Student Books

[mgstudent]

So after having this domain in storage for a while I pulled it out about a month ago and it's now developed!

Would really appreciate your thoughts, ideas and bug (browser, css, code, design) reports.

Student Books

Idea behind the site:
1. Books searchable through Amazon's system
2. New and used prices shown for book searches
3. Search based on keyword/title, ISBN or author
4. Also select a reading list for a particular university degree course module:
* this is the ambitious part of the project and work in progress.
* to see an example select "University of Leeds" then select any subject followed by any course for an example.
5. Individual book pages offer:
* book description with title, author, publisher, date published, no. of pages
* list of similar products
* book reviews (good and bad)
6. The homepage will look for a cookie from a previous visit or request you select a country (UK, US, Canada, Japan, France or Germany)
7. Once you arrive at the local page, the language should match and there are a whole bunch of subjects listed that once selected will provide a list of books to browse based on the subject.
8. College profiles. Also work in progress but Profiles are pretty much complete for 131 UK Universities and Colleges: each with logo, description, address and other contact info plus student union contact information. In some cases the details for the campus store and student radio station is listed along with rss feeds for the college.
* About 2000 US colleges that will be added over the next few weeks
9. Student discussion forum. Basic and quiet to begin with.
10. SEO - Most pages have unique titles and descriptions but the majority of this information will be duplicate content from Amazon. Especially at the beginning. If I can add to the university reading lists database then this is a great feature for press releases and a nice USP for the site - if it's the authority as a uni reading list site.
11. Sub affiliates. Students or helpers who compile the reading lists will have their affiliate code show part of the time for them to earn commissions.
12. Affiliates can also use the Book Search Widget. Either PHP, HTML or iFrame code. Cut and paste to any website and searches from their website could result in affiliate income for the site. Also the search tool is a useful tool for many site audiences.

They come in 4 colours

My to do list / possible issues:
1. Have a proper translation done for the French, German and Japanese portals
2. Check the cookie permance fully across the site. Maybe install a geo ip check.
3. Site load time issues
4. Look at any css distortion across different platforms and browsers
5. Come up with an SEO plan!
6. The image under the search boxes (now Obama for the UK site) is clickable but needs to be rotated with other content either randomly or based on a calendar.

I've got postits everywhere so I'm sure that I'm missing stuff, but at least this post is helping me get the info together!

What do you think? Any help appreciated especially bug reports. But also any SEO or feature tips. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats and all that...

I guess one strength is that this domain has always had a small number of type ins and that a few books have been sold whilst I've been coding it the last month! Just really need to get more traffic to it...

Anyone with student sites? Why don't you install the book search widget ? :razz:

Let me know what you think.
Which parts should I try to improve?
Which parts do you like?

TIA

 

[MAllie]

I'm very impressed with your site. As an ordinary (nontechie) user, I find it very simple to navigate. I love the simple logo that adds rather than takes from the design as a whole, because the books already provide plenty of eye-interest and, as a bibliophile, it's always the books that I'm going to be looking at.

Just one problem for me, that may be caused by my browser: the list of different categories of books and the list over to the right only come out in part - it's because it's the second part that I was able to know what the category was and click on it.

But best of luck with the site. Others may be more technically critical, but for someone like me, an oldie who might be looking for a book for a young relative, I think it's a little masterpiece of design simplicity.

 

[Credit]

How much for the domain+script?

 

[mgstudent]

I'm very impressed with your site...

Thanks MAllie - Really kind. I still have a lot of work to do but the site is selling books already so that's one metric I'm happy with.

I'm guessing that you're using Internet Explorer 5 or 6. The categories have shifted for some reason in these browsers and I'm working on this issue today.

The simple design at the top is kind of like a book spine too - with the logo on the left and the search box on the right.

How much for the domain+script?

Are you asking me how much I paid or how much I'll sell for? Not too sure what you want.

All of the coding and design work is completely custom. The website isn't running off a script you can buy. That's where all of the hard work has for the last 6 weeks.

 

[Credit]

Are you asking me how much I paid or how much I'll sell for? Not too sure what you want.

All of the coding and design work is completely custom. The website isn't running off a script you can buy. That's where all of the hard work has for the last 6 weeks.

How much do you want for it?

 

[Onward]

Very nice design.

If you can add a classified section or even a secondhand marketplace for students to sell their books...maybe even craigslist style....and like a 50 cent or dollar posting...I think that would do really well.

 

[steveto]

I really like this script to. If there is any way I can use it for a domain of mine..we could discuss profit sharing. PM me if interested.

I would add a review section to your site. If it was possible...to have a short review of the material and other students could review it.

A classified section is great, but the whole premise of making a site like this is to make money. If you put up a used book section/classified...you're pretty much losing that part unless you make deals with used book stores..and that would be way too much work...besides..Amazon has all that access...you can buy from one of their used book vendors.

 

[Onward]

A classified section is great, but the whole premise of making a site like this is to make money. If you put up a used book section/classified...you're pretty much losing that part unless you make deals with used book stores..and that would be way too much work...besides..Amazon has all that access...you can buy from one of their used book vendors.

I disagree. You are giving users a place outside of Amazon and collecting a fee for each listing...you are also giving a reason for people to come back and use the site in a different way after they buy their book and need to resell it....I think you would still get plenty of affiliate cash coming in and also get listing fees weather or not the book sells.

This is my opinion of course...the site look great as is....also as it does not appear that hard work is out of this guys game plan.

 

[steveto]

ya, I didn't see that part about paying for the listing..it's a decent idea, but how are you going to collect? Not all students have paypal or credit cards. now with the crapola economy..I don't think they want to give students more debt..but I could be wrong...but you could I guess refer paypal and get the affiliate fee..

you COULD also sell ad space from textbook stores..maybe per university and really make the advertising specific...or like some major national used textbook store...that could get you regular income coming in..

Maybe Ebay affiliate link too?..you could make your version of a BANS outlet from your site..

 

[Sonny Banks]

Nice site congrats!

 

[MAllie]

Yes, I'm using Explorer 6.

 

[Onward]

Maybe Ebay affiliate link too?..you could make your version of a BANS outlet from your site..

Now there is another good idea...

 

[mgstudent]

Thanks for your comments and ideas. I will get around to fixing the IE6 and below bugs... hopefully!

Onward - I've the classifieds script for students to sell their books on my list of things to do. At the moment I'm welcoming visitors to post these for sale on the fourums. But it's just about finding the right place for the forum to go. As there're 6 different countries maybe I should put a for sale forum in each country forum - just not sure if I should do it now while the forums are very quiet - or like you said opt for a classified script.
Even allowing it free for students to post I think is worth it. Just to get the traffic up and the word out. The knock on effect will be better affiliate sales and ad revenue.

Steveto - There's no easy way for me to transfer this script at the moment - even to another one of my domains. I'm sure I could separate the templates I've created etc, it'll just take a lot of work. I'd like to see how the site progresses and see if it would be worth my while packaging and selling this as a script or not. Because of the amount of time I've dedicated to this project it's difficult for me to give it away even for a profit share to be honest.

There are off the shelf products that you can get that will probably suit your needs if you want to get a domain quickly developed and then profit share. I think associate-o-matic (or a name similtar) offers software for free with a future profit share. It doesn't have all the features of my script - but it has a few.


I just need to work on SEO stuff now and boost the traffic.
If anyone wants to add a book search box to their site and earn a portion of the affiliate revenue from book sales through searches from your site check out the widget:

UK book search widget
US book search widget

Also available for Canada, France, Germany and Japan.
They can be customized a little in terms of color and you just add your amazon associates ID to get credited for sales. Signing up with amazon's associate program is also free. You can install the search bar either with html or php. See the links for more info.

Thanks again for your comments and if anyone spots any more bugs or can offer advixe on SEO stuff - please do.