

Stop sleeping a get a move on! Bloody Bay Wall is calling your name ...

[rachelterra]

Great job in getting this far.
I'd strongly suggest testimonials and make sure they are prominent at the top to dispell any immediate doubts in the consumers' minds.

[zon zon]

I think testimonials would be a big plus to your site. A little video streaming would be great and a special offer to induce action

I AM NEW HERE. And I have reviewed several MUSES so far.

There needs to be a much greater attention on creating "Calls to Action". It is important to read a book or two on direct response marketing and copy. It is important to look at other competitive and non competitive sites THAT YOU KNOW ARE WORKING

Best of Luck.