Website Questions

[cadehlinger]

Hi Sara and Harlan,

I am loving this forum and the newsletter. Thanks so much!

I would like to share my story with you, keeping brevity in mind. I am buying out a local yoga studio. It has a website that I have been tracking, and it gets about 5-8 hits a day as is. (sanmarcoyoga.com) I have been teaching at this studio about 6 weeks, and most people say they found out about it from the internet or driving by. I personally don't like the layout/design/colors, really hardly anything about it. What do you think?

I am meeting with the webmaster on Wednesday and I would love to have changes ready for her. My thoughts are:

change the colors to not be so jarring (no red/orange)

spread out the type so it's easier to read

change the copy on the home page to add benefits

more pictures of people doing yoga

Any other advice is greatly appreciated!

[Kiwiyogini]

Hi cadehlinger
Congrats on the yoga studio purchase!

I hope you don't mind, i just checked out your web site too!

I agree with more pictures and pictures of you and your teachers. It really starts to break down barriers and build the 'relationship' with your students. Its more welcoming in my opinion.

All the best!
Karen

[Administrator]

The first issue is the splash page.

That's the yellow page that invites people to click here to enter.

Its purpose? Kill it. People hate them.

The colors aren't the issue.

The lack of benefits is.

Yoga Fusion is all about melding different styles of yoga. Yoga means uniting body and mind, and we believe that all types of yoga are beneficial. We offer classes in Power Vinyasa, Bikram-inspired classes, Gentle Yoga and Ashtanga.

And someone new to yoga thinks what about all of the above yoga jargon?

Forget racing to change the color scheme.

It's a non issue.

If you just bought the studio, sit down with your clients and ask them about the site.

Listen to them.

They will tell you what needs to go up there.

Keep the yoga jargon to the inner pages of the site.

Focus on what's important.

Hint: it's not the colors.

Peace.

Harlan

[LucyAnn]

Hi,
I also thought I'd check out your site. I can't seem to find where you are located. I see you have a location page, but where is san marco? I'm from out of state and from time to time when I travel find other local studios. Listing your location across from Panera bread doesn't help me much. You might want to post the full address so people can pull up a map for their own directions. I would also like to see a map of the area, but I realize illustrating one may cost some $.

Hope that helps.
Namaste.

[cadehlinger]

Thanks for the input, everyone. I have made a bunch of changes based on your input and my webmaster is working on them all right now. When the site is ready, I will let you know and then you can take a look and see what you think.

[Administrator]

Great. Next question is, how are people finding your website?

[cadehlinger]

I wanted to give you an update. The new design is live on sanmarcoyoga.com. I also own the domain name yogafusionofsanmarco.com, so they both lead to the same site.

I have searched for the studio myself using the major search engines, and the site is always ranked high. I've used phrases like "Jacksonville yoga," "Yoga Fusion," "San Marco yoga," and "hot yoga." I got rid of my visit counter from the site, but I can still check it myself, and the traffic has actually tripled in the past week. I think this is due to the change of ownership and people being curious about what's going on.

Let me know what you think about the new design.

[Administrator]

I found the website hard to read and navigate.

The script is particularly hard to read.

You spend a lot of time on Fusion when to me it's not what I would
spend time explaining.

Very boring page. Photos would do wonders for the page.

Peace.

Harlan

[yogi34]

I just went on to the sight. As a yoga teacher I found it
has too much wording on the home page. I was trying to find something about classes. I almost went to every link to do that the link that says about us should say class schedule especially for people who are new to yoga.

good luck and namsate
susan