Honest advice, why my site is not working
I have a web app where devs can help other devs and get paid for it, dzhaven.com. It's basically stackoverflow with payouts. It's not going anywhere. What am I missing?
I have a web app where devs can help other devs and get paid for it, dzhaven.com. It's basically stackoverflow with payouts. It's not going anywhere. What am I missing?
The UI needs a lot of work. Everything is set to "font-weight: bolder". I would recommend taking a look Refactoring UI book for actionable ideas.
Just clicking the link you provided, I have no idea what this is. There's no obvious "about" section or page that explains the who, what, when, where, why and how of this website. Even with the description you provided here, I have no idea how to get started or what's all entailed in the process. I would bounce right away unless there was a clear way to understand how the process works and what to expect.
I agree, you are missing some intro or something.
Also, this bounty feature looks interesting, but I cannot search or filter by bounty amount. It is also not described in a great detail unless you click on the 'i' icon in a thread.
First load of the site it looks like an abandoned project, has some YouTube videos that are not loading (showing errors), I have no idea what it is.
Why do you think someone would pay for something they can get free on SO?
here is much more UI details to discuss but main issue is - people can't find you online.
This is some kind of React app? It's not good optimized. If you want to be found by people and maybe get to the point where someone would pay for the service, a lot of work need to be done. you should pay attention on next few points:
the most basic onsite SEO elements are missing!
basically your site is not going to be found in any searches, you don't exist online.
You don't have any crawlable elements such as title, headlines, paragraphs of text where search engines (mainly Google) could find your keywords and determine where you belong on their search results.
S.O. is a reputation based economy, which means a lot to developers. Once you put a price on an issue, it won't be enough money to draw in the talent from S.O. that can actually fix the bugs. It might lead amateur devs to reposting on S.O. to attempt to get the bounty on dzhaven.
I thank you for your messages. You've all stated various things that are facts, but none of them is significant enough to turn my site around--I don't think. I hope someone can give me something more substantial.
Thanks again.
Yes, they are facts, that's why you shouldn't take them lightly. I'm sure the biggest reason of bounce rate in the site is that it's unclear. It's not easy to navigate, and as someone said below, it seems abandoned (like those parked domains you find now and then).
But even above that, what does your site provide, that is not found anywhere else? What would I gain for using DZHaven instead of googling? Why would I pay someone for something I can get for free? Why would I pay for someone to come help me out?
Off the top of my head, I can think of privacy. If you have a confidential project you cannot disclose because of NDAs or something, you could offer payment for professionals to come forward and help you out. Kinda like hiring freelancers, but for advice?
But my point really is, find something that makes you a bit different from the competition, and exploit it.
And also rework the UI.
Ok, I’m going to be blunt....
Load up stackoverflow.com and load up dzhaven.com
A majority of your answer is completely UI/UX-related. If design is not in your wheelhouse, there is no shame in getting a designer. In fact, a lot of developers are atrocious designers (and vice versa).
Like others have said, a great design won’t save a non-product, but a bad design is guaranteed DOA.
Once you’ve got the design dialed in, focus on content. Time is precious. Why would anyone want to visit the site and keep coming back? You’ve got to pique some interest and content is king. Articulate your message/deliverable clearly and as simply as you can.
Make it bookmarkable. What causes you to bookmark, share, dig through your browser history for a site? Put that into your site.
I think something like this could take some time to get the right types of people.
There is some pain in the signup process - I used my email as I found one I could answer but a few minutes later I still can't log in as I haven't gotten the confirmation email.
Any pain right up front and I'll just go back to stack overflow as don't think I would ever earn any real money answering questions that I have the time for.
I did get my email confirmation right after posting this -