www.greenpages.ie

[Meccanoman]

Hey All, First post on this forum...

I just inherited this site - greenpages. ie - and am now tasked with driving up traffic and general management of all things online.

All thoughts and comments very welcome. Currently trying to decide if we should invest time and effort in trying to fix up the existing site or take the directory backend and build a fresh site around it. Looking at Kohanaphp as a possible!

as I said all opinions welcome!

Thanks
Glenn

 

[blue4ever]

Did they no have a print incarnation as well (or do they still?)

From a holistic point of view – I think you need a purpose if you get the drift.

Are you a Green info site, a directory, a shop - all of the above???

The type face is annoying and is the pastel colour.

The structure on the home page – is very busy and a little disjointed

The directory is tooooo much – good info when you drill down – but all the text is a bit of an attack. You might consider drop downs – or the like.

I like the idea, and think it has legs, but you still need a purpose!


C

 

[Meccanoman]

Hey C,

thanks for taking the time have a look at a the site and respond - appreciate the feedback.

Yep we have a print edition, coming out in Oct, free to 250,000 homes and a business edition going out to 100,000 businesses!!!

And Yes I agree, there is a feeling 'no purpose' at the moment. Its something we are aware of and working towards. The shop is going. We are a directory!

We are working out ways to try and improve the usability , particularly the frontpage.

thanks again for for the input.

 

[StuartC]

id build on what you have, looks decent but a little rough around the edges. Best of luck with it

 

[Donagh]

The first thing that stands out to me is that the landing page is way too busy! I was scared when I landed on there. Think about reorganising the site structure. Bes of luck

 

[blue4ever]

Glenn,

Worked (toiled - broken man!) in a print and online directory business for many a year. If you want to bounce anything off me - i'd be delighted to have a chat. PM me if you want anything.

But - i'd concentrate on the front page. There4 is nothing wrong with the sites content - its that you are force feeding the lol to the punters on landing page.

C

 

[IASP71]

Was this site featured on Dragons Den ?

 

[tricky_d]

Hi,

I was wondering when the Green Pages would be revived in some form. (I did the original Green Pages Web Directory back in the early web days)

A few notes:

Link logo to homepage
Add tagline to logo to explain that you're mainly environment oriented as it could be a bit more immediately obvious.
Stop scrolling the sponsor logos, it distracts.
Some pages are too long e.g. article list page needs to be broken up possibly into categories.
Make all email addresses into mailto links.
Many of the layout panels' borders, seperators and backgrounds have poor contrast and are barley visible on my lcd screen unless it's at more than a certain angle.
Order now buttons would be better using orange background.
Don't use white on light grey for any buttons, it's hard to see. Contrast is your friend.
Make the forms more consistent and give them a bit of css styling.

You appear to be using 3 different logos: greenpagesie-logo-282-49.png at the web page top, small-logo.jpg at the web page bottom and then National Green Pages and The Green Business Pages in print. The last 2 are similar and the difference is fine. However the other 2 are different. Ideally they should all be similar enough so that the brand is consistent.

The Media Pack pdf is for print, ideally this should be a webpage and/or at least single pages vertically stacked.

In the pack you say:

The old saying is true "50% of my advertising works, I just don't know which 50% it is!"

which is so true. However while you identify a core problem you don't give your solution. If I advertise I want metrics, stats, conversion info etc. yet this info is not there.

Lastly, while not knowing the visitor stats to the site, I not sure of the pricing model. Firstly, Free listing isn't available or is it as there's a mention in the Ordering page, what's going on there? There's compelling arguments for free listings but they're somewhat mitigated by your print products and already established business. Secondly, the rhs seem very cluttered and overcrowded and at the price, I'd be looking for better value buying Premium listing as users have learnt to pay less attention to that rhs area. Its value is also diluted by sponsors and your video.

good luck and hth