Contact Squid – An Ocean of Business Contacts

4 thoughts on “Contact Squid – An Ocean of Business Contacts”

1. 1) Look around the home page – what is your initial impression of what you see?

   At glance the webpage looks attractive and easy going, like a ‘chilled’ out friend who is savvy but not egotistical about it. I browsed around the webpage and found reasons to bring my website to be marketed here, it looked easy and geared towards small businesses. The colors were welcoming and even though its theme was simple it still felt sophisticated and understandable.  
   2) Think of something you want to find on this website. Now try to find it. Did you find what you were looking for? Was anything confusing?

   I searched for something I’m interested in, a business geared towards movies, reviews or something along that line I didn’t find anything but that doesn’t detract from the fact that the search engine and results page was easy to navigate.  
   3) Are you encouraged to (create a new account, subscribe, sign up for a free trial, etc.)? Can you tell us why (or why not)?

   I was encouraged the way I appreciate the most, with subtlety, having top marketers and of course whispering that it’s all free. I hate pushy salesmen so that was definitely a plus.  
   4) Go to search engine of your choice and find one other company that offers a similar service. Compare the two companies. Which on do you prefer? Why?

   I searched around for another site finding one that was much more technical but since I am not too savvy it became a bit confusing, I think you’re site is better because it’s clearer. Although someone who is more experience would probably find your site to be lacking in choices so I think adding a “pro” tab or link would probably broaden your accessibility. 
   5) Please share any additional feedback/comments you may have.

   Live chat is always an interesting and a good feature to have so if there was anything I’m to suggest then it would be that.  

2. 1) Look around the home page – what is your initial impression of what you see?
   I really like the color of the site. However, I think you could make better use of the home page. You have a lot of wasted space above the scroll. You do not need two places for login/register. Everything you need for the login/register and search should be able to fit in the same area right below your name and tagline.
   That would give you plenty of room for a video. I think this is one time where a video is worth a million or more words. People spend about an average of 6 seconds on a site; they are not going to stick around long enough to search for information about what makes you unique. However, they will stick around to watch a video . . . if they are intrigued.
   Having the photos of others already on the site is excellent. I think it could be even better if you used a feed from Facebook showing which of my friends are on, along with other people. I know it will not give their location or company. But if even I could see that just one of my friends was on Contact Squid, I might be more apt to join. And this would be able to fit side-by-side with the video.
   2) Think of something you want to find on this website. Now try to find it. Did you find what you were looking for? Was anything confusing?
   When I’m on the home page looking at the top contacts and click on the name of a business, I expect to be taken to a page about the business, not the person. I realize that there can be a blurb about the business on the person’s page and I’m expecting a page about the business, videos about the business, etc.
   3) Are you encouraged to (create a new account, subscribe, sign up for a free trial, etc.)? Can you tell us why (or why not)?
   Unfortunately not. You have not given me a reason to . . . yet.
   ► The biggest benefit that I can see now is that I can see a person’s Facebook and Twitter feeds. But can I see my own? If I could see my posts and conversations from all my other networking sites, as well as be able post here to all the other sites, that would be a big plus.
   â–º I would want to know how well organized your CRM is and what it would enable me to do.
   â–º I would want to know how I get referrals from ContactSquid.
   4) Go to search engine of your choice and find one other company that offers a similar service. Compare the two companies. Which on do you prefer? Why?
   I am not seeing anything on Google’s search engine that compares to what you do. And yet there are companies that do many of the same things. I’m not certain about the referral component, because I’m not certain how that works on your site.
   Google is a great example. It has social networking. It has a contact manager that enables storing contacts (people, businesses, etc.) under multiple categories and where it is easy to add notes. It has a calendar for appointment setting. It has Google Drive (which appears to be replacing Google Docs), where all kinds of files can be stored and shared. It isn’t organized in the same manner as your site. I’m not on Google +, so I am not aware of all of its features, although I do know people use it for marketing, whether it has a special feature for enabling referrals, I don’t know.
   (There is a site called referralkey.com with its main feature being referrals sharing.)
   5) Please share any additional feedback/comments you may have.
   As you can see, I am having a challenge grasping what ContactSquid is and who/how to compare it to other sites. Please help me to understand better. Help me by providing more information on your home page.

3. 1) Look around the home page – what is your initial impression of what you see?
   The website is clean and minimalistic, but I must admit, I was not clear on the benefit of the services.  

     
   2) Think of something you want to find on this website. Now try to find it. Did you find what you were looking for? Was anything confusing?
   I tried to find out more about the service and the value benefit.  There was not much information about the value add to me.  I think there really should be an FAQ or some other information page which explains the exact value benefit and an introduction to how to use the service and how others use it.  
     
   3) Are you encouraged to (create a new account, subscribe, sign up for a free trial, etc.)? Can you tell us why (or why not)?
   I was not.  I would not have signed up for an account if I had not participated in this review.  The main reason was that I really had no idea what the benefit was to me and my company actually.  I know SEO and connections are important, however, I did not understand how your service would be better than any other out there considering that many of your competitors are free also.  

   4) Go to search engine of your choice and find one other company that offers a similar service. Compare the two companies. Which on do you prefer? Why?

   I found a few competitors including linked in (which has, of course, a different business proposition) and I must admit I preferred the others better especially considering the lack of understanding a value proposition to me and the benefits of being with your site vs. any other.
    
   5) Please share any additional feedback/comments you may have.

   I believe that more information would be of great benefit and a competitive table showing how you are better vs. competitors.  Also, some blog or article page which gives a highlevel and then an in depth explanation of why one would need this kind of service.  

4. 1. My first impression is that this is a site that wants to compete with LinkedIn. It’s a little plain for my liking, though the color scheme complements the squid logo nicely. Rather than featuring a “Top Contact” first and foremost, I’d suggest you move your selling points up above the fold. People usually want to know what a site is about and why they should use it before they move on to browsing through users.
    
   2. There really weren’t any informational pages for me to look through, so I decided to just punch my zip code into the search bar and see if anyone from my region had signed up yet. No one had, and I searched on a major metropolitan area. So, no, I wasn’t confused, but I also didn’t really find what I was looking for.
    
   3. Not yet. The site is still so new that it wouldn’t seem to be worthwhile. But if it starts to take off, then yes, I would. Why not? It would be one more way to market myself. As long as it’s free, it really can’t hurt.
    
   4. I don’t even have to go to a search engine to think of LinkedIn, which is an extremely popular site for building business contacts. However, LinkedIn is geared toward individual professionals, whereas your site seems geared toward businesses and industries, considering that visitors can search business categories for listings. Also, to my knowledge, LinkedIn doesn’t help users as much with SEO strategies. Overall, I think your site is more focused on helping businesses and self-employed professionals promote themselves to potential customers, whereas LinkedIn is more focused on helping employees sell themselves to employers. Unfortunately, I think there’s a lot of potential for your site to be confused as a LinkedIn wannabe at first glance.
    
   5. Now, after taking a few more passes through the home page, I realize that there are additional informational pages available from text links under “Internet Marketing.” These pages really need to have their own tabs at the top because a lot of visitors will overlook them.
    
   As I’m reading through the other informational pages, I see that they’re designed to sell me on some fairly expensive marketing packages. One of the links from these pages takes me to a different site altogether (a partner of yours perhaps?), and some of the remaining links aren’t viewable unless I sign up. When you’re trying to sell a visitor on a paid service, it isn’t the best idea to make them sign up before they can read your value proposition. After reading through these additional pages, I’m starting to feel like your service might be a scam, and my formerly favorable impression is sliding in the opposite direction.
    
   The profiles themselves look attractive and well constructed, so no problem there.
    
   Overall, I find myself wondering what you really want to do with this site. It initially seems designed to be a competitor of LinkedIn, but I get the sense that it’s actually a tool for you to sell marketing services to businesspeople. If that’s what you want to do, I suggest you redesign the site to make it clear from the get-go that a) you are marketing professionals looking to help businesses with SEO and social media and b) your free online business directory with social networking features is part of what you offer. Otherwise, I think visitors are liable to feel that you’re being shady with them and worry that your site is a scam. Good luck!

Comments are closed.