Jun
13
Build It Better: Doodlefinder.com
by Crystal Clayton, filed under In General
Note: It’s a long page, so I tore out the middle to shorten the image. Gotta love SnagIt.
In previous Build It Better articles we learned how not to administer an ecourse, poked at PDF ebooks, and redesigned some business cards.
This time I’m picking at one of my own projects, and I’d love for you to contribute your opinions and ideas in the comments. And don’t try to spare my feelings, eh? It’s overdue for a redo and your feedback ranks highly with me.
The Backstory
DoodleFinder.com came about when Dan was searching for a dog for my Mom nearly four years ago. He discovered two newish breeds that were just right for her: goldendoodles (golden retriever + poodle) and labradoodles (labrador retriever + poodle). Finding a suitable breed was easy, but finding a suitable Doodle breeder was a pain in the butt.
Dan gave up on the rare, sparse, and mostly outdated Doodle breeder directories and Googled for individual breeder websites instead. I maintained a spreadsheet so we could filter his findings for the ideal breeder (next litter due date, guarantee, price, etc). After Mom got her Dood, I couldn’t bring myself to toss the data although I didn’t need it. But maybe…?
I was learning web design and familiar with databases, so I built an ugly little database-driven directory website with the worst navigation ever. The good news was the free listings were current and plentiful and folks could filter the list of Doodle breeders by state and other useful bits.
It sat unnoticed on the Web for a year…ugly, lonely and sad. *sniffffffle*
DoodleFinder Today
But then Google Adsense and search engine optimization popped up on my radar. I updated the site to the design pictured above and added free article content to bulk it up and draw traffic. I syndicated an article that got picked up by a few websites and suddenly there was a light, but steady, trickle of traffic that yielded an underwhelming 10¢ a day.
These days, almost all of DoodleFinder’s traffic comes from search engines. Buried under schoolwork and life-in-general, I’ve ignored it for over a year and it still pulls traffic, now earning enough from Adsense for a pizza night every other week.
Yes, I know that’s small change when others get five-figure Adsense checks every month, but I’m grateful for (and tickled about) the $100 deposit that Google sends three times a year.
The Potential
But I’ve been leaving money on the table, y’all. Now that classes are over I’m revisiting my website projects. DoodleFinder was first on the list for a redo, so I took a peek at what the other breeder directories are doing. And what they’re doing is making a helluvalot more than $300.
Pets4You.com lists breeders for all kinds of animals, from dogs to cats to potbelly pigs. An “Exclusive Advertising” package with premiere directory placement costs $625 per year. Pets4You offers no more than 6 premier placements per breed, and both the goldendoodle and labradoodle breeds are maxed out. Annual income for 2 pages of directory listings: $7,500 per year. But wait! There’s more… 
There are around 125 recommended goldendoodle breeders listed at Goldendoodles.com. Each breeder pays a $325 or $650 annual fee for a listing with a profile page and photo, with the price based on how may litters they have each year. Yup, Goldendoodles.com earns somewhere between $40,625 and $81,250 per year from its goldendoodle breeder directory. Can you imagine?
Now do I expect to earn $80,000 a year from DoodleFinder? Heck no! But the site is still worth improving, optimizing, and monetizing because even $7,500 a year, like with Pets4You, would put a massive dent in our student loans. And wouldn’t it be great to kick Sallie Mae to the curb sooner than later?
What’s Next For DoodleFinder?
Like many websites, DoodleFinder works well enough, but needs some love. It has—
- Steady search engine traffic, but that’s its only traffic source
- A decent design, but it’s outdated and the CSS is flawed
- A bountiful puppy photo gallery, but it’s weakly presented
- A relatively feature-rich listing, but it needs more breeders and details
- Free article content, but exclusive content would be better
- Consistent revenue, but it’s wee and comes from a single source
I have some ideas about what to do next, like addressing the proven income from detailed breeder profile pages with photographs, though the listing as it’s displayed now would always be free.
That’s enough about what I think. I’d like to know what you think:
What should I change about DoodleFinder’s design and content?
What’s missing?
What’s needed?
Lemme know down below…
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17 Responses to “Build It Better: Doodlefinder.com”
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Whew! Taking a short break from blogging, folks. More posts coming soon. Thanks for your patience!
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Two quick things I would change:
1) Center the page on the screen rather than keeping it on the left
2) Change “Pictures/Photos” to one or the other. What is the reason behind saying both?
Hi Kathleen–Thanks for your comment and welcome
1) Absolutely I will. Many thanks for your vote on that.
2) Good question. I got lots more traffic using both words. Visitors came from searches on “goldendoodle pictures” and also “goldendoodle photos”. Looks awkward but worked a treat. However, I’ll check to see if it still works, because it’s not worth keeping if it doesn’t.
Thanks again!
Once again you have just blown me away with information that I didn’t even know existed.
Never would have though to wonder “Gee who is getting paid to have all these adds sitting here..hmmm”
Never miss a day of BigBrightBulb…that’s for sure!
So I would have to really learn more& think about it to reccomend changes,
Recent blog post from Wendi Kelly: CAN and WILL…and BELIEVE
Howdy Wendi! Glad I still have a few surprises left
Yup, the directory site owners are getting paid quite well to display ads they didn’t design for products they don’t sell, with content (the directory listings) they didn’t write. Their work was mostly at the start, with building an engine to store and display it all.
Now if the whole thing is automated so vendors and breeders could add and maintain their own listings, so the publisher is only called on to moderate as needed? Can you imagine?
My wife was recently looking for Cavachon (Cavalier King + Bichon) dog and one thing I noticed in the few breeder sites I saw was often how poorly designed they were.
To me it seemed like one of those niches the design firms and freelancers forget to take over.
I like that you’re doing this though as I can see how helpful it would be for someone looking for this breed. I wish someone had one for Cavachons. Maybe it should be me so I can get a free pizza night every once in a while.
Now for my critique. ^^
1.) I’d make use of h1 and h2 tags. Wrap your logo in h1 and put your sites name in it but hide the text and just keep your image. Also put a more SEO friendly tagline in h2 for e.g. “Find Local Goldendood and Labradoodle Breeders” instead of “Find your new friend”
2.) I’d add more whitespace around the “3 ways to find a Breeder” information. It’ll make that part much easier to find and read.
3.) I’d do a javascript submit when the combo boxes are selected.
4.) I’d try to up the SEO a bit by rewriting some of the copy. Just try to think of search terms that people looking for a Goldendoodle or Labradoodle would use to find a breeder and try to add those words to your site. For example rewrite “3 Ways to find a Breeder” to “3 Ways to find Goldendoodle or Labradoodle Breeders”
Ok I’m done, sorry for writing one of those “Analysis the Site” type post in your comments section. Good luck with the site. If you have questions on how to do some of this just let me know.
Recent blog post from Jeremy Davis: What I Hate About Becoming a Designer
Jeremy! This was wonderful! You messaged me about a long list, but this is very reasonable, and very doable. And I’m gonna do it, too.
It amazes me the small differences that will likely make all the difference in search engine results ranking. I can see how these things would matter, but it wouldn’t have occurred to me to leverage the H1 and H2 tags for the header information. I’m used to handling those for articles, etc., but not the graphical elements. Clever stuff! Wow
Here’s something…do you think I’m damaging my SEO by having Goldendoodle and Labradoodle stuff on the same page? To say, am I diluting the page’s value because I’ve got a mixed message? One thing I noticed about the other breeder sites (and yes, they have pretty rotten designs, though I wasn’t going to say it first…) was that they are goldendoodle OR labradoodle…never both.
And no apologies for writing a post in the comments…it’s just what I needed, and I’d rather you do it here than write a post on how much work my site needs! Also, it’ll help someone else out, whereas an email would’ve only helped me.
BIG thanks! I’m glad to see you think there’s some hope for the ol’ girl
You’re right about diluting the site with both breeds since people don’t search for both. People who want a labradoodle, want just a labradoodle and aren’t interesting in a goldendoodle.
If you split the site up you can better focus the keywords for that breed. You might rank high for the search “Find goldendoodle labradoodle breeder” but like you said nobody searches that. You’re better off focusing on “find goldendoodle breeders” and other goldendoodle keywords.
Doing this might also open up a monetization option you might not have considered. If you have a site for just Labradoodles you can maybe put 2 ad spots and send out e-mails to the labradoodle breeders in your directory and see if they want to advertise on your directory.
Sorry for giving you a thousand more things to consider. I have a nack for making people spend way too much time on small projects when I give my opinion.
A few weeks ago my cousin wanted my design opinion on a faq section for a small site he’s developing. He planned to finish the entire site in under a week. I gave him some design suggestions and recommended some jquery for an element of the faqs. Two weeks later he’s almost done with the faq page, lol.
Recent blog post from Jeremy Davis: What I Hate About Becoming a Designer
“Yeah, ditto, what JD said…” LOL
Also, I think Kathleen’s right about centering the page.
As well as dividing up the site into Labradoodles and Goldendoodles for SEO purposes, I’m wondering if there’s a benefit in making it easier to see breeders by location at a glance. Actually, a map might be the way to go… I’m just thinking, here in Atlantic Canada, we’re more likely to look south of the border to New England than we are to go out to the west coast for a dog, so geographical sorting may be even more useful to dog seekers than political boundaries (states/provinces). But of course you’d still want those… Something to think about, maybe, anyway?
Recent blog post from rjleaman: Virtual Collection: Bacon Bits - Part 2
Hi Rebecca! Welcome and thanks for your comment, your vote for centering the content (You bet!) and your great suggestion about the maps…great! Hmm…
Ya know, at the time I developed this, doing a map that would keep itself updated was a huge challenge. Now Google Maps has all kinds of Publisher goodies, and I can code better, too. Would a “Find breeders closest to:” that generates a list of breeders from closest to farthest be redundant to your map idea? Or do you prefer something more visual?
Thanks again! You’ve got us thinking hard over here…
I’m thinking more visual… like a clickable map of North America, where clicking on, say, Florida or Oregon or British Columbia would take you to a page listing the breeders in that sate/province. That way, you’re presenting the info in two ways: text/list form for people whose brains are organized that way, and visual/map for those who can’t remember whether New Hampshire is next to Vermont or what, but know they don’t want to drive more than an overnight trip to visit a breeder.
Recent blog post from rjleaman: Virtual Collection: Bacon Bits - Part 2
@Rebecca-Jen— I agree with you, the pictorial map makes perfect sense for the visual learners in the house. So much sense that I’ve been playing with Google Maps since my reply! Found we can make a personalized list of businesses/locations (My Maps): My Goldendoodle Map. And also add business listings to the map.
A great example of pairing this Google Maps feature with your pictorial map is at Trader Joe’s locations. Click a dot or link for a tidy My Maps of Trader Joe’s markets in that region (the MD/DC/VA one loads quickly, not too many of them).
Thanks for your fab idea! Much cool stuff was found because you shared it!
Note to all except RJ: Go read RJ’s Bacon Bits-Part 2 post. Prepare to be amazed. Seriously.
Everyone has pretty much covered it, the only thing I would suggest is changing the color of the dogs. There is alot of white on the page and the dogs are very light colored as well. Looks great though.
Howdy Jeremy—Okay, cool. Good logic all around on that, I will definitely separate the two. Easily done. And I don’t mind a bit having a thousand more things to consider…I asked for them! You get people thinking and rethinking…it’s a good thing.
And that’s funny about your cousin
It is so easy to do that—get excited or thrilled or tickled or enamored (or all of them) with some element of a project that we lose sight of the big picture entirely. Ask me how I know!
But then, sometimes the results of that disproportionate attention can drive the rest of the project in a powerful and positive way! A mystery to me how we’re supposed to resolve that one…though I suspect moderation is the key, as always.
Many, many thanks. And sorry for the delayed reply? I was wrangling a bit with splitting the site and waited until I knew what I was gonna do.
I agree with Jeremy on this one:
“3.) I’d do a javascript submit when the combo boxes are selected.”
Also, can you make the database font stand out from the Google Ads? After you search the breeders, the results seem to get swallowed up by the ads. I’m not a designer, so I’m not sure if this comment will be helpful.
Oh, and should “Doodle News” be a little easier to find as well? Your “Tell a Friend” function is great for getting people to spread the word.
That’s my 2 cents CAD.
Recent blog post from Pamela: 1
Howdy Pamela, and thanks for your comments! I agree with you on every single one.
It would be much better if the list filtered on the fly (why didn’t I think of that?), I’ll make an effort to differentiate ads from content, and emphasize the Doodle News as well.
Whew, my to-do list is growing! Thanks muchly!
ps Feel free to raise your rate? Your feedback was worth far more than 2c…I’d say a full loony, for sure. And a non-designer’s opinion is just as important as a designer’s, maybe moreso. Thanks again.
Congrats I am sure the puppy mills are loving your new site.
Recent blog post from George: Is Your Labrador Retriever a Chewer?
@George–They may be, and so are the other breeders, along with puppy buyers who have done their homework and are able to make their own decisions on who they buy from.
Rather than make uninformed judgments on the individual breeders, I’m building on a comprehensive and unbiased list so buyers can make that decision for themselves.
Thanks for your comment.