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I have launched a new website, now what?
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09-01-2009 12:10am#1Hi everyone,
My friends and I have just launched a website called ratemytradesman.ie (rmt.ie) I guess it came about because they work in various trades and with the way things are going they wanted an online presence to improve business. I was asked to come on board because I'm involved in a few businesses and have experience in getting things off the ground. My problem is I have no experience with web based business so I'm really feeling my way in the dark here
The site itself is pretty self explanatory- a good old fashioned rate my site, but there is also a forum dedicated to FÁS apprentices that I'm excited about.
I was just wondering if anyone has any advice on how to promote and market start up websites. Also if anyone wants to take a look at the site I'm open to all constructive criticism. Again I feel like a duck out of water so if you have any advice please let me know.
Thanks
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Hi drunkmonkey,
thanks for your advice. Once a tradesman is added by a user they can then rate them and add a comment once the moderator has approved the listing. I'm going to change this though so that a tradesman can be added and rated/commented on in the one go, for simplicity sake.
We do have priority listings for tradesmen along the same lines as major online directories, but no takers yet, we're only up 2 days.
We have a few competitors like justtradesmen.ie and tradesman.ie but I think we have the better site design and layout
(I hope I don't fall on my own sword here) 0 -
I hope you can take criticism well OP......:)
Firstly, I would get rid of that video immediately. A gang of lads messing around with a cameraphone on You Tube does not look professional ............especially with that amount of swearing in it (no matter how justified).
You are obviously looking to make some revenue from this site as you have a tag saying "Advertise with us" and that video will do you no favours in that department.
Which brings be onto the next point.....advertising. It is very difficult for anyone to take seriously any reviews on a website that relies or is trying to attract revenue from the businesses reviewed on that site.
Have a look at this tread about menupages.ie and you will see the trouble they ran into when it was found that restaurants could just call them up and threaten them with legal action to get bad review taken off the website.
Which leads me nicely to my next point.....legal issues. Another headache for any review site is trying to avoid being sued by the businesses that have received negative press on there. Even if no comments are left, the fact that you have a "Hall of Shame" might get you into trouble with any businesses listed on there. If I saw my business name in your Hall of Shame I would take you to the cleaners.
Everyone knows that there are cowboys in the building industry but there are also some reputable companies in there as well and believe it or not the customer is not always right and some of them can be a right pain as well.
It's going to be tricky for you to keep some objectivity. A website called bestgarages.ie was set up last year by a guy in Carlow, maybe you could contact him for some advice? I don't want to mention his name on here just incase he doesn't want to be named on a public forum but I dealt with him a fair bit when he was setting up his site and I was setting up mine at the same time and he is sound.
Now onto the Fas forum.....I am confounded
. Why on earth would you tag a forum which will be used by, lets face it, kids chatting about any old sh1te onto a website for rating professional tradesmen?
I mean, you have a modified motors section on there....what does that have to do with professional tradesmen?
And the fact that you have a warning on the forum about it containing adult content just makes it look like a p0rn site.
I can see why you want to set up a forum for Fas students but if I were you I would keep them seperate from the main site.
As for charging tradesmen for listing on your website at this early stage, I would forget about that. You will find it very difficult to get anyone to pay you for a listing on an unknown site that has no traffic.
Sorry I can't give you anymore positive advice but review sites are a bit of a minefield.
Good luck with it anyway.0 -
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Hey keefg,
don't worry I'm thick skinned. Thanks for your advice, I really do appreciate any constructive criticism. Ummm I guess I'll try to respond as best I can.
The vid on the home page is a sort of novelty thing that I hope to change weekly. I just found the current one to be very funny but I do accept that the choice language is not really for everyone.
You are right that a tradesman will be reluctant to advertise if he thinks he is not getting a fair deal with the reviews, but the site has been set up by and with successful trade professionals who are all confident that their work, and that of the vast majority of their colleagues will be well rated. I know that sounds a bit trite but in my experience there are hoestly very few cowboys out there and if I can't get a listing from them so be it. We hope to be a forum for public opinion. There are good and bad tradesmen, there will be good and bad ratings. Our first concern will always be the sites users. For them to take the site seriously we will need to facilitate fair and honest reviews for better or worse.
With regards to the legal issues, I guess this is why I was drafted. My background is legal and it has been a major concern of mine. I consulted with a lot of friends from college who are more familiar with the tort aspects about possible libel actions. The result was that we have a very thorough review process of all ratings and comments. I'm not happy with how much this will restrict the objectivity of the site, but then again I'd be really unhappy if I got sued (I'll try to get in touch with your mate in this regard to see if we can be of any help to each other) We don't want to be a rating site in name only, so we will do our very best to balance our obligaions to the sites users as well as to honest tradesmen. However, if ratings for a tradesmen are consistently negative and could be substantiated these ratings will be posted. I'm not aware of any law that can deny the public free speech.
As for the FÁS student centre- we want to involve apprentices with the site generally because they are a demographic that we thought would have massive exposure to tradesmen and would be regular net users. We just think that apprentices could contribute a lot to the site so we want to have something especially for them since there is no other dedicated apprentice resource out there. They may get a bit carried away so thats the reason for the disclaimer. I know quite a few apprentices and I wouldnt put porn past em
(To be honest that would be on a good day, notice no forum dedicated to the virtues of green diesel)
Yeah, the site just launched 2 days ago so I won't be approaching anyone until I'm happy that its equitable for them to advertise with us. If we can't deliver people value for money we won't last long. I think thats everything. Thanks again keefg, I hope I spoke to all the points you raised. The site is a work in progress so I'll certainly take what you said on board.0 -
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Hi Axwell, blue4ever, ecoBrats and stepbar,
Axwell thanks for your advice not withstanding blue4evers assertion (play nice lads)
Again on the vid, I'll change it asap to somthing a bit more PG. A lot of people I've shown the site to like a vid on the homepage, somthing to catch your attention, but you are right that the current one is not to everyones tastes.
I guess on the practical side about the ratings system we had to strike a balance between allowing the public to rate freely without allowing unfair and unwarranted attacks to the detrement of anyones business. Its no easy task and it is the fundamental flaw of rating sites. At the end of the day my goal is to produce an acurate cross section of public opinion.
The FÁS Student Centre was sort of my baby so I will leave it in situe for the time being but will keep it under review. I'll take full responsibility if it proves unpopular. (Lesson in how to set ones self up for a nice fall)
There are still bugs with the site. I was assured they had been resolved. Unfortunatly my designer has had a bereavement recently, at the end of the day thats far more important than the site so I hope he will be back soon and we can get them resolved, but I have told him to take all the time he needs.
EcoBrats thats great advice thank you. I hope to be working with a search engine optimisation consultant soon and I'll run all of that by him. I'll also get in touch with the local radio station, they do have a business show and the thought never occured to me, thanks I'll give that a go.
Stepbar, I would'nt accept that its been done to death. Its true that there are a few natural competitors out there but the best of them are not trade specific. You are certainly right that it is going to be a massive task to take on sites like homewise but I want to offer a user friendly ratings driven resource specific to tradespeople. My own assessment is that there may be enough of an opening for that. So long as people enjoy the site I'm happy.
Well thanks again all, I hope you liked the site generally, I'll take all of your advice on board. Please do keep an eye on it and feel free to let me know if you have any more advice in the future.
rmt.ie (hope that works Axwell, I've never used the link button before)0 -
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hi mate, i run www.bestgarages.ie which was referred to in earlier post by keefg. Had a look at your site and just a few comments from my experience if its any help to you..
- agree with the previous posters re: the legal area. We had much the same concerns when we set up bestgarages.ie. In hindsight we probably worried too much about it, however it is a major concern. So much so that we changed from being ratemygarage.ie to bestgarages.ie, the theory being that we want to promote good garages and not rant about bad ones. For instance if I want my car serviced, I'm more interested in finding one with good ratinigs and reviews than looking at those with bad ones. Our site shows the best garages so people can go to this garages, if a garage isn't shown, well we're not judging it, its just not there - so why not go to the one with the positive feedback. Its an approach you might want to consider, it certainly avoids you getting into hot water - and with the way your site is set up i.e. the Hall of Shame, then you certainly will. When we took this approach we got some criticism here from people saying it was one sided. This is not the case, we just don't want the hassle of naming and shaming bad garages, bit some people won't be told.
- The main issue we have and you no doubt will is getting people to add reviews. I think people in general only go to the trouble of posting when they have had a bad experience, so its much harder to get people to talk about a positive experience. I have heard our site being mentioned on the radio and seen it in the paper where people have used it and benefited from it, but the problem is they find a garage with good reviews, use it and benefit from better service at a better price, but they don't go back and update the site with their findings. This is disappointing, but what can we do. If you look at menupages.ie, they offer an incentive for people to rate restaurants, but you have to wonder if they are just reviewing to get discounts? Also, people eat much more than they service their car or in your case use a tradesman.
- As other posters said, its very difficult to make money from these ventures as you have to be careful who advertises and how this is perceived and if it makes people think your site is affected by it. In most cases its not, but people don't believe that. You need to be thinking of alternative spin offs from your site. We are looking at some of these on our site, we have a survey we ran all last year for instance which we are about to publish the findings for, we'd love to become a 'JD power' equivalent for Ireland for instance
- Another poster said the whole ratings thing has been done and doesn't work and I agree to a certain extent. Its difficult and a challenge and needs fresh thinking - I'll admit to that and we are constantly thinking of ways to improve our site so happy to work with you on any theories. I think the likes of ratemysolicitor/ratemyteacher etc. has done irrepreable damage to the 'ratemy' name so i'd advise you to reconsider that name, I really don't think people have confidence in it. Your idea is a good one, you just need to approach it differently in my view.
- Finally, be prepared for lots of bashing. 95% of people on boards and the like are positive people who want to help, but there is a sad minority who like nothing more than to bash people who make an effort to do something. Just ignore these people, and good luck with your venture. Remember, these ideas need to be worked on and improved and there is a good little group of people on these boards who are happy to help one another.
(I won't comment on your site design as others have done this already and prob better placed than me on that subject matter).
feel free to PM me if you want to talk anymore
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mr0bojangles wrote: »Does anyone have any ideas on how to make better use of the space?
How about some simple "How To" guides?
I don't mean anything that will lose your trade partners any money, just simple DIY tips. This could be a possible earner for you if you can get a tradesman involved, as in....this weeks tip is brought to you & sponsored by Joe Bloggs Plumbing.
Another option is to make some review/comparison videos.
For eg, make a video where you compare two different make of cordless power drills and tell people the flaws and benefits of each drill.
If you are going to use videos then (in my opinion) they should be informative or instructional...you are not really running an entertainment site. 0
your going to hell for that!! trust me ...:P 
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