Graphical display ads plumbers with leaking pipes at home

I got an email from the Andy at commentluv this morning, and they are having a contest, but also will be opening up ad space, and that got me thinking… and then thinking some more.

There seems to be a growing trend toward the 125×125 pixel ads, and I thought cool, I have a 125X125 logo graphic, and could always use more traffic. The thing is… its a 125X125 graphic, its not an ad, there is no call to action. Inventorsgarage does not need image branding such as Nike, McDonalds or much of the F100. What it needs is targeted traffic, ie folks with ideas who want to run with them. Even better, folks with ideas, who are willing to buy services to bring their invention to market . A 125X125 logo graphic wont do diddly to bring the folks within that demographic over here. It likely will bring folks who are curious, and perhaps within that group their will be some… but why spend $ in order to get a mix of folks, when a redo of a logo graphic into a true ad might get a much more targeted demographic. So… gotta ad that to the todo list.

Along that line of thinking, if I step back and look at IG, and also look at my business page… I’m a plumber with leaking pipes at home. Neither were designed with commercial intent. IG is not really commercial, its more a personal/hobby site, albeit it does serve as a marketing funnel for business clients while maintaining the personal/hobby aspect. And my business site… well, it was created as offline folks kept asking for it. And while my focus is 80% hardware, the webside of things does get interwoven, and I’ve ended up doing a fair amount of website/commnuity consulting… thus it doesnt work out too well to tell folks they should have a website, when one doesnt have one of their own. (I hate to admit it, but i actually have a vbulletin license mostly just for client test and debug on my server at the office) LOL

The end result… the business site needs an overhaul. If a client said hey check this out, I’d go whoa… that has about a zero chance of converting. Too much of the content is more applicable to white papers, than actual calls to action. It also needs some serious work in the graphics and gui part (talk about zero whitespace, and really no clear calls to action, or clear whats in it for me to type of material). Ultimately it goes back to the beginning, it was put up in a weekend, as folks kept asking for it, and i needed to get it done. I should have put a plan together first as I always tell folks to do upfront… dont even think about coding or software selection, first figure out the overall vision, then from there make the more detailed decisions. Otherwise, its very likely that the tail ends up wagging the dog, ie the tools drive the websites function, rather than a vision for what the website should be. And yes, being a wiki driven site… it does lead to a lot of verbose subject matter. Of course the only time I’m not verbose is when we try to put a a whole website and a server on a 8 bit microprocessor with only 64K or 128K of ram.

Thus, more stuff on the web todo list… it will be interesting.