Comments Please - IrelandPages.com

Webmonkey

Hey there,

Ok KerryPages.com was a great success - Transtion year over, holidays ere and now we moving on to nationwide. The new site will be full of features such as online shopping, virtual tours, job search etc.

I need opinions on a design i'm creating. None of the links will work as its just an overall layout i'm working on, scripting comes later:

New Design
http://www.irelandpages.com/ireland/ad.php

Old Design on kerrypages:
http://www.kerrypages.com/?kerryfunc=detail&id=100

Can ye tell me what ye think please

./Webmonkey


edit: Oh also forgot to say, we looking for people to work for us.

Examples of income:

Bad Day>>
Earn Irelandpages 300 a day 5 days week. (Less than 3 gold ads) earn 35% yourself = €525 pay cheque.

Good Day>>
Earn Irelandpages 600 a day 5 days week. (Just more than 3 gold ads) earn 35% yourself = €1050 pay cheque.

We supply Laptop, Digital Camera if you don't have one allready. All you have to do, go out get ads, at night upload via a easy to use control panel and way you go!

I swear no scam, easy as that, i know that we dont' offer a flat wage per week but what av u to lose!

./Webmonkey

Terminator

Your site looks really.

But unless you're getting thousands of targetted visitors why would anyone pay that kind of money to advertise on it?

Sir Random

Nice layouts.
You might want to set the body bgcolor to white on the irelandpages site (not everyone uses default browser settings).

tom-thebox

It loads really fast like the layout too, the graphic work is really good it loads really quick once again.

mneylon

Unless you can dupe people into coughing up this could easily go the way of so many other online ad sites. The 'net is littered with them.

Before you can start charging people large sums of money you need to build up an audience. If you can get the audience then you can get the paying advertisers.

Webmonkey

Hey there, thanks for the comments

Well ok it is a directory, no one knows bout it yet really but basically it will be like they will get their own website. They will get a domain: http://www.irelandpages.com/nameofbusiness or a TLD if they want. Ok its their own site you could call it so people would like to have this and visitors to irelandpages wouldn't be the full traffic. They will also get traffic if they advertise their address themselves. I'm planning to put a lot of features into it eg: online catalogs, submit comments/votes on businesses, virtual tours etc. Each ad/site will have comprehensive features for hardly nothing. I think it will work, i hope, what do ye think and btw i am going to market this greatly, radio, papers and even tv later on. We have allready being successful so far so I don't see much stopping us from going ahead.

Thanks for the comments.

./Webmonkey

Terminator

Best of luck with it. But its like Blacknight says you need the audience figures to back it up when you go cold-calling people looking for them to advertise. You should probably have a period where its free to join and when you reach critical mass start charging then.

tomED

You need to do some seriuos online marketing and search engine optimisation if you want to get people visintg this - ahem 2bscene

No seriuosly - everyone is telling you here how you will need to get a seriuos amount of hits to get people to pay for advertising on your site. Well I'm going to say here that you dont.....

As sick and as much as I hate these people that do this - the people that convince joe soap that something like this will benfit them. But its true they can easily be fooled

A web development company I worked for did something similar - I wont name the website/s that they did it on - but basically it was an online directory/community of every county in ireland.... so they had at least 36 websites.... they get (and i can post stas aswell) just over 2000 unique visits over all the sites per month.... pure and simple - a joke..

Yet they were getting people willing to pay on these basis:
1. Listing in the directory (with you own page) €150
2. Small banner add on the homepage - €750 per month
3. Large banner ad per month - €1500

and I know that some poor codger went on a yearly contract with them costing them 12k.............

So you can do it - but I dont agree with it. It's only really the bigger companies that have marketing people that will look for proven statistics. I know the people that were selling this site used to use the hits as opposed to the visits as their way of selling it.......

If you can prove statistics to me - i will include your site in some of the proposals I send out to my clients.

Terminator

A well known web development company may be able to pull that off but I think more questions would be asked of a teenage transition year student. Maybe thats why he's looking for telesales people - his own voice is too squeaky.

tomED

LOL!!!

Well yeah it comes down to how the site is sold of course. But my point is that you don't need a huge number of hits. If you get your story straight and can sell it well, the majority of people wont ask for prove of statistics.

mneylon

Webmonkey's project could have been bought up by people had it been launched a couple of years ago. Anybody with a bit of sense now is very wary about how they advertise online if at all.
You might be able to fool some people, but why bother? Get the site listed properly first. Build up an audience THEN start charging people.

Apart from that your prices for the advertising are far too high, especially considering that you still don't have an audience.
It would be cheaper and probably more cost-effective to take out advertising through TCM. Have you even checked the current industry prices?

ballooba

Webmonkey,

Cool design, loaded fast too.

Are the shop you work with going in on this with you or is it you on your own?

What are you going to do next year when you are studying for the LC and more importantly the year after. I got bogged down with extra-curricular responsibilities this year but luckily enough i could take a couple of weeks off at the end of the year to study for my exams. That's for college exams though, LC is a whole different kettle of fish, way harder.

tomED

You might be able to fool some people, but why bother? Get the site listed properly first. Build up an audience THEN start charging people.

I agree

Webmonkey

OK thanks very much for your replys.

Ok I don't want to fool people in this, I want a proper genuine business. We are going to work very hard on this, we allready got advertising deals.

Ok next year, I don't know whats going to happen, I'll see how it goes and No this is not a part of where i work, its made 100% myself and graphics are also 100% original by me.

I appriciate your comments very much but as in sqeaky voice, no i don't have one, and I tend to sell very well.

We are going to try our best to lift this site up, once its greated, its on the making of.

Thanks once again, further comments appricated also.

Thanks.

./Webmonkey

ballooba

Originally posted by Webmonkey
Ok next year, I don't know whats going to happen, I'll see how it goes and No this is not a part of where i work, its made 100% myself and graphics are also 100% original by me.

Not to sound patronising but thats not really good enough. For yourself. If you're going to start something you have to put your full effort into it. If you try to do your LC and run this at the same time your going to be making a half arsed attempt at both. You have to make a decision about which you are going to do.

[edit] Also you have to think about your backup, if you decide to decide to do this and not the LC, what happens if things don't go according to plan. Its sad but without the LC your options are severely reduced as to the doors open to you.

The leaving cert is a very tough test, especially for males as the system seems biased towards females.
[/edit]

Webmonkey

Ok i kinda lied there, :P I dont' think i'm going back to school next year. I got a good job to fall back on if this thing fails. There are 3 of us and we are going to work our hardest now at this.

ballooba

You'll have a hell of a lot better opportunities if you do the LC. Take the advice of family and friends on board before you do anything rash but if you are confident about it and you see a future there then grab it with both hands.

nahdoic

Does the idea of going to college and getting a degree appeal to you at all Webmonkey?

You're obviously interested in computers, and you'd probably really enjoy some sort of Computer Science course, and if you don't have any commitments at this time in your life ... it's the perfect time for studying and having fun.

It will be so much harder in years to come to go back and get an education.

Terminator

Would it not be extremely foolish to drop out of school?

You're doing yourself no favours here. Its hard enough to get a job without some form of 3rd level education and no college will accept you if don't have a leaving certificate.

If I were you I'd let the website bubble away in the background for a few years. Treat it like a hobby and spend the odd weekend on it.

Even if you have a hugely successful summer and it makes a ton of money (highly unlikely) that doesn't mean you should throw away your future. Remember altavista, excite, go, boo, salon, qxl, hell even AOL - they were all big names and look at them now.

Where will you be in a few years without your leaving certificate?

/ he's not a webmaster - he's a very naughty boy

mneylon

I agree with Terminator

If you don't get a decent education you will regret it. There's nothing to stop you doing both things, but have a look around. How many successful business people are there out there without a good education?

tom-thebox

Originally posted by blacknight
How many successful business people are there out there without a good education?

Quite a few if you care to read.


How many college kids out there after spending 8 years in college and doing **** all strung out on hash.

If the kid has a hunger for money I think he will do well in what ever path he chooses.

mneylon

I think you missed my point Tom

PhilipMarlowe

Comments like that can be dangerous and have to be put in perspective.
I know somebody (26) who wants to go back to college now... this means leaving a well paid job, selling a car, a 5 year course and probably another few years out of college to begin earning decent money again. That’s a hell of a decision to make at that age.
In your teens, you likely haven't any responsibility other than to yourself. But say you give this 2 years to try and make it work... and if it doesn't then, you might find you have to sit your LC at 20+, maybe 4 years in college and again add another couple until you have any earning potential. At this stage, there may well be other people involved in your life so decisions can’t necessarily be as selfish as they are now.

I would say that the year now to complete your LC (at least) will cost you so much less now than if you postpone it (indefinitely).
Besides, college is about much more than learning… it’s about social interaction, making friends/contacts, getting drunk/laid etc.

Also, IMO, unless the fundamentals behind the site are sound, I can’t see it ever being successful. Relying on ‘almost tricking’ people who don’t know better into paying for expensive advertising can hardly be a lasting venture… the old saying “you can fool some of the people… etc.”

I’d be interested to hear mack the knife’s comments….

Sir Random

Doing the LC is a guaranteed winner. After that, you've a few years to try out business ideas with a safety net if you fail.

jmcc

Originally posted by Licksy20
I would say that the year now to complete your LC (at least) will cost you so much less now than if you postpone it (indefinitely).

As Licksy20 and others have said, it makes far more sense to do the LC. Hell - even people flipping burgers in McDonalds have degrees these days. The LC is not an end in itself. It gives you opportunities. When people use Bill Gates as an example of a drop out, he dropped out of college and he had a very rich family and trust fund to use. The few drop outs who do make it are very exceptional people and there are damned few of them around.

Also, IMO, unless the fundamentals behind the site are sound, I can’t see it ever being successful. Relying on ‘almost tricking’ people who don’t know better into paying for expensive advertising can hardly be a lasting venture… the old saying “you can fool some of the people… etc.”

That is the big problem. I don't think that the fundamentals behind this site (from looking at the site and reading the thread) are sound. Starting a simple part time business is one thing but when you are playing for keeps, a lot more comes into the equation.

The tax position changes considerably. You have to form a limited company (ideally). You have to pay income tax and PRSI. If you have employees you have to handle PAYE and potentially pension payments. You may have to register for VAT. That means charging VAT on sales and filing VAT returns every two months.

And those 'agents' with the laptops and digital cameras - if you are their only source of income, the Revenue Commissioners could decide that they are employees of the company. Consequently you end up with accounts fees, solicitors fees etc.

Those were some of the hard business aspects. Now for simpler things:

Does the site/idea scale? Handling a site like this in an area where you are known is one thing. Running it as a business in other businesses territories is something completely different.

The Transition Year thing may give it a novelty factor/feel-good factor with businesses paying up more from encouragement. However outside your identified territory, people are under no obligation to support you and your opponents will do everything to delete you if they can. (You can be sure that the charge of it being 'just a Transition Year project' will be thrown at it. And that can be a killer - the idea that it will not be there in a year's time.)

Existing businesses will regard yours as a problem to be taken care of in whatever manner they can. The market does not owe you a living and the existing players have phonebills/mortgages/car repayments to meet. Your business is just one more obstacle in their way.

The idea of a pay for inclusion (PFI) directory is tricky to implement considering that Google seems to have very little on kerrypages.com (And consequently you are probably not getting much traffic from Google.) Most people tend to navigate by search engine these days and unless the directory has serious traffic, punters may be better off paying for Google adwords advertising. It doesn't cost anything to get into Google.

The target market for this is not businesses that want to be in the directory. It is businesses that don't have a website. The directory is a hook to get them interested in buying a website. To confuse it as being anything other than a hook is dangerous.

A site like kerrypages.com is graphics rich and may look impressive. What happens when it gets serious traffic? Can the servers support that kind of traffic? Will it cost extra and how much? These are simple technical problems that have to be addressed.

The aspect of voting on businesses potentially puts the site in very serious trouble under Irish libel law.

Setting up community forums for businesses is a nice idea but again they have to have traffic and they have to have reasons for people to use them. One article that outlines the whole BBS/community thing [1] makes some of these points in a more lucid manner.

It may have a future as a localised directory tie-in to a webdev company. But establishing it as a major Irish directory will difficult and will take time. None of the Irish directories that I know of are currently operating as stand-alone businesses. They are all tied into other businesses. The failure rate for Irish search engines/directories is extremely high. In the last year or so, I can think of a few that have crashed and burned, or in some cases never started at all. (searchengine.ie, iesearch.ie, irelandsno1.ie, locataco (?), irelandstop100.com, iedirectory.ie, easysearch.ie etc).

Creating a directory for Ireland is easy (for me anyway ) but anyone could slap a pod (personal Dmoz) script on their site and have something similar going without the infrastructure of a major search engine - it could be done in about ten minutes. The hard part is getting traffic and getting paid. Localised/niche directories have somewhat of a better chance but the traffic has to be there.

I don't have access to local Kerry news sources so I cannot see if there is any real world advertising for the site. This is another aspect of the business that would have to be taken into consideration in any attempt to raise its profile. Up until now the 'business' has probably relied on word of mouth. However outside its local area, it will have to be sold on the benefits.

Moving to an Ireland-wide scale is a mistake because ideas like this rarely scale without serious resources. Local.ie is a classic example of what can happen even when the resources are there. The whole PFI directory business is a tough one and it is being killed off by keyword advertising on search engines. And then you are into competing with Google, Yahoo, MSN, Overture, Espotting, Looksmart etc.

I’d be interested to hear mack the knife’s comments….

<hardnosed cynical bastard mode >
To paraphrase Napoleon: "Never interrupt a directory developer when he is making a mistake."
</hardnosed cynical bastard mode>

Regards...jmcc
[1] http://www.hackwatch.com/localie.html

Webmonkey

Hey there,

its just that a lot of people that come out of college have no where to go, i know several people that have no job because the jobs just arnt around and i'll do LC allrite, its just a year out. i'll go bakc again after.

I was just looking for comments on the site, not a lesson on what i sohuld do on my life

Thanks

Webmonkey

Webmonkey

wow long post there and thanks but It still doesn't put me off doign this.

We have allready gone to solisitors, and have all the plans drawn up and it will be localised because each county will have their own part on the site. eg www.irelandpages.com/kerry or kerry.irelandpages.com

We have allready being on newspapers a lot and as for the site I know what i'm doing. PHP and MySQL - I know what i'm doing and it isnt that hard. As for bandwidth with the host, this is not an issue as Im getting dedicated servers soon and I have secure servers lined up for buying on line. As i say its must more than a directory its must like having your own site. A lot of businesses will want this as it will make their business be some bit online anyway.

I really think that the main reason i'm getting all this critizism is because of my age - Just because im young doesnt mean i'm not able for this. Age isn't a matter when it comes on internet busineses. Whats wrong with being a young entrepeneur? Someone must play to role or there will be no future jobs.

I'm going to try my best with this but really what ye say doesn't put me off at all but I know ye are just telling me whats best, maybe i sound spoiled or something but i really want to make this work and I will go through life positive and "Nothing is Impossible"

I got an idea, I got the resources and i'm just going to go for it. A bit of support would be appriciated tho

Thanks once again.

./Webmonkey

ballooba

Going back to school is a lot harder than i think you realise. Going from being your own boss to be slightly on edge because things didn't work out AND THEN having to take orders off teachers again.

Originally posted by Webmonkey
I really think that the main reason i'm getting all this critizism is because of my age - Just because im young doesnt mean i'm not able for this. Age isn't a matter when it comes on internet busineses. Whats wrong with being a young entrepeneur? Someone must play to role or there will be no future jobs.

Its not so much your age as the options open to you. I'm not that much older than you, myself and a friend set up a business this January because we never got to do it in transition year and we thought it would be a bit of a laugh.

We know its a bit of fun and so do our suppliers and customers. Just there before my exams started several lucrative doors opened to us which would mean leaving college. We decided that we are half way through a degree and that some of those doors would still be open to us in two years. If not so be it other doors will open.

An opportunity came before me the summer before I repeated my leaving. I was offered a share in the second from market leader in what seemed to be a huge emerging market. It was severely tempting as I was looking at doing my leaving again. I thought about it for a while and took advice from family and friends. I decided that in the unlikely event that it did go pearshape that i would be ****ed. As it happened it did go pearshaped, and how bloody glad am i that i stayed clear. The whole market collapsed.

Originally posted by Webmonkey
I'm going to try my best with this but really what ye say doesn't put me off at all but I know ye are just telling me whats best, maybe i sound spoiled or something but i really want to make this work and I will go through life positive and "Nothing is Impossible"

Well you are wrong there because some thngs are impossible and there is no point in being cocky and thinking you are invincible.

Originally posted by Webmonkey
I got an idea, I got the resources and i'm just going to go for it. A bit of support would be appriciated tho

Anyone who gives you support even though they think you are making a mistake is insincere.

mneylon

I think jmcc summed up nicely and covered both sides.

Terminator

How'd things work out for you Webmonkey? Did you leave school for the year? Hows the site going?

Webmonkey

haha no Education came first, and it was really hard to get this project to work. I don't suppose anyone wants to take over KerryPages.com?

rymus

irelandpages.com won't load for me for some reason... but anyway

I worked for a crowd a few years ago that created "the most advanced business directory in Ireland". I designed I dunno how many hundred websites for them, the basic "this is my business, heres what I do" kinda things. They had hundreds of sales reps all over Ireland flogging the idea. It worked marvellously... for about 18 months. Then it all went horribly wrong. Thousands of subscibers became very pissed off very quickly.

It's a good idea webmonkey, as long as it's properly managed. To draw a direct comparison, the crowd I worked for had TV, radio & print ads running constantly to get their name out there. They had about 30 full time people ringing every business in the phone book informing them they were entitled to a free listing but could upgrade to a subscription for X amount per annum. It was actually rather scary how fast it all came together.. even scarier how fast it all fell apart. Just be careful and don't rely on anything that has anything to do with the internet...

Webmonkey

Originally posted by rymus
irelandpages.com won't load for me for some reason... but anyway

I worked for a crowd a few years ago that created "the most advanced business directory in Ireland". I designed I dunno how many hundred websites for them, the basic "this is my business, heres what I do" kinda things. They had hundreds of sales reps all over Ireland flogging the idea. It worked marvellously... for about 18 months. Then it all went horribly wrong. Thousands of subscibers became very pissed off very quickly.

It's a good idea webmonkey, as long as it's properly managed. To draw a direct comparison, the crowd I worked for had TV, radio & print ads running constantly to get their name out there. They had about 30 full time people ringing every business in the phone book informing them they were entitled to a free listing but could upgrade to a subscription for X amount per annum. It was actually rather scary how fast it all came together.. even scarier how fast it all fell apart. Just be careful and don't rely on anything that has anything to do with the internet...

I agree there with you...

If we ever continue kerrypages, we are going to make it so they get a" website" instead of an ad in our directory. I doubt the customers would be pissed off as they are the ones that have to do the marketing. Advertising is always the hardest thing :rolleyes:

O well, i have hardly no time anymore