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by gizmo
3802 days ago
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Interesting concept. The website makes a really scammy first impression to me too. Firstly, because it uses the "count down to win something" mechanic that's primarily used by exploitative sites. People have to keep bidding in order to win, and loss aversion pushes them to pay more than they can intellectually justify for the product. If most sites that use the mechanic are evil, then the expectation is your site is no exception. Secondly, the website looks really generic and based off a template. Like something that has been whipped up in a weekend to steal people's info. It would be trivial for somebody to create a scam version that's visually indistinguishable from your website. Having more content and a more polished appearance will help. Thirdly, it's not clear what's in it for the operator of the site. If the products are given away then what's the catch? I understand you're giving away promotional items, but that's not enough to fix this first impression. You have to explain to people why the site exists. Is it a nonprofit? Are you getting paid? By who? Finally, your explanation page makes no sense. Your target audience will never care about multiplexers. You've got to have at least a simple FAQ that answers questions like "Is this a scam?" "How does this site make money?" "Why is it free to enter?", and so on. A huge heading on the front page "Play for free to win promotional material. No catch." would probably help alleviate your visitor's concerns. But you'll have to do a lot more to make it seem less fishy. |
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Hmmm, I'll try removing the countdown timer.
The site does use a template. I actually tried making it look generic because I went with the approach of "this website is owned by 1 person and you can trust him". That didn't work. I am going to redo the front-end and make it look like a company owns the site. I'm thinking something similar to how http://gusto.com looks.
I'm hoping to one day have companies pay to have their prizes featured on the site. It'd be like Google / Reddit advertising except the advertising is a prize, not an ad. I tried the non profit approach but everyone doubted me, so I changed it. But right now, everything is out of pocket for me.
Yeah I realize the "mux" was a mistake. I thought it was clever, but these people don't have the time to read what a multiplexer is. Literally every time I tell someone to go to my site "MuxMe" they say "Is that a porn site?". I can change the name in 2 seconds, I'm just thinking of what to change it to. I like the idea of a FAQ, I need to add that.
Currently users land on the prize page, and either register or they don't. They don't click the "how it works" or any other pages, so I'm focusing on optimizing the prize landing page right now. I think I might add a video avatar (like this http://www.pt-hr.co.uk/) that explains how the site works on the prize pages. I can see the Hacker News guys are interested in the "How it Works" page, but the typical user doesn't click that. I definitely need to update it with something that's easy to understand, it's on the list of a million things to do.