Serious potential for content or services? or pure waste of time?

Honestly clueless. Don't know if is worth any effort. Please comment!

[explorador]

Hi webmasters, I do my homework: read & research, etc. But this time I'm confused on what to do or just do nothing. I get constant questions from visitors, saw potential from the emails I get but the general behaviour puts me into serious doubts.

• I have a great website about -widgets and widgetland- with good traffic and pages read per visitor. This web DOES NOT sell anything.
  
• I get weekly emails asking for more, specific info about widgets and widgetland.
  
• I now get frequent petitions on travel tickets and tours to widgetland (it makes no sense to me!) perhaps a tour around the factory of widgets?
  
• Talked to people who might offer those services but they saw little interest on attending visitor questions.
  
• Decided to ADD a disclaimer stating that I will NOT be answering specific questions that can be solved if people READ the actual pages, that the site does NOT offer services or sells anything so please do not ask for it.
  
• I still get those emails... :( even asking for reservations.

My thoughts: I see potential on some of the questions to create new content, even more if there's a clear trend. I thought of potential to sell services becoming an affiliate for the services the visitors want, but I'm in serious doubt these people even read the disclaimer.

The negative (explanation) is on the contact form and on the "thank you for contacting us" page, but people still ask for the services. To me is a clear sign that, *those people who write and ask for services* are not worth attending as they don't even read the explanations, perhaps dangerous clients who won't read the terms of use (if I decide to try selling stuff) and then perhaps make a claim? A lot of those visitors are from Central América.

Do you see any value or potential in this?

[Dijkgraaf]

As you said, do you really want to deal with clients who can't even read your disclaimer?
I think the effort involved with dealing with them is far going to outweigh the potential income.

It also sounds like you may not get the co-operation of those that you would need to actually set up the service.

[wheel]

Huh? What? People want to buy stuff from you and you're not interested in selling it to them because they didn't read something on your website?

Somebody slap me, you can't be serious. Or tell me your niche, 'cause it smells like opportunity.

[explorador]

As you said, do you really want to deal with clients who can't even read your disclaimer?

That's exactly my concern. It was not openly explained by the operators but I think this it was the same reason they didn't want a part of this: they know the difficulties of the niche.

[lucy24]

Tangential question: Do you have a FAQ page? One that people have to go through before they're allowed to see your real e-mail link?

[buckworks]

It might be worth having a professional copywriter or editor look at the text people seem not to be reading.

There might be ways in which the text could be simplified and clarified to make it easier for people to read and understand.

[explorador]

@lucy24: not tangential at all, yes I have a short specific FAQ on the contact page. This particular message is bold colored text, the same message on the "thanks for contacting us" and also on the email they receive after sending the message.

In fact the contact page has a list of links that should be useful for the most asked questions to avoid people to send the message. I came across a similar site to mine that has a complete article making fun of this behaviour stating that noooo, "we won't ever take the time to find out the answers for you" is very funny.

buckworks: It might be worth having a professional copywriter or editor look at the text people seem not to be reading.

There might be ways in which the text could be simplified and clarified to make it easier for people to read and understand

Thanks, nice advice, I will take the time to test this page with a group of people to see how they react, will ask for more opinions in place.

[wheel]

You're doing it backwards. It should be second nature to everyone to put their phone number in a prominent location on their website for example. You want people to contact you - it's the easiest way to make sales their is.

You should be spending effort learning how to monetize these people rather than trying to discard them. They are targetted traffic and they're speaking to you - if there's anything standing between that and them handing you money I don't know what it is.

Do a 180 here. Forget trying to ramp up the readability of your content. If you do that, you'll be disappointed because people still won't read it. Instead, figure out what to sell them and provide more and better ways for them to contact you.

Appreciate that people have no concern for reading your book. They want the fastest answer to a problem, and for many that's just asking the question of an expert.

[explorador]

Thanks for the points of views on what could be done, I now have a bigger perspective:

• Review the text and make some tests to make clear what I could offer and what I can't (pretty obvious, I don't want people wanting to buy oranges if what I sell are apples, and for certain reasons I don't sell oranges!)
  
• Discuss and PRE-test the market to find out why the possible affiliates pay little attention to this market (to me this is a big one, they are above me, they can sell but play it hard to get sort of.. I mean, perhaps this market means hard sales, people difficult to decide, need for long personal support? little conversions? little ROI?)
  
• Yes, considering a pro to review some texts and make them clear
  
• Contact phone? not so sure about it. The target is mostly latin american but I don't think they will spend money on international calls if they just don't read what's already there. In my experience people try the phone mostly if is local.
  
• 180, yes, I'm trying. I will focus on the fastest answer to the problem (this is a perspective I didn't consider)

Just remember, they are not trying to buy

quoting myself: I get weekly emails asking for more, specific info about widgets and widgetland.

I get asked specific info AND tickets. I don't sell tickets, perhaps there is a way out. On the other end, for specific info don't confuse dumb target with potential business. People often ask almost research like questions that at least for a mid term I'm no interested on solving for them.

I'ts been discussed here before the diff characteristics of traffic, not every 100 visitors are the same in every niche.

Then again, [They want the fastest answer to a problem] this makes me think of possible solutions. And yes, [do you really want to deal with clients who can't even read your disclaimer?] I'm taking that very seriuosly.

I guess it makes it kinda hard to deal with specifics from a widget -notalkaboutit- perspective.

But every post here was indeed helpful :) Thanks, any more comments are welcome.