Ok, Review My Site

[Ann H]

There's a learning curve involved in building a website, and you've taken the time to learn it. Congratulations. Your time is money and you've invested the time.

I like your site. There's a clean look about it. It looks like it's intended for professionals. However, I noticed 2 things that bothered me. First, the slider moves too fast to read. It's a pretty big paragraph to read in a few seconds. Next, you need a line underneath your NOLHA logo that describes your organization and/or gives a value proposition. What do you call that line? A byline or caption... the word eludes me at the moment. At a bare minimum you should spell out what the acronym "NOLHA" means. As a first-time visitor my first thought was "what is this site about", and in the few seconds that I was reading the fast-moving slider paragraphs, and viewing your home page, nowhere did I see that it was for insurance agents or life insurance agents. When I read on your recent post that you can mouse-over the paragraph and the slider will stop, I went back and there are a few words imbedded in the text that say agent or life insurance agent, but you should attract your intended market with more obvious text.

I don't mean to be rude. I mean to help you by this. But if I didn't know you and came upon this site by search engine, I would have left the site without realizing it was a great organization meant to help agents in my line of work.

Good luck!

 

[Guest]

I don't mean to be rude. I mean to help you by this. But if I didn't know you and came upon this site by search engine, I would have left the site without realizing it was a great organization meant to help agents in my line of work.

You can be rude. John is as tough as they come. I've known him for six years now. (Did you know he was on the detail that guarded President Reagan at Camp David?)

I agree with you about the banner pix... but for a different reason. I think a lot of valuable screen real estate is being "wasted" with the slider. (I might think differently if there was a swimsuit model in there somewhere!) I simply hate stuff that moves and flashes at my old eyes. Very distracting.

As for NOLAH, yeah I've been really impressed with it. These guys have new material every day or so and their forums are zero-tolerance to personal attacks... a joy to post on and to read.

I can see a day when NOLHA is the dominant agent organization in the US. You get a hell of a lot of value for your $130 with NOLHA in my opinion.

YMMV.

Al

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

There's a learning curve involved in building a website, and you've taken the time to learn it. Congratulations. Your time is money and you've invested the time.

I like your site. There's a clean look about it. It looks like it's intended for professionals. However, I noticed 2 things that bothered me. First, the slider moves too fast to read. It's a pretty big paragraph to read in a few seconds. Next, you need a line underneath your NOLHA logo that describes your organization and/or gives a value proposition. What do you call that line? A byline or caption... the word eludes me at the moment. At a bare minimum you should spell out what the acronym "NOLHA" means. As a first-time visitor my first thought was "what is this site about", and in the few seconds that I was reading the fast-moving slider paragraphs, and viewing your home page, nowhere did I see that it was for insurance agents or life insurance agents. When I read on your recent post that you can mouse-over the paragraph and the slider will stop, I went back and there are a few words imbedded in the text that say agent or life insurance agent, but you should attract your intended market with more obvious text.

I don't mean to be rude. I mean to help you by this. But if I didn't know you and came upon this site by search engine, I would have left the site without realizing it was a great organization meant to help agents in my line of work.

Good luck!

Ann, far from rude, that's a fantastic commentary. Your worst customer isn't one who doesn't buy, but one that doesn't buy without telling you why.

Business is not about what you get but what you can get. If you're selling 10 widgets a day, can you sell 15 by changing 3 simple things? It's always about measuring and measuring involves getting "consumer" opinions.

You're right, "I" know what NOLHA means but thinking that people are going to take time out of their day to figure it out...not really. I believe I read somewhere that people need to know what's going on with a website in 5 seconds.

I changed it - better slider titles, added our full name, slowed down the speed. The National Organization of Life and Health Agents

 

[Sam]

John, I like the site a lot, looks like a great start.

I think the slider is still way too fast and my personal opinion is that if you are going to use a slider, it should tell people in bigger font and less words what you are trying to do.

Also, as a general rule, you want to focus less on the features of what you do and more on the benefits that can be realized... to borrow a famous example, dentists don't sell the teeth whitening process, they sell the brighter smile...

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

I actually turned the slider animation off - now it lands on the organization page and people can slide it manually if they want.

And I can tell you from IHIAA experience, very few people randomly land on a website then whip out their credit card regardless of the how the information is laid out unless you have a very well know brand name. In fact, for the insurance industry you really have to watch hyperbole or it can have the opposite effect as intended.

The goal here is a professional website that's well laid out. After that, it's "how" agents get to the site. This may be an odd statement, but SEO is irrelevant. Not that I don't want to maximize the number of agents who hit the site, but conversion is very low.

It builds with "branding" - which takes time, recommendations, referrals and affiliate partnerships (other companies willing to directly promote our organization.)

Take NAHU, for example. Do you think any agent stumbles onto their site, then grabs their credit card if they haven't heard of them? Maybe 5 times a year. They have affiliate and carrier partners driving membership.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Agreed.

That being said, why do you recommend folks check them out?

It's a scam to join, but people reviewing a business on the BBB can at least check out the number of complaints - just ignore the rating. A company can have 1 complaint and an F rating, or 500 complaints with a A rating. Don't know about you, but I'm gonna think before giving my money to a company with 500 complaints (in relation to their company size.)

Interesting story regarding their extortion tactics. And they do extort non-members.



My phone rings one day. It's the BBB. Someone had filed a complaint on a previous business I ran. But the call wasn't about the complaint, it was that I had a F rating due to that single complaint and it could be remedied if I paid to join.

Now I was ticked off...so the my rating could be improved and all I had to do with pay? And if I didn't pay I'd be left with an unjustified F over a single complaint? I told the rep to....well, you know.

 

[Josh]

Now I was ticked off...so the my rating could be improved and all I had to do with pay? And if I didn't pay I'd be left with an unjustified F over a single complaint? I told the rep to....well, you know.

Did you make a comment about a casual relationship you may or may not be having with his mother?

 

[briko3]

The top doesn't "Pop". Company name doesn't stand out and it's too much of one shade of blue. The color kind of runs together and looks boring.

(Disclaimer: I don't know squat about websites...just my first impression)

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

Have you seen it recently? I changed it to put the company name on the main page.

 

[ksigmtsu]

p .tagline {
margin-top: 5px;
}

Should be the fix to the blue butting up.

If that doesnt do it, try

padding-top: 5px;

Without really digging thru it sometimes its faster to just guess between the 2 to figure out which element is doing what and stick with the one that worked.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

I've tried to hunt this down and change it a few times when YGMM suggested it. Every time I think I've found the right line of code and change it it turns out wrong.