Find Haunted Vendors - Rate - Review - Feedback

[drfrightner]

Okay our haunt directory is the next page that will be totally redone...

http://www.hauntworld.com/haunted_house_suppliers/

We are going to clean it up big time, and make it more like our state pages and allow vendors to create profiles more like what we do for haunts.

I needed your suggestions because one of the biggest features will allow buyers to leave ratings and reviews of vendors.

Additionally we'll have featured vendors separated from non-featured vendors. We'll allow them to do many of the same things like embed facebook, twitter, add videos, photos and more.

So what do you think we should add. This is a priority for us because we'll add these pages to all of our websites.

Larry

[screamline studios]

Sounds good Larry!! screamline is down with that.

[Gore Galore]

Simplify

Hey Larry,
I think that is a good plan.

The one thing I would say is simplify.
It is cluttered. I know you try to pack alot onto every page of your web pages. But it makes it hard to use.
I would say remove any superfluous information.
-Like the attraction links in the lower right hand corner.
-The recently added photos and video.

It just makes it so busy.
And if it isn't vendor specific, I don' t think it shouldn't be there.

Especially for featured vendors.
I say have your product listings on the left hand side, as you do. and a large banner link to another page. JUST FOR FEATURED VENDORS.
that way a vendor who paid for advertising gets more for their money. They really should be treated as special.
They have invested in you and I think this would help them get more traffic.

Honestly, I will say I thought the web banner links you give with magazine advertising was one of the best parts of advertising with you. But I am sad to say, I had seen that traffic dwindle to nothing with the loss of the large banners at the top of your pages, and now being replaced by Google paid advertising which drops that traffic even more, and with the addition of so much other information on your site.
There is just so much to surf through.

So the more you can help generate traffic for your vendors, the more it will be used.
I hope this helps.

[drfrightner]

I stated probably back 6 months ago that after Halloween we would redo our vendor directory. It doesn't look great and we've created so many new features that we must incorporate them all into this page. We will... we are going to make it look more like the state pages with banners side by side and profiles that allow you to do more for your business than it does now. I'm also going to add a PDF reader so you can upload a PDF version of your catalogs...that should be cool. If you have facebook embed that as well. Just overall better. Speaking of banners there will be banners for featured vendors both the smaller ones on each page and leaderboards as well. As for banners on the forums, we are going to add them back but the biggest difference is we are allowing vendors who are advertisers put banners on their posts and those who don't can't... I know a lot of banner clicks come from there. Either way the ad in the magazine itself is worth it because its like printing a catalog and mailing it to 2000 plus people... what would that cost you to do yourself? As for the google ads, our developers talked me into adding the google ads here and we are only testing it out to see what kind of return you can get. Honestly we are not getting the return we could if we went all in with it... if we had google ads all the way up our pages or leaderboards over state pages, or leaderboards on top of hauntworld front page. I didn't go that far because my first objective is to HELP haunted house OWNERS get traffic... the leaderboard banners on the front page of HW are still for vendors although I should change that.

The google ads for me isn't anything big ... probably because we are not ALL IN with them... we only made $3500 or so and honestly that is nothing.

Anyway the point of the thread was what do people want them to be so we can help vendors and buyers with good information. If anyone has some suggestions we'd love to hear them.

Larry

[thrilltainment]

simplicity is key.

I second Kevin,

less is more in many ways.

vendor reviews would be good ONLY if it's very easy for members to leave feedback, but if there is a lot of feedback, that also requires someone to constantly MODERATE the feedback, otherwise people may abuse the system and either self-promote or be malicious and try to kill others' ratings. perhaps you can follow what eBay does (give a vendor a chance to respond to each feedback) or what yelp does (moderate the feedback before it gets posted).

I also do see the trend as Kevin does with the banner traffic, it has gone down since you have mixed purely haunt vendor ads with Google Ads. If that extra revenue isn't worth it, I say turn it back to exclusively haunt vendors. If it happens to be that you need more revenue, you can sell different classes of banner ads on your page.

I think to help the vendors, just find a way to make the traffic come into their website as directly as possible, without having to dig through too many links. Adding the ability to embed things is OK, but not necessary. Most of us vendors already have our websites and facebook to maintain --- having ANOTHER site doing the same thing is more work for us. so just a direct way to filter traffic to our sites is best.

- Quan

Hey Larry,
I think that is a good plan.

The one thing I would say is simplify.
It is cluttered. I know you try to pack alot onto every page of your web pages. But it makes it hard to use.
I would say remove any superfluous information.
-Like the attraction links in the lower right hand corner.
-The recently added photos and video.

It just makes it so busy.
And if it isn't vendor specific, I don' t think it shouldn't be there.

Especially for featured vendors.
I say have your product listings on the left hand side, as you do. and a large banner link to another page. JUST FOR FEATURED VENDORS.
that way a vendor who paid for advertising gets more for their money. They really should be treated as special.
They have invested in you and I think this would help them get more traffic.

Honestly, I will say I thought the web banner links you give with magazine advertising was one of the best parts of advertising with you. But I am sad to say, I had seen that traffic dwindle to nothing with the loss of the large banners at the top of your pages, and now being replaced by Google paid advertising which drops that traffic even more, and with the addition of so much other information on your site.
There is just so much to surf through.

So the more you can help generate traffic for your vendors, the more it will be used.
I hope this helps.

[drfrightner]

Quan

No you don't understand you do NOT update your pages facebook, you embed the facebook so what happens is when you update YOUR facebook page it automatically updates your profile... this is exactly what happens on the haunt profiles.

So if you created the profile say 8 months ago and never update it in that timeframe everytime you update your facebook your profile will update as well. It will also help you get friends on your facebook profile.

The only place we do not have banners anymore is on these forums... everywhere else they use to be located they are plus more spots than before. Some vendors also might have seen a decrease in traffic from our site because we removed their links if they are not advertisers. We had pages on the sites like featured vendors and stuff blah, blah we deleted EVERYONE who is NOT a supporter of the site.

Anyway yes I agree the page is cluttered but it won't be we're going to fix that issue. I just want the feedback to keep rolling in in case someone has a really good idea out there which will help vendors and buyers connect better.

We will allow buyers to leave feedback through facebook. That is an easy feature for buyers to use and vendors to monitor.

Larry

[thrilltainment]

thanks for the clarification --- feedback via facebook seems reasonable.

Quan

No you don't understand you do NOT update your pages facebook, you embed the facebook so what happens is when you update YOUR facebook page it automatically updates your profile... this is exactly what happens on the haunt profiles.

So if you created the profile say 8 months ago and never update it in that timeframe everytime you update your facebook your profile will update as well. It will also help you get friends on your facebook profile.

The only place we do not have banners anymore is on these forums... everywhere else they use to be located they are plus more spots than before. Some vendors also might have seen a decrease in traffic from our site because we removed their links if they are not advertisers. We had pages on the sites like featured vendors and stuff blah, blah we deleted EVERYONE who is NOT a supporter of the site.

Anyway yes I agree the page is cluttered but it won't be we're going to fix that issue. I just want the feedback to keep rolling in in case someone has a really good idea out there which will help vendors and buyers connect better.

We will allow buyers to leave feedback through facebook. That is an easy feature for buyers to use and vendors to monitor.

Larry

[drfrightner]

Had a long meeting today with Chuck from BS and he's on the job, and my programmers are building the system. It will be up and online probably within a week or two. Vendors will be able to do the following...

Create profiles: Upload their brochures as a pdf file, upload videos, photos, write descriptions, embed their twitter, facebook, upload logos, and more. Buyers will be able to leave feedback through facebook log in...

The page will be totally different including a new featured called Hauntworld Vendor TV, where we will upload how to videos, features on vendors, and or new videos from vendors which they created. Bottom line is you will use the system to find vendors and get information. Why are these pages going to be important to you???

Few things... new buyers will use this page anytime of year to find the best vendors in the industry. Secondly for the haunter who already knows most of the same old vendors will use these pages to find new vendors and new products that you never know was out there... we have the biggest data base of ANYONE probably even bigger than Transworld when it comes to potential vendors. We have come up with a list of about 700 different companies that have something you should buy, could use, or never knew you needed until you saw it... once we have the system totally up and running we will contact each and every single vendor one by one and have them create profiles. We will use all of our SEO experience to position the pages to find not only new buyers but new vendors giving you the latest and greatest access to new vendors and products.

We will help this industry FIND new technology and we will help buyers find the best vendors... end of story.

As promised about 6 months ago here we are its happening. I can't wait until its done and we'll be helping everyone come together.

Larry

[drfrightner]

Here ya go first look on new vendor directory. This is only the front page. What will it include? Vendor videos of new products, product reviews, updates from vendors, rate and review vendors, vendor blogs, find up to 1000 different vendors, you can view most viewed vendor, most viewed category, videos, photos, vendors can upload their latest pdf catalogs, blah, blah, blah. The second page is almost done which is the category page (state page to you haunt owners) and then the profile page. It will be going online within 10 days. I have hired a girl to work on the site for several weeks, we will upload a ton of content. You won't need to visit a tradeshow, you won't have to look around for vendors, you won't have to go far and everything you will ever need will be in ONE PLACE! If I find something cool... it will end up HERE!

Hauntworld on average does about 250,000 to 300,000 visits per month excluding October and September... and about 5 million for the year. All together all of our sites did nearly 9 million visitors for 2011 combined. We want to give all of these people the best and most accurate information we can... this is our next step in that process.

find_hh_vendors_home_2011_cropped.jpg

[HauntedPaws]

How about allowing Haunt reviews or pumpkins star ratings or something?

[drfrightner]

This thing is almost done... one more page is being finished the profile itself. Then we'll unload all sorts of vendors into this thing.


find_hh_vendors_listing_page_2011_v3 (2).jpg

[drfrightner]

Final page... this whole new section will be uploaded within 10 days. From there you can post reviews, comments, and more all on vendor profiles. Additionally you are getting a look at how we will rework the haunt profiles as well. They will be more like this than the way they are now. We will add nearly 500 new vendors to this site than you see now... it will be a massive amount of information for your business.


find_hh_vendors_listing_profile_page_2011_v4webversion.jpg

[drfrightner]

Getting closer... Check out the Ghost Ride Production page and see how I left a review of this company. The profile itself isn't update the new way 'yet' however it will be but see how you can now jump on these profiles and leave reviews? This is going to change everything... you can leave tons of positive reviews all tucked away in one spot for your favorite vendor.

I know the page is screwed up its not done... but see the reviews on the bottom. http://www.hauntworld.com/haunted_ho...de_productions


Now check out this profile as I've been updating it as a test: http://www.hauntworld.com/haunted_ho...ore_galore_inc

Anyway on the Gore Galore page you see these big scarefest banners those are used as placeholders... those will be vendors banners for advertisers.

Those will go away. Anyway do me a favor and vote for Gore Galore the survey and leave feedback on the bottom of the page. Using it as a test. The only thing really missing off his page is for him to upload his pdf brochure

Also let me know what you think so far.

Larry

So what is next? What is next is we are going to update all these profiles, we are going to add like 200 plus more, we have to upload all of our advertisers banners, we have to put all the profiles in the right sections, we have to do a ton of SEO work on the site, blah, blah, blah. We also need your feedback on what you think.

[dudedigital]

I like the direction you're headed but I personally think things still need tweaking. Looking at the page I'm not sure where to start, there is a lot going on which makes the page seem crowded. It's difficult to distinguish between the sections and their content. The black background with the dark gray border doesn't help. The information seems randomly placed. Overall I think things need to be simplified/consolidated further.

[spookjj]

too much

I agree, it's too much to go thru to find what you want, maybe have a very simple page with a detailed pages linked to it. Give what the viewer wants first without drowning in details, a summary page.