

Ask HN: How do I improve user engagement on a photo site? - PaulHoule

Hi,  I've developed a site<p>http://ookaboo.com/<p>which has accumulated about a million images and gets several thousand visitors a day who are looking for pictures.<p>I've recently added features to let users add images and I've quite literally recorded a 0.01% conversion rate.  I think part of the problem could be the U.I. but I think another part is that I've attracted the wrong audience.<p>Any ideas how I can get better use engagement.
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Joakal
I agree with prpon. Your site gives a craigslist feel. Not even a wiki feel.

Look at one of your similar competitors: <http://www.flickr.com/> They have a
calls to action as you scroll down with a final "Still not convinced? Take the
Flickr Tour!".

If I refer a friend to your website, what are they going to do? They'll act
confused as there's no steps or where to start. In fact, they see all these
categories and get overwhelmed. I then noticed there's step-by-step
instructions but it's surrounded by all those hyperlinks. You need to
emphasise it more. Take a note of Flickr.

So you're appealing to designers or people with creativity? Your website
doesn't look creative. Look up website inspirations. Copy a few websites that
you like, then try creating your own.

SEO issue, why are you redirecting to /o/pictures as main directory? It should
always be <http://ookaboo.com/> in URL if I go to it. You will encounter
issues as well future linking issues if people bookmark it and you didn't
sufficiently re-direct it due to a backend or some kind of change.

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prpon
Seriously my friend, that site needs some design love. I am no design guru
here but that site desperately needs a designer.

Here are a few things I would suggest:

1\. Search box at the top to search images. 2\. slide show of random images
front and center. 3\. A call to action button to upload images. 4\. scrollable
or scrolling categories.

You pretty much have everything I said, but nothing stands out.

~~~
PaulHoule
So far as 2 I'm frustrated because I'd like to emphasize what's unique about
Ookaboo. I could do the same slide show everybody else does, but I've got
better metadata and don't know how to show it off in a way that people get
instantly.

I'm not so sure what you mean by 4.

~~~
prpon
By scrollable categories, I mean that you have categories mentioned below in
long list. I don't know if anyone would have patience to go through them.
Certainly not me.

A scrollable categories list would show different categories in a nicer way
with 4 at a time and a more button to view the complete list if someone is
interested.

You might have better metadata than anyone else but I didn't get it from
looking at the page.

Flickr does a pretty good job of displaying other information on the side of a
photo. You can do the same with your metadata
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/gcattiaux/2349773004/>

