Our public Drive-By Shooting Sunday site critiques were always a popular feature here at our blog. They’re fun, they’re helpful, and they’re definitely all about value.
Where else can you get your site crawled by two pairs of expert eagle eyes for a complete critique on usability, readability, first-time visitor impressions, navigation and more – with a fantastic fiction twist that keeps readers reading to the end?
Nowhere but here. And guess what? We’re back in the saddle taking shoot-out names for our 2009 list.
Our Drive-By Shootings provide you with concise, fast and direct advice on:
- How to tweak your site design for better appeal and success
- What to change to appeal visitor interest more effectively
- Tips that help you learn how to keep people reading
We uncover the stuff people won’t tell you that drag your site down, and we tell it to you straight. You’re a grown-up now. You can take it.
A site critique takes time, too. We may make them look fast and easy, sure, but make no mistake – there’s a good deal of energy, effort and expertise that goes into each one.
We don’t hold back. We don’t stop there, either. We give you:
- Free publicity and a link to your site from our blog
- Your name on a top blog to get a boost from our popularity
- Exposure to attract potential new clients and readers
Too shy? Prefer to keep your shoot-out to yourself? No problem. We offer private drive-by shooting critiques via email, too.
Some people offer expensive, fancy, full-of-fluff critiques and charge hundreds of dollars. Not us, no sir. We provide the same whack of helpful, expert info to make your online business, hobby site, or blogs better than ever – and at a fraction of the cost.
- Public Drive-By Shooting Sunday site critiques posted right here on our blog cost only $150 per hit. If you choose to have us work on your site, we’ll deduct 50% of the amount from final billing.
- Private Drive-By Shooting site critiques offered via email (for your eyes only) cost only $100 per hit. If you choose to have us work on your site, we’ll deduct the total amount from final billing.
How do you book our marksman expertise for a drive-by? Want your site shot up? Just click the button right here. It’s that easy. (Come on. You know you wanna.)
I just want to offer a testimonial on the value of this.
I had requested one of these last year. I was so impressed with the results that I immediately sent more money. Then, after thinking about everything for a day, I sent more money again! That’s satsfaction plus and then a kind of reverse buyers regret!
Trust me, I am not in the habit of sending extra money when I buy things. My wife would have looked at me with complete puzzlement had I mentioned this odd behavior (and then she would have whacked me up the side of the head!).
But I couldn’t help it – their advice was so obviously valuable that I had to do it.
I really, really recommend this. I also had them design a few graphics for me as a separate project and those are absolutely perfect – they are used for pushing visitors to my ebook sales pages and they increased traffic appx. 300%. I wish they increased conversions 300% but getting them there is half the battle – maybe I should hire these guys to rewrite my sales copy? Believe me, I’m thinking about it.
Anyway – I know I’m running off at the mouth, but these guys do good work. I have not implemented all of their suggestions yet, but I’m working on ‘em. Good stuff!
Tony Lawrence´s last blog post…Hitting the Google Sweet Spot
$150 is worth every red cent.
The drive-by I got from the boys last year opened my eyes to a lot of things, not just design issues within my own site, but a few things that were pointed out that have stayed with me in other work I do.
Great job guys, and thanks again!
Writer Dad´s last blog post…Blogopolis Broadcast
I dunno if you’ve noticed, but those cents aren’t red any more. They used to be, way back before they started replacing copper wth zinc. A new penny was quite a beautiful thing when I was a lad..
Anyway, I just wanted to second Writer Dad’s point about things sticking with me. The comments and suggestions I got are affecting everything new that I do.
I still want to know what the polar opposite of buyer’s remorse is. If I don’t get an answer soon I will become petulant and observably grumpy.
Tony Lawrence´s last blog post…Vista Boomers – Microsoft’s Power Failure
I think it’s buyer’s jubilation.
Writer Dad´s last blog post…Blogopolis Broadcast
@ Tony – You’re the most perfect example I can think of as someone who can sincerely say this works, simply because you were the most profound non-believer I’ve ever seen.
Because of that, we had to work carefully and maintain your preferences while not giving you so much that we turned you off. If we’d come in and said, “Overhaul your design! Color! Splash! Flair!” you would have sent us packing.
Most of the changes we suggested to you were in basic layout and SEO, and I think they had good impact. The small graphics definitely made impact, too.
Now y’all is a believer! Woot!
@ Sean – You too are a good example. You had a good site with nice design going, and our challenge with you was that there wasn’t a ton to pick on.
And yet still, we found little elements that you could change that made for big impact. Just resizing your banner had your readers going, “Ahhh…” So you’re the opposite of Tony, and you still benefited.
On a side note, thank you both for coming to talk about your experience. (Cheque is in the mail…)
Well, I wouldn’t say “non-believer”. Maybe doubting Thomas..
Honestly, part of me resents having to be “pretty”. Isn’t having tons of content, a lot of which has been top rated in Google search for years and years enough?
No, it isn’t. Appearance counts.
I also hesitated because y’all are WordPress and I write my own CMS. However, I figured (correctly) that you could advise as to what you wanted to see changed and I could just change it.
I am “right” that appearance is unimportant – to some people. I’ve had long time readers write to me and say that I didn’t have to change anything – they read me back when the site was really ugly, they read me when I made a half-assed effort to be better, and they’ll read me after I implement every suggestion you guys made. But that’s THEM. To most people, to most new readers, the shave, haircut and new suit makes a big difference.
This is a slow time of year for a site like mine – most of my traffic comes from people at work in IT and there’s a lot of holidays and vacations around this time so I can’t really give any overall improvement stats yet. I really expect that I will be able to later.
In the meantime, I’m very happy. I’ll be happier when Harry gets his new scanner and I get my new logo, but believe me: I’m ecstatic. Buyer’s jubilation? Yeah, for sure.
Tony Lawrence´s last blog post…Hitting the Google Sweet Spot
@Tony: I swear, when I saw your request come in I was like “Oh shit. James? I don’t think I can do this…” And James was like, “Dude, he’s not going to bite your head off. Just concentrate on what he’s asking. He wants our help.”
I have to say you’ve been a pleasure to work with and reading your comment first thing this morning set the tone for my day. I know compliments are not something you just toss out at random, so your endorsement definitely carries a lot of weight.
That scanner is due in today and I’ll have that logo for you soon!
@WriterDad: Thanks man, you rock!
Landing page optimization is vital to developing a successful website or blog and I think your service is the perfect fit for even those of us with experience in this field.
When you’re too close to your own work you will be more likely to move away slightly from your primary objective. — I believe James you even said this once or twice.
Something I have noticed though. It seems many people request you guys to point your scope at their home page. That’s good, of course, but I’m curious as to why not as many people ask for the hit to be done on their primary goal landing page (like a service page or something).
I guess I’m just mentioning it to make sure everyone’s aware that often times your home page is not the most important page to optimize.
John Hoff´s last blog post…Understanding The Psychology Of Your Website Visitors
Sorry for the extra comment and a little off topic I suppose….
@Harry – the first thing I noticed when I came to this article was the gun and told myself, “That’s Harry’s work! The background of the gun had to match your blog’s background.” LOL.
John Hoff´s last blog post…Understanding The Psychology Of Your Website Visitors
@John: Just trying out some new stuff with images
John Hoff is so right and it’s that kind of thing that I have been thinking about: where do I next want to put my money? I knew my home page was the most deficient so that’s what we looked at, but I know I need more work in other places.
So watch out, Harry: I’ll be back!
Tony Lawrence´s last blog post…Passive Income Smooths the Flow
Everyone needs a coach. Even Michael Jordan.
Sometimes people stall their success by letting their ego get in the way.
A perfect example of this is men who suck at dating. I don’t know about you but my dad or mom were the last people I wanted advice from when it came to hooking up.
Even though I didn’t want their advice they still wove lots of useless beliefs into my thinking that hurt me instead of helping.
I always knew some guys were better with women but I never had the balls to go up and ask them if they’d coach me on getting better. Even if I had asked them, some naturals can’t teach.
So, I settled for being alone for years. That is until I stumbled onto a site offering solid dating advice. After learning why almost everything I was doing was wrong, and learning to do what works did I become a chick magnet.
James and Harry have built a kick ass site and helped others do the same. If you’re site isn’t everything you think it can be or should be you might want to have four fresh eyes find the opportunities to improve it.
The teeny $150 investment for their expert diagnosis might be the single best gift you can give yourself.
I love coaches. I love mentors. I love trusted advisors.
“When I am through learning I am through.” John Wooden
If you don’t find the success you seek working with these guys, I hope you find it somewhere. Everything you want to do with your business has probably been done by someone else. Let them shave years off of your success curve.
Note Taking Nerd #2
http://www.mynotetakingnerd.wordpress.com
Note Taking Nerd #2´s last blog post…Are You Coming Across as Too Much of a Smarty Pants To Your Prospects And Customers?
@Tony: Bring it on!
@NTN: And we love being advisors! Really, that’s the biggest reward and the highest compliment we could ever receive when we hand people the tools to fly and they actually use them.
I think Write for Your Life is a little too new for this right now. But in a couple of months, when there’s more content on my site, I may well be back. Like the Terminator, but with CSS troubles.
Tain:
Actually, you should usually get advice before you have too much on your site. I’ve been posting since 1997 – some of it I can change globally fairly easiiy, but for one particularly annoying thing I am going to have to edit each file affected.
Of course I wll do this with scripting and not by hand, but still: it’s going to take some time and effort. I have to write the script, test it on a bunch of stuff to make sure I don’t break things.. it’s very annoying. If you only had a handful of posts, no big deal.. after 11 years, well..
Tony Lawrence´s last blog post…Passive Income Smooths the Flow
I registered an entire new domain name as a result of the drive by I got.
Was something I couldn’t really pick up on by myself.
Yet another satisfied customer testimonial here…
I was lucky enough to get a drive-by within a couple of months of launching my blog. While I wasn’t able immediately to put all of the Mens’ suggestions into practice, their advice has helped shape my blog over time.
That all culminated, ultimately, in a site redesign by the Men. That’s been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in regard to my blog.
The advice, followed by the design work, has more than paid for itself in terms of increased readership, not to mention the compliments I get on a weekly basis about how sharp the site is now.
Bob Younce at the Writing Journey´s last blog post…When the Writer Trumps the Salesperson