New business website feedback and advice.

[molmacmur1]

Hi all,

I'm new here so I hope this "starting your business" page is ok to post this topic. I've been in business as an event coordinator for 9 years now and I'm starting a new social and networking club for women only. The club goals are to help and inspire women to achieve and maintain success in their personal and professional lives, all while keeping their individual priorities in check. (obviously everyone holds their own set of those priorities if it's faith, family, career, health, giving back and charity, friendships, etc.) Out overall goal is to provide new friendships, learning opportunities, networking and social and community events. I'm looking for unbiased opinions on feedback for my website and overall web presence.

Priorities Club (http://www.prioritiesclub.com)

I'd love any feedback on the website, any changes you think should be made, or just any advice you have for a new club. Thanks in advance!

[KristineS]

I should say up front I'm not a joiner, so I'm probably not your ideal target, but I did take a look at the site and there were a few things that stood out to me.

First is the fact that the first thing you see on the front page is the pink banner with "home, family and lifestyle services" on it. Now I could see "home, family, lifestyle" as maybe a motto of the group, but having the word "services" just makes it sound as though you're trying to sell something.

Second, I'm guessing most people would do what I did, which was click on the membership link to find out more about the club and what membership entailed. Also, most people would probably be looking for some indication of cost. Instead, the page has a list of what seem, at least to me, to be some rather draconian requirements. You must participate in 6 classes and 4 charity events per year? You must refer 2 new members? You must sign in when you attend an event? Seriously?

Before I've even made up my mind if you're offering something I want, I'm hit with a list of requirements that sound more appropriate for a high school girl's club from the 1950's than a gathering of professional women. Not only are you asking me to pay you money to attend your events, you're trying to dictate how many I attend and making me prove that I've been there. What difference does it make to you if I pay my membership fee and then never show up for anything? I get that you want to build a strong and dynamic organization, but you're asking for a lot of time from people who already have other commitments and demands placed on them.

As I said in the beginning, I probably wouldn't be your target market, so maybe these sorts of requirements are part of joining service clubs and things like that and I'm just not aware, but it seems like you're hitting people with a lot of "thou shalt" and "thou shalt nots" before convincing them that what you have to offer will be worth the requirements you list. I'd make sure your events page was at least as detailed as the membership page. Right now, your events page is pretty vague, and I don't know if it's enough to convince someone to join and live by the requirements you list. Sell people on what you have to offer first.

[molmacmur1]

Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate any and all.

Compared to other various social/networking clubs I've seen I felt our requirements were very laid back. So I'm glad to hear the other opinions. Junior Leaques can be very time demanding on new member, they have some requirements I know I could never fulfil. But over the course of a year I'd hope members would want to be engaged. I wouldn't want members just to pay thier dues and never engage or be present. What would be the point of that? You know? I actually saw one club that said "no event should encourage religious or political conversation, unless this is specifically indicated in the event description ahead of time." And that kind of floored me...as if we aren't living in American with those freedoms. Maybe it's the Midwestern in me but I'd never tell someone not to dicuss religious or polictical topics just because it would "offend" others.

This club is geared towards younger women so I can understand your thoughts. The "services" was an error that needs to be fixed, too. And we have already also discussed removing the requirement to refer any future members.

[Wozcreative]

I like the branding, colours etc. The template you chose was nice.
The logo's font could be a bit stronger though. It's very thin/faint.

The typography on the website is far too long. It was written by a writer but not designed for an easy read. The text is small and bold. Your bullet points are very long under "membership". Bullet points should be about 7 words for easy reading. Use icons an images to break up the information.

Your Q-A page is difficult to read.. there's no visual typographic texturing. Hard to scan and find the questions. There is also no about us page... I always seem to look for those. I actually do read it.

As a social networking club, why don't you have any of your social media on your contact page? I see it in the footer but it's very lost.

So in general the branding and layout is good but the content doesn't speak to me.

[Paul]

I’m not a woman so take my comments with that in mind.

I do agree with Kristine in that the requirements seem to be pretty severe for an unestablished organization.

But, more to my point is that it seems to lack focus. The theme being “priorities” doesn’t really lay out the priorities of the organization other than in a general sense. I believe active engaged women, career women and Moms, have already found the organizations that they feel are in line with their “priorities”. There are tons of women’s business and career organizations and websites, organizations for Mom’s, churches for the religious, dating and meet up sites, plenty of local and national charity organizations, support and networking groups.

I don’t see the particular benefit of joining your organization for already active women. I’m not so sure they need or want another generalized “group”.
I think it may make more sense to have a much more specific agenda and core to the organization. Be more focused on fewer priorities. Is it faith and traditional family values or careers and kids or success and relationships? With a very focused “mission” you won’t appeal to everyone but you will have a much stronger appeal to some.

I also think you should present what the organization does for them, NOT what they have to do for the organization. What will they learn, how they will benefit, who will they be associating with (presumably others with the same focused interests).

Sorry for butting in on this one ladies! I may be way off base.

[Hall Underwood Law]

It's nicely designed, feels clean and uncluttered. I'd recommend improving the responsiveness, though. When I view it in Safari, there's a vertical scroll bar even though all of the content is immediately visible. That will make some people worry that a design container loaded improperly or that important content is inaccessible in their viewing environment. Additionally, I would consider changing the "hover" properties of the links in your header. It's an easy way to ensure click accuracy. But other than that, it looks great.

[londonmoon]

Okay, love the site and the fact it loads in the same window almost instantly. The logo is brilliant too! More functionality on your website may suffice though, thanks for the share.

[shrinkme]

I'm going to start out by saying that I kind of liked the format and idea. That said, I'll give a few suggestions.

Balance - Generally you want your website to have good balance, sort of like a photograph would have good balance. Your head looks weighed to the left.

Logo - Liked the logo. Should be clickable and return the visitor to the home page.

Menu - Not really fond of the menu layout.

Horizontal lines - I believe things should be above and below horizontal lines

But really, it's a pleasant and not overpowering look.

I would be a little concerned about exactly the message I'm sending with the pictures on the home page...

I really enjoy doing website reviews, but I know that I would never ask anyone to review mine... it definitely needs some work.