I get the desire for differentiation, it's important otherwise why would someone choose your product over another. I think it's key though to better understand the words that your competitors are using to describe the problem/space coupled with the words that consumers are using to describe the problem/space. Understanding this word-scape will help you to better craft your on-page copy along with identifying the words that best describe your unique value proposition.
I'd also consider studying/contacting the twitter followers of your competitors. That would be a direct method of identifying solid potential leads.
Who are your competitors? Can you give me links to at least 3 of them?
I agree with the sentiment regarding the keywords. I tried for a few minutes to read your on-page copy and distill your products keywords but found it difficult. It could be that I'm not familiar enough with the space/problem that your service addresses. I'd be inclined to identify your competitors and the keywords for which they rank. If a set of keywords can be identified I'd then use Google Keyword Tool to determine a set of keywords to target (i.e. those that you have a shot at ranking well for).
You might consider at some point in the future (when the backlog of essential work dies down) doing some testing on the impact of displaying the dollar symbol versus the pound symbol in the screenshot of the app. Or better yet based on ip show a screen shot with the currency symbol that is most likely to be applicable.
"I would work from home sometimes and have days off pretty much anytime I like (within reason)."
I would strongly suggest that you get the working from home piece in writing and I'd also have the amount of vacation specified in writing. It's important for you to be able to point to a contract and not just a verbal discussion should you need to. You want to be able to enjoy your vacation and not feel guilt or pressure not to take it.
I realize Excel is fairly ubiquitous and can get certain jobs done but I can't help but cringe at some of those IF statements and the maintenance that must go into some of these sheets.
If you find you've reached the Excel Ninja level you might want to start checking out some other tools. I'd suggest Python.
Either way nice write up. I'm sure people will find it very useful.
When I visited http://3pics.me/1 my first response was to click on the text that said "Click to vote for pic X!" as opposed to clicking on the pic itself.
(original)
<title>Quiz Cafe - Download, print and play in a matter of minutes. | Free Quiz Questions - Free Quiz Packages - Free Printable Quiz Questions</title>
(proposed)
<title>Free Quiz Questions and Answers - Download, print and play quizzes in a matter of minutes. | Quiz Cafe</title>
---------------------------------------------
Free Quiz Questions 27,100 gms (USA)
Free Printable Quiz Questions 320 gms (USA)
Free Quiz Packages 0 gms (USA)
Free Quiz Questions and Answers 14,800 gms (USA)
quiz questions and answers 135,000 gms (USA)
---------------------------------------------
gms - global monthly searches
If you haven't already I strongly suggest you run (not walk) and read everything patio11 has written about SEO and bingocardcreator.com.
I see there is a ton of longer tail traffic on 'xxxx quiz questions' where xxxx is a host of things e.g. science, bible, thanksgiving, christmas, sports, etc...
- "70 characters is the maximum amount of characters that will display in the search results"
- "Place Important Keywords Close to the Front of the Title Tag"
- "Leverage Branding. Many SEO firms recommend using the brand name at the end of a title tag instead, and there are times when this can be a better approach. The differentiating factor is the strength and awareness of the brand in the target market. If it is a well known brand, and it can make a difference in click-through rates in search results, the brand name should be first. If this is not the case, the keyword should be first."
Based on this you should keep the branding at the end and work on the up front content of the title tag. That content should be based on keyword formulations that are relevant to the page and targeted towards formulations that you have a chance of doing well with.
I'll bite, I'm in Canada tell me about what you're working on? Based on your personal site and Funky Monkey it's tough to discern what you might be up to.
The redesign is much better than the original! The proposition is clear and I like being able to interact with it.
That said I don't think there is sufficient value yet to compel people to fork over cash, given that your target audience is likely able to throw up a static page with an email form rather quickly. Or perhaps the value prop. does exist and I just don't see it, in which case I'd suggest that you focus on making the value prop. more clear.
I would find the service more compelling if you provided some analytics re. visitor information (where/when they came from, bounce rate, etc.). And/or if you were able to aid in the promotion of the "coming soon" page (not sure how ... maybe advertise coming soon pages within the network of coming soon pages .... or profile the coming soon pages and then the launched service i.e. early seo help).
I like the concept of "the most popular move for the day, voted by the group, will be taken as the group's move".
It would be interesting to use this concept in a game where the set of possible moves could be ranked in order of best move for that turn such that the users could see a distribution of number of votes versus this set. In this way you could see the quality of the groups choice and compare it to the best choice and your choice (if they were different). This would also lend itself to user scores. Not sure which game would lend itself to this.
Also you might consider number of votes as an alternative or additional progress trigger. For HN vs Reddit set it at 100 votes per side. If you don't hit the limit it switches on a per day basis, but if you do hit the limit it switches immediately. Not only would this potentially speed the game but it also could create a sense of urgency to get your vote in to have it count.