I'm sure lots of folks are finding this interesting reading and learning
about the ins and outs of website based businesses. To sum it up in a
few lines, the lawyers want business web sites set up one way, Google
and the search engines what it set up another way and web designers and
visitors want it set up yet another way. Sites like epoxyproducts.com
(the subject of this thread) try to include all three. Other business
web sites (especially new businesses!) just go after one of the three
(usually the web designer's model) not knowing or realizing anything
about the other two. If you are lucky, you can get away with it, at
least for a while. But if you're in business for a few years, the other
two will eventually bite you in the butt if you ignore them. I suppose
the epoxyproducts.com web site rates the search engine requirements
first, the legal issues second, and then the web designer's model - thus
making everyone unhappy (always room for improvement in all three
approaches)! But from personal experience and as owner of the website
and business, I think that my ranking of web site priorities generates
the most income (i.e. full time income, year after year, working from
home). Few, if any, of the professional internet consultants that
contact me have their own web sites matching the income that mine
generates (especially if they have to 'cold call/cold email' me and
others to get business). I sometimes think they should be asking me for
help! cheers - paul oman

PS - love the feedback! As suggested below, my lawyer wanted me to have
the 'click here' to proceed to the web site after acknowledging the
legal stuff. I thought that was a bit too much (only the giant corporate
web sites go to that legal extreme) and would turn off too many
visitors. I do try to improve and work on the site nearly everyday, but
of course product (epoxy) and service have to come before web play.

-----------------------------------------------------

IanM wrote:
Bruce In Bangkok wrote:
On Sat, 20 Dec 2008 13:09:01 -0500, Paul Oman
wrote:

Hi Guys! appreciate all the feedback and comments - no bad
feelings. Though I would explain why some of the quirks in the web
site. - I love the 'who would put a legal notice at the top of a web
page' comment. The remark could be the best Christmas present I've
every got (could be worth thousands of dollars). Here why:

(a made up - extreme case) very year or so there is some 'nut'
emails you with a leaky boat problem. You tell him to fix it with
epoxy. He buys some epoxy for $75. Next thing you hear is that you
are being sued for $50,000 because you told him to use epoxy and he
did but the boat sank and his cat died. The lawyers ask if you legal
disclaimers on your site and other legal notices that could get you
off the hook. You say yes, but they counter that the disclaimers are
hard to find, easily over looked etc. etc. Judge agrees and you
lose. My disclaimers are right up front as you pointed out - you
cannot overlook them.

The legal issues involving trade over the internet are not well
defined. Issues like trademarks and meta tag usage, and selling
products in states you don't have agents in, etc. can get you in
federal court. Of course, on such stupid claims you will probably
win the case, but not until you've paid a $400 an hour lawyer for 30
hours of his time, flown cross country with hotel and car charges
while you sit in the courthouse and your business goes down the tubes.

For your information - the legal ramifications of doing business on
the web are nasty and still subject to differing legal interp. You
could loss everything through no fault of your own.

Hope this explains a few things and the risks of internet business.
Most of you have read of the suits filed against ebay, amazon, etc.
all the time by folks trying to cash in on vague internet business
rules.

Our site - epoxyproducts.com, has over 175 pages. Hard to organize
that many. Our customers range for nuclear power plants to folks
wanting to dip there fishing flies into our fumed silica.The guy
with the boat doesn't want info on how to paint his garage floor.
The beginner thinks he can buy one part epoxy in hot pink. The
experienced user wants the pricing on 30 gallons of marine epoxy.
Some folks want to know why we cannot ship a certain product to
California. Industrial buyers want only access to MSDS info.

We could be like everyone and just list products but we try to
educate folks about the products and even mention the bad aspects of
our products. Like why you might not want to use coal tar epoxy
(which we sell) even if the guy at the boatyard told you to. Yes,
lots and lots of links. Confusing, but it also puts us at the top of
the search engines - something other companies would almost kill for
(and something that will make or destroy your company).

We do try to make it easy to use the site. Page types are color
coded, there is a single page list of products and prices, a site
only google search engine, help page/index page (like in a book).

Yes, the site is funky. Folks love or hate it but it works (better
to be at the top of the search engines and lose a few customers than
not be found on the search engines, have an cookie cutter web site
and a total of three customers). The site supports my wife and I and
one has to be careful not to "kill the goose with the golden eggs"
by 'fixing' the web site to conform to the million of other web
sites out there. Heck, if it was an ordinary web site, we wouldn't
be talking about it now. Maybe having the worst site is just as
productive as having the best site?

We are a mom and pop business operating out of our home in New
Hampshire - guess we also like to color outside of the box a bit
too. And we're not trying to get rich off of slick copy/ads etc.
huge markups etc. - just want to make a living and pay the electric
bill and sleep well at night. - thanks guys and Merry Christmas to
everyone! -- paul oman
-----------------------------

Paul,

I have visited your site a number of times and there is a fantastic
amount of information there but, as the man said, it is poorly
organized.

I understand your reasoning, as you state above, but never the less
the site is difficult to navigate.

I suggest that one of the reasons is that you probably designed the
site and therefore you know your way around the pages blindfolded.

For what it is worth, I'd like to suggest that you have a friend,
someone who isn't intimately familiar with the site, log on and have a
look. Then listen to his comments.

I think that the overriding point is that you DO NOT want potential
customers to log onto the site and go away frustrated.

Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)

Put your legal disclaimers link on the top of EACH and EVERY article
page and your T&C on any page that even mentions a specific orderable
product, but for heaven's sake keep them OFF the top of the home and
index pages (you might wish to put them immediately below your company
blurb on the home page and also put them up with a check box 'I have
read and understood . . .' as part of the ordering process).

Get the Home page down to 3 or 4 screens full absolute maximum.

Loose the light coloured text on the textured background - its hard to
read and may even be illegal under your jurisdiction's disability
discrimination legalisation. Some of the pages with plain coloured
backgrounds are if possible *worse*. :-( Are you actually trying to
win an ugly website award for the publicity?

Consider adding a decent drop down menu for navigation. It can be done
in pure CSS without a shred of javascript. (Look at
http://www.grc.com for an open source, free to reuse example then at
http://splike.com/projects/cssmenu.html for a minimalist version
(albeit in butt-ugly colours so you can see which bit is which) for a
version that isn't too much work to customise to suit.) Done right
they are cross browser and cross platform compatible for all systems
built after about 2000 and useable as a page of text links on anything
older. On all modern browsers you can even get them to 'float' at the
very top of the page as you scroll down so the navigation bar is
always handy. Internet Explorer 6 users will have to scroll back up to
the top though.
(I'm pretty anti-javascript because just about *all* of the major web
security scares involve it. I'm not alone . . . Also Google doesn't
do well at following Javascript links so your generally good page
rankings could suffer if you do the menu that way)

Sort out that site map, the graphic has virtually unreadable text and
isn't clickable for navigation. Put the links form site map on the
same page below it.

I'm sorry Paul, but although you have all that wonderful advice and
info there, and are so responsive here, the only way I can work with
your site is by googling it!

http://www.google.com/search?as_sitesearch=epoxyproducts.com then
add any further search terms :-(

I wouldn't have spent so long on this if I didn't think that the
technical detail on your site is a tremendous resource that deserves
better.