Need A Little Help w/ My Site

[stormcloudmedia]

I'm a web designer and a hosting reseller. I just finished my new site...

http://www.stormcloudmedia.com

I have a few questions for the reseller community here.

1.) What do you think of my site? I need some constructive criticism on design, functionality, and services offered.

2.) I need some advertising recommendations. Please don't say AdWords. That's an obvious one and I've tried it and received little success. My opinion is that the market there has become saturated and is only effective if your service is very unique. Will Ebay work for what I'm offering? How about some other form of advertising?

3.) Anyone interested in reselling my service? I have some resellers here in my area and I can afford to give them $125 per new account. Not bad, huh? I'm putting together an "official" affiliate program, but right now it's simply based on trust.

4.) Does opt-in email advertising ever work? I just bought the lowest package from http://www.spamfreeadvertising.com and I'm not real please, to be honest. Is this market a joke? Any alternatives?

Thank you, everyone, for your help. If there's anything I can do to be of assistance, please let me know.

-Andrew
andrew@stormcloudmedia.com

[Serra]

Originally Posted by stormcloudmedia

1.) What do you think of my site? I need some constructive criticism on design, functionality, and services offered.

Interesting looking site. REALLY HATE the Swish/flash graphic. Very distracting and cheap looking.

2.) I need some advertising recommendations. Please don't say AdWords. That's an obvious one and I've tried it and received little success. My opinion is that the market there has become saturated and is only effective if your service is very unique. Will Ebay work for what I'm offering? How about some other form of advertising?

AdWords really does work well, if you are in an industry that allows it, price wise. For you, it is too expensive.

Ebay? Planning to sell it super cheap, then ebay will work. The market is saturated, so no advertising will work really well in your industry. Tapping your clients for referrals would likely be your best source. Also, local leads groups and the chamber of commerece would help you as well. (If it is a full time thing)

4.) Does opt-in email advertising ever work? I just bought the lowest package from http://www.spamfreeadvertising.com and I'm not real please, to be honest. Is this market a joke? Any alternatives?

It only works when you can provide a value to the customer. In your case, I doubt that is possible. Your clients likely could care less about your services once they buy.

Did you make these templates or buy them?

[stormcloudmedia]

I haven't made them and I haven't bought them. http://www.templatemonster.com. I'm an affiliate there. They provide me with the templates to place on my site. Really a win-win if I can draw traffic to it.

[MachineDog]

I had to install flash. Looks like he's reselling templatemonster templates to me, Serra. I might be wrong though.

[JCristea]

Hi Andrew,
I think your site looks pretty good. I like the idea of being an affiliate of Template Monster... nothing wrong with using a tool like that. Carpenters usually don't grow their own lumber.

I thought everyone had the flash download installed on their computers. According to Macromedia's website "Macromedia Flash Player is the world's most used software platform, used by over 1 million professionals and reaching more than 97% of Internet-enabled desktops worldwide as well as a wide range of devices. That’s more than the Windows media player."

If you are just starting out, how about using local advertising... newspaper, etc. I find that in my local newspaper that there is RARELY ever a web design company listed. Also, make sure your metatags are not over done and that you have submitted to all the major search engines.

Good Luck!
Jim

[Serra]

Originally Posted by J
I thought everyone had the flash download installed on their computers. According to Macromedia's website [SIZE=1

"Macromedia Flash Player is the world's most used software platform, used by over 1 million professionals and reaching more than 97% of Internet-enabled desktops worldwide as well as a wide range of devices. That’s more than the Windows media player."[/SIZE]

The problem is that a large amount of corporate offices don't allow Flash. I have a major client who doesn't allow any Flash on their office computers. Drives me nuts.

[MachineDog]

I had just installed Deer Park. :S

[Serra]

Originally Posted by MachineDog

I had just installed Deer Park. :S

Deer Park?

[David]

Originally Posted by Serra

Deer Park?

I think he means this: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/deerpark/alpha2.html

David