Having it in listed in pounds instead of dollars would lead me to close the page right away, thinking it was a british only site. And I dunno but prices seem to be a little high.
Problem #2:...you need to convince people that your editors actually know what they are doing. You need to show that you have your editors take a certain test(ie proofread a 5 page essay to find all errors). That way people know the guy reading actually knows his stuff, and is not just a 12 year old kid who wants to make a few bucks.
Problem #3: Your editors need to be local. Native english speaker means different things in England, in United States and in India. You need to make sure the person proof reading the stuff is in the same country as the person paying the bill.
Problem #4: Domain sucks. Sure korect.me is quirky. But as you just saw I completely misspelled it on the first try. You need a domain that is misspell proof...or at least own the misspelled domains too.
Problem #5: Getting a .me domain is a great way to get penalized in search results. If you want even a tiny bit of people to find you via search engines, you need to change that to a .com
Problem #6: Your landing page sucks. You need to let a person know right away how much they'll be paying.
Problem #7: I want a discount should send a person to a new page, where you tell them about how they can get a discount. Right now you just send them to a blank page, with the discount code below the fold.
Problem #8: You need to add some guarantee...I dunno something like "if we don't catch all errors, you get half off". Make sure there is an incentive for proofreaders to get it right...and for the customer to trust you.
Problem #9: Your page is missing meta descriptions and meta keywords. Not only do those help with SEO but description is how your stuff appears in Google.
Problem #10: You need a word counter on the text box, and you should display a running total of how much the proofreading will cost the person.
I completely agree with Vaskel on all the points. All through my visit I was searching for examples of previously proof-read material so that I can judge the quality but I couldn't find any.
It's quite amazing to me that people are willing to pay ~$11 for proofreading ~100 words and won't pay 1 cent for far more technologically advanced services. This is why you have to figure out what people will pay for before you build it. Best of luck to you on this project.
People do not pay for technical advancement. They pay for solving their problems. If you need 500 well written words to nail a job, a promotion, a contract, or a term paper, you will darn well pay to make sure they are perfect. People would pay for Twitter if it credibly promised jobs, promotions, contracts, and term papers.
People do not pay for technical advancement. They pay for solving their problems.
Yeah, I get it. My point was that it isn't easy to find something people are willing to pay you for, no matter how simple that sounds. Also, technical advancement typically involves making something difficult and costly, easy and cheap, so I thought it was reasonable to assume that people would pay for it. I was either wrong, timed the market wrong or failed in my marketing efforts, which is admittedly not my strong point.
@vaksel Thank you for the feedback. This is what we need so much!
Some of the points (2, 6, 8) we are solving and those should be live this week.
#10 there is a counter - '...get an estimate' link (we can do better I am sure).
I really appreciate your time spent on this and will try to get better!
I think it is pretty cool service. Not sure about pricing. With english being my second language, I would definitely appreciate some corrections here and there. Good idea, keep working on it.
Interesting story. I wonder, though, about the company's dependence on Adwords. What if costs go up, and/or the site is unable to get good search engine ranking for proofing services?
That's what I hate about Adwords. It's a vampire that sucks every last drop of profit margin out of small businesses like this. Bidding on keywords becomes a race to the bottom and everyone loses except Google.
There's no value in this. There's no efficiency gain. It's monopoly rent-seeking and I would like to see that monopoly broken.
The estimate I received was 8 pounds. I mistook the pound symbol for euros. In any case, the conversion is nearly the same. Please don't take my post as criticism. I was merely reflecting on the fact that I spent a few years of my life building what I thought was amazing and then found out that no one wanted to pay for it. Even if this doesn't work out for you, you only spent one week. Bravo.
Having it in listed in pounds instead of dollars would lead me to close the page right away, thinking it was a british only site. And I dunno but prices seem to be a little high.
Problem #2:...you need to convince people that your editors actually know what they are doing. You need to show that you have your editors take a certain test(ie proofread a 5 page essay to find all errors). That way people know the guy reading actually knows his stuff, and is not just a 12 year old kid who wants to make a few bucks.
Problem #3: Your editors need to be local. Native english speaker means different things in England, in United States and in India. You need to make sure the person proof reading the stuff is in the same country as the person paying the bill.
Problem #4: Domain sucks. Sure korect.me is quirky. But as you just saw I completely misspelled it on the first try. You need a domain that is misspell proof...or at least own the misspelled domains too.
Problem #5: Getting a .me domain is a great way to get penalized in search results. If you want even a tiny bit of people to find you via search engines, you need to change that to a .com
Problem #6: Your landing page sucks. You need to let a person know right away how much they'll be paying.
Problem #7: I want a discount should send a person to a new page, where you tell them about how they can get a discount. Right now you just send them to a blank page, with the discount code below the fold.
Problem #8: You need to add some guarantee...I dunno something like "if we don't catch all errors, you get half off". Make sure there is an incentive for proofreaders to get it right...and for the customer to trust you.
Problem #9: Your page is missing meta descriptions and meta keywords. Not only do those help with SEO but description is how your stuff appears in Google.
Problem #10: You need a word counter on the text box, and you should display a running total of how much the proofreading will cost the person.