My New Electronics Website

[adept]

Hi guys! I have been trying to find work for over a year now, but finally gave up, instead deciding to do something with my mind on my own time. So, I started designing this website on Monday and am looking for some ideas on articles I should write as well as general advice on my site layout. And no Dave, there is no competing with your blog. I just want to sell some of my robotics kits and things so that I can make some money to feed myself! My website URL is at www.protestant-tech.com. I think you guys will enjoy my coding abilities! Hope to get some helpful advice as usual guys!

[EEVblog]

And no Dave, there is no competing with your blog.

I WANT people competing with my blog!
The more content producers the better IMO.

Dave.

[adept]

Wow Dave, you have never responded to one of my posts personally before! I'm honored that you looked at it. How's the world in Australia! But seriously, are you liking what I've been working on? (Besides the content not being complete yet. I'm working on that frantically! )

[vk3yedotcom]

1. The first question I had was 'do you serve Catholics' (or Hindus, Muslims, Mormons, Jehovas or athiests)? because of your name (Protestant Technologies).   

Maybe change it as you can't afford to alienate 80% of your market.

Possibly to something edgier that suits the 'being different' tagline. Even just 'Protest Technologies'.

2. The website looks workmanlike enough but doesn't exactly grab the viewer.

3. What are you on about?  The tagline refers to computing but the first article on the main page is about analogue CROs.  It needs to link with computing better - or maybe ditch the 'computing' in the line.

4. Wireless Power experiment.  "This experiment explores the possibility of higher power outputs by using voltage multipliers."   If you achieve that you've achieved perpetual motion. 

Sure you might be able to multiply the voltage but you'll halve the current.  So the power is either the same (assuming 100% efficiency) or (likely) less.  So no power (ie volts x amps) gain at all.

The article's also incomplete and leaves the reader in annoying suspense.  Take it off until complete.   Avoid putting off the novice or insulting the knowledgeable.

5. You're here to sell.  So why not have a few of your major products highlighted on the entry page? 

6. Who are you?  A seller of simple kits?  An educational website on test equipment? A consumer electronics supplier who can help people with untidy charger leads?  At the moment the site screams all three, which isn't good.  Focus, position and tell.   The front page should communicate a strong identity; people shouldn't need to find it buried under 'About Us'.

7. Writing style. Snappy is best. Some sentences are too long.

8. Tell people your capabilities, specialised interests, what you can do and how you can help.

9. Video demonstrations. There's no excuse not to have them. Especially those whose operation is unfamliar, eg the photovore robot.

[adept]

Thank you very much vk3yedotcom! I'm going to start on your list of improvements right away. I think I'm going to keep the name because I've screwed up with the domain name and everything... Here in the US, 80% of people WON'T be offended. But in the future, I will consider that when I make other businesses. But otherwise, all the other improvements are things I really need to fix!

[mianchen]

a .com domain is only $6.99/year with a promo code (google it), just saying.

[adept]

I'll get working on changing the domain name. I'll leave protestant-tech.com up, as I bought a whole year of that domain name for only 50 cents, but I think I should also invest another 50 cents in protest-tech.com. But before I do that, I want to make sure that protest-tech.com is indeed going to be a good name for my website. Obviously I don't have any taste in this kind of venture. And once that is taken care of, I can rename the site in literally just a few minutes plus the time to remake the logo image.

But besides the name, vk3yedotcom had mentioned that my site wasn't appealing enough, and my Google Analytics page suggests that about a third of people come to the site, see it, and click away really fast. What features can I change to make it more inviting? I feel that my site is very professional looking. Is it the color scheme that I am lacking in? Because if that's the issue, I think it would make sense to change it to something with a lot of blues in it because science indicates that blues and soft grays are easy to read and look at. (Which is mostly why I selected the gray theme in the first place.)

Anyway, I am really enjoying the feedback that I am getting from you guys! Thanks a bunch for being everything that I wanted!

[EEVblog]

1. The first question I had was 'do you serve Catholics' (or Hindus, Muslims, Mormons, Jehovas or athiests)? because of your name (Protestant Technologies).   

That's the first thing I thought of!

Dave.

[SeanB]

You just need a little more material, that is all. You are doing well otherwise, and just need to put in the images and flesh out the pages a little more.

[hlavac]

I'm having trouble accessing the site from iphone, it will not let me turn off the mobile version of the site

[bitwelder]

I'll get working on changing the domain name. I'll leave protestant-tech.com up, as I bought a whole year of that domain name for only 50 cents, but I think I should also invest another 50 cents in protest-tech.com. But before I do that, I want to make sure that protest-tech.com is indeed going to be a good name for my website.

Well, why did you choose that name, did you want to convey any message?
I'm not so sure about the "Protest Tech" either, unless you're going to spell it like "Pro-test Tech", you may end up getting requests for bomb timers and other guerrilla gadgets 

[yanir]

I agree,an entirely new name is in order.  Your name doesn't need to mean anything in particular either. But if you use words like "protest" you need to have the content of your site correlate. The name should connote what you are selling. If you want to communicate  you've got tech for that is different from what other people are selling pick a word that has that meaning, and no need to limit yourself to English (since all single and double word domain names are all taken).

[SLJ]

Use this site to see what domain name combinations may be available:  https://domize.com/

[Wilksey]

Not too bad a website, needs more content, but as you are just literally starting up, you are probably already aware of this!

I personally don't see an issue with the domain name, but I can see why others would.

Why not just call it "adept-tech" ?

In terms of it standing out more, it's a bit monochrome in it's styling, nothing "jumps" out at you, maybe a few images of robots or circuits or something?  and maybe a bit of highlighting around things to make it stand out? It looks like any standard blog type site rather than anything special (if that makes sense?)

For example, look at eevblog.com, it stands out, the logo, the picture of a surprised Dave, etc, it makes you want to look around.

Hope some of this has been helpful?

[adept]

hlavac could you describe the problem better? I don't have an iPhone, so I can't test it myself. Is the Desktop Version link broken? It should be linking you to the site, but it may be auto detecting you're iPhone a second time. And I'm also considering removing the mobile site entirely because it is an eyesore at the moment and the regular site Is already pretty mobile friendly... I don't know yet if that is a good idea though....

In regards to the name, I've come up with a list of prefixes and suffixes, and some names I've come up with include:
ptech, circuit-pro, bittek, society of bits...
Obviously, none of these really stick out to me, but they're the result of me sitting down and thinking  for like forty five minutes. Is there any combinations of these, or alterations that are good for me?

The content issue will be fixed very shortly. I have several prototypes ready to be produced, I just have to write the articles and prepare myself for production.

For Dave or another webmaster out there, how can I add a checkout to my store? Paypal offers an account for like 40 bucks, but do I need the extra features? Or should I register for a merchant bank account and use Virtuemart... They charge basically the same rates as Paypal, but then I could take credit, debit, cash, and checks, as well as the superior user interface options it would allow me to use. All this would make the customers feel more vulnerable though, they like the security that Paypal offers. What do you think?

I am going to work on a better logo over the break. However, I am not at my normal computer so it is going to be a while. Working on the mobile-desktop switch bug, I am able to view everything from my normal browser with some finagling.

[adept]

bump

EDIT:
What do you guys think of "www.anima-tek.com"? It's not offensive, keeps my possibilities open for the future, and it's not too terrible sounding. If it's good, I'll change it with my Christmas cash from my family!

[vk3yedotcom]

What do you guys think of "www.anima-tek.com"?

Never ever have a hypen in a website URL.

'Animatek' (one word) could be OK if available.  Though it conjures up images of animation or animals which may or may not be what you want.

Would be an excellent name if you were into robotics etc.

[adept]

I don't entirely understand why a hyphen would be bad, but its there because the other is officially unavailable, though it is for sale. I am into robots, but I don't want to limit myself to that in the future. it would be best if I could come up with a name that makes sense and also encompassed technology. Any other ideas? Its really hard to come up with an available domain name, yet alone one that makes the business successful.

[Conrad Hoffman]

Hyphens shouldn't cause trouble in this day and age, but they do. Use an underscore. Hyphens also seem to crash some pdf documents and should be scrupulously avoided there.

The site loads slowly on my dial-up. Oddly, not the photos, but the headers and such. Not everybody has access to or is willing to pay for high speed access, so paying attention to speed is good practice. I spend a lot of time making sure my site loads as fast as possible.

Use the W3C validation service on each and every page and mess with it until it's error free. Fix the errors and fix the warnings.

I don't have any problem with the name, and I see what you're trying to do, but it just isn't obvious/clever/catchy enough.

Give away lots of free stuff- utilities, charts/documents, anything useful to the electronic community. It keeps people in the site longer and keeps them coming back. It also give them a reason to link to the site and pass it on to others.

Use your meta statements wisely and you'll rank highly on the search engines without doing anything special. Don't do that and nothing else you do will help for any length of time.

Some of your text is contradictory concerning the philosophy of free stuff and the fact that you want to sell stuff. Go over every word and don't send mixed messages.

Overall it's a good start and not a bad site. I've been working on mine for years and it isn't close to what I want it to be, but you also don't want site maintenance to become a huge timesink.

Good luck, Best wishes & Merry Christmas!

[SLJ]

I've been in the domain marketing business for over 18 years.   Here's some things I've learned. 

Never use an underscore in a domain name as sometimes it does not show up and may look like a empty space.  It's not normally used for domain names.   Nothing wrong with a dash as it's an allowed character and often used but try not to use one though as it's hard for many to remember it's there.  Those that forget to include it will wind up on another web site.  Find something that's easy to spell, as short as possible, and most important easy for most to remember.  Easy to remember is much more important than anything else.  A .com extension is still worth more than anything else as if someone does not remember the extension, .com is what they usually type first.  If you use something else check to see what's at the .com as that's where some typing in your domain name wrong will wind up.

In spite of everything above, Google search engine ranking (in North America at least) is the most important as it is by far the largest search engine used.  Even if you have a crappy domain name you can still get a majority of your visitors by a good Google ranking.

As far as search engines go, the meta tags in your code are only a part of your ranking and will not guarantee you a place at the top.  Search engine ranking depends on several different parameters of a web site.

[adept]

I've done some more research, and apparently the hyphen causes people to have to say "anima hyphen tek" because the average person assumes there is no hyphen. Seems I already made that mistake...
When you say I should be careful with my meta data, do you mean that I should be paying attention to my browser titles, meta keywords, or meta description? I think that most of my pages don't even have the meta description, but they do have a browser title and some keywords. The keywords I have I keep pretty general. I basically assume nobody is looking for my particular brand. Is that a good idea? Some keywords I have for my feature $20 robot are listed below.
product (note that product is a special keyword my website looks for to determine if a product IS a product...), robots, robotics, kit, photovore, photophobe, line, follower, line-follower, electronics, tutorial, 20, dollar, build, your, own, diy
My brother suggests that this may be seen as keyword spamming, but I think that they describe the words that a user would want to use. As a compromise, maybe we should eliminate the shorter, less descriptive words, but that would eliminate the words that can make the keywords a complete sentence.
Back to the domain name, I used http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-choose-the-right-domain-name to select some other domain names. I came up with:
techforhobbyists.com
techforhackers.com
techformakers.com
electronicsforhobbyists.com
electronicsforhackers.com
electronicsformakers.com
electrictutorials.com
theelectricguide.com (<-haha, this one I thought was pretty funny! )

Anyway, is this going in the right direction? They seem a lot more broad to me. It should allow my possibilities to remain open. What do you guys think?

[IanJ]

theelectricguide.com (<-haha, this one I thought was pretty funny! )

..........this is the best one so far........quirky and easily remembered. All the others just sound like all the others out there!

Ian.

[Conrad Hoffman]

There are certainly other factors, but I make sure my meta keywords are generic and appropriate to every single page. Most of my pages come up high on the first page of a Google search, often within a day or two of putting them up. Agreed that underscores are best not used in domain names, but I'd stay away from hyphens as well, legal or not. It's the pdf files where they still crash the reader on occasion, so best none or underscores.

[adept]

A web SEO company called me the other day. Should I trust him with all my website information in the dim hope that he gives me some good advice on helping the website out? He claims that his services were included in my HostGator setup. The company is called "Attracta". It's kind of a funky sounding place. They claim to be the ducks guts in the business. All the steps they've already told me are already done.
Also, I'm waiting for HostGator's one cent hosting to expire in January before I change the domain name, just so that I can move over to GoDaddy's 21 dollar web hosting for the rest of the year, domain included, and not end up wasting my 51 cents I have invested in this. That should be a pretty good setup. Until then, the website is on hold while I'm working on completing some prototypes. I actually might post them up here on the EEVBlog! But there is little left to do but finish up the PCB. I did have a few questions regarding high frequency digital logic. Hm.... I think it's over there to make a new topic. But don't forget that I'm still checking this topic frequently, it's just that not much has happened over the last 4 days!

And, as usual, thanks a bunch EEVBlog. You guys rock!