No, I'm not a narcissist...

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J. A. Young
Posts: 249
Joined: Wed Sep 14, 2005 1:27 pm
Location: U.S.A.

No, I'm not a narcissist...

Post by J. A. Young »

I'm not a narcissist by any means, but it seems to me that the old site made individual writers stand out better; at least, writers were easy to search for. It took me 15 minutes to look up a writer today. The "writer search tool" is buried three tabs deep. You have to first scroll to the bottom of the home page and click on "request system" under the customer help subheading. Then you have to click on "finding the perfect writer" tab (but as there are other links, you'll probably click on these first in sheer confusion). This takes you to what looks like a tutorial page. As you read the tutorial, there is a very tiny link that says "writer search" tool which is under the "searching for a writer" subheading. This is extremely clunky to me. Is there any way to simply place that "writer search" tool link right on the home page? I'd like to think that a customer can click to find me (or other writers) with greater ease. I've really held my two cents back about this new site for some time because I felt like I needed to get to know it better. But several months in, I still find much of it confusing and far less streamlined than the old site. Even so, I can live with it if we can at least make writers front and center a bit more than this current incarnation of the site does. I also miss the content sampling that the old home page offered. Just seems to me that there are two many clicks needed to get to content or writers.
Lysis
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Joined: Sun Jun 07, 2009 2:08 pm
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Re: No, I'm not a narcissist...

Post by Lysis »

I thought I was the only one. lol It's really hard to find the tool. I bookmarked it cuz I like to check how many things I've written for each section.
J. A. Young
Posts: 249
Joined: Wed Sep 14, 2005 1:27 pm
Location: U.S.A.

Re: No, I'm not a narcissist...

Post by J. A. Young »

LOL...I literally have clicked on everything to find it and then had to revisit some links because I knew I had missed it. I thought there had to be an easier way but I was just missing it. If you guys at CC are planning another update or revision down the road and need some input from regular site users like me, I'd love to volunteer some ideas. But, truly, I would just be happy if we make finding writers/content a one-click process right from page one.
HiredGun
Posts: 311
Joined: Sun Dec 07, 2014 2:45 pm

Re: No, I'm not a narcissist...

Post by HiredGun »

When you use the writer search to find content on a specific topic, have you noticed the same writers being offered in your search results?
Word Gypsy
Posts: 469
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2006 9:16 pm
Location: USA

Re: No, I'm not a narcissist...

Post by Word Gypsy »

J. A. Young wrote:I'm not a narcissist by any means, but it seems to me that the old site made individual writers stand out better; at least, writers were easy to search for. It took me 15 minutes to look up a writer today. The "writer search tool" is buried three tabs deep. You have to first scroll to the bottom of the home page and click on "request system" under the customer help subheading. Then you have to click on "finding the perfect writer" tab (but as there are other links, you'll probably click on these first in sheer confusion). This takes you to what looks like a tutorial page. As you read the tutorial, there is a very tiny link that says "writer search" tool which is under the "searching for a writer" subheading. This is extremely clunky to me. Is there any way to simply place that "writer search" tool link right on the home page? I'd like to think that a customer can click to find me (or other writers) with greater ease. I've really held my two cents back about this new site for some time because I felt like I needed to get to know it better. But several months in, I still find much of it confusing and far less streamlined than the old site. Even so, I can live with it if we can at least make writers front and center a bit more than this current incarnation of the site does. I also miss the content sampling that the old home page offered. Just seems to me that there are two many clicks needed to get to content or writers.
I've come to the conclusion that the site is not author-centric anymore. It's all about the money. Some of my clients have complained to me about how clunky the site is, and so, they try and source their content elsewhere most of the time. It's disappointing.
Judith
Posts: 262
Joined: Sun Aug 01, 2010 11:30 am
Location: I may be found where mountains rise and rivers flow.
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Re: No, I'm not a narcissist...

Post by Judith »

I have the second highest number of sales in Visual Arts, but if you type in a search for visual arts you won't find me listed. It's all very odd now.
bumpylight
Posts: 13
Joined: Tue Aug 26, 2014 8:22 am

Re: No, I'm not a narcissist...

Post by bumpylight »

I wrote a long article on gardening. I included the word "garden" in the list of keywords. The article has been sitting around for months. Yet my profile isn't listed in the lengthy results from a search for the keyword "garden." Plenty of articles from other "one-result" authors showed up but not my own article. :shock:

I shall now roam the virtual streets of Constant Content, wearing a warning sign around my neck and shouting, "Unclean! Unclean!" :(
Judith wrote:I have the second highest number of sales in Visual Arts, but if you type in a search for visual arts you won't find me listed. It's all very odd now.
P.S. For convenience, the direct link is as follows:

https://www.constant-content.com/freela ... t-writers/
Last edited by bumpylight on Thu Sep 15, 2016 12:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
J. A. Young
Posts: 249
Joined: Wed Sep 14, 2005 1:27 pm
Location: U.S.A.

Re: No, I'm not a narcissist...

Post by J. A. Young »

Any thoughts from support??? All I know is that I look at hundreds of websites and ours is definitely on the clunky/confusing side. If it is about the money, as Word Gypsy mentioned, then we all have a stake in making it the best possible place to hunt for content--and writers! My suggestion is to bring back a simple link to writers profiles right from the home page. Also, add a link to new content that takes customers to a page that looks remarkably like the old home page of CC:) I write mainly for clients now so I have no idea if catalog sales are up or down on the whole, but I think we definitely want to draw customers into that catalog portion of the site with greater ease. Maybe the site could also reach out to our long-term customers to survey their thoughts on the matter too. Then we can get some ideas together for the next site update.
constant-content
Site Admin
Posts: 1330
Joined: Fri Jan 21, 2005 9:20 am

Re: No, I'm not a narcissist...

Post by constant-content »

Hi, J.A Young. Thank you for the feedback. On a client's account, the Find Writer is next to the Order Content and Search Images.
Image
J. A. Young wrote:Any thoughts from support??? All I know is that I look at hundreds of websites and ours is definitely on the clunky/confusing side. If it is about the money, as Word Gypsy mentioned, then we all have a stake in making it the best possible place to hunt for content--and writers! My suggestion is to bring back a simple link to writers profiles right from the home page. Also, add a link to new content that takes customers to a page that looks remarkably like the old home page of CC:) I write mainly for clients now so I have no idea if catalog sales are up or down on the whole, but I think we definitely want to draw customers into that catalog portion of the site with greater ease. Maybe the site could also reach out to our long-term customers to survey their thoughts on the matter too. Then we can get some ideas together for the next site update.
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