Help! Need ideas/suggestions/etc. for mogulskiing.net

[BushMogulMaster]

I need some help from my AZ pals:

I just added a ton of new items to the mogulskiing.net online store. Have a look at www.cafepress.com/mogulskiing and let me know what you think. Feel free to offer any suggestions in terms of products and designs.

Also, I'm currently working on a semi-major overhaul to the www.mogulskiing.net website. Looking for suggestions and ideas on how I can improve the site overall. Current plan is to redo the links/navigation with a CSS vertical menu. Going to add pictoral demonstrations/explanations in the technique guide. Going to revamp the photo gallery, and improve upon it. Also going to redo the video gallery with embedded video.

Please please please... what are your thoughts/ideas/suggestions? I want to improve the site as much as possible, and I'd like to start working out some advertising and boosting monthly visits. Last season, with absolutely no advertisement, I was seeing a couple thousand unique visitors per month. I'd like to see that rising steadily throughout the 08/09 season.

I've also decided that I'm going through the entire site and rewording so that I no longer refer to "WC style." I've decided that that makes it sound too much like there is only one set of methods/skills applied by ALL world cuppers in exactly the same manner. I will refer to the comprehensive techniques of the world cup, but it will no longer be WC style mogul skiing. Thoughts? Agree? Disagree?


Thanks,

~Patrick

 

[thinnmann]

Google adwords advertising will both get you hits at your own cost commitment, and make you money if you include them on your pages.

Get a store involved. Throw them free advertising in exchange for a ski give-away. In order to sign up for the ski-give away, make people register and let them opt in or out of receiving site updates via email. Or make it a contest for best vid or photo of mogul skiing (but that takes subjective judging and time).

Get a load of stickers printed and give them away at the bump runs and in the lodge. maybe people will put them on their helmets and cars instead of on the ski lift poles... or maybe that would be even a better place for people to stick them

PS - Check with your financial advisor, but that might make your ski trips tax deductible business expenses....

 

[jaywbigred]

As far as site redesign, I know you have tried it before, but I think there would be a desire by folks out there to keep an up to date list of all open mogul runs in the East? Eventually you could expand to the entire country (i.e. if the website takes off and you have some employees). I am not sure how you could compile the list. Perhaps it would start with reviewing daily ski reports/making calls to resorts (not all resorts report the existance of actual moguls on their reports), and compiliing. Eventually maybe you could build relationships with individuals at each resort who could send you an email everyday saying "there are great lines on X,Y, and Z trails. Also, the snowmaking folks seeded V trail and W trail last night."

Right now, I think the only way to do it is to patrol boards like this one, and glean what you can from each mountain's website. If you centralized it so that folks could stop at one place to see what was open and where they were going that weekend to find the best bumps, it would not only be tremendously helpful, but it would drive a lot of traffic that is currently scattered around various places on the internet, as ALL (non-mountain-local) mogul enthusiasts would go to your website before their ski trips to decide where to head that weekend.

Obvi it would take some work to get it going, but I bet once you did, it would streamline itself. User driven is too spotty and tends not to update often enough. Its gotta be centralized.

As a side benefit, you'd drive hordes of reasonable bumpers to the good lines and that sh!t would really set up nice!

 

[2knees]

+100000 on that above post. Not sure how it would work but the one thing most bumpers i know are always worried about is where the heck the bump runs are.

I do enjoy your site BMM but i've been much more of a lurker then anything else in the past year. It's a bit intimidating for the casual hack at times. Great stuff on there though. Nice work and kudos for giving us a dedicated site.

 

[deadheadskier]

Swimsuit spread of US Women's team?

 

[BushMogulMaster]

Swimsuit spread of US Women's team?

I'm on it!


Seriously though, thanks for the ideas. I'll see what I can do with it. I already have built relationships with several mountains that will gladly help keep things updated. I will work this year to expand that, and try to keep as current as possible. It's just tough to do a semi-daily update of that scale when I have life outside of the internet!

 

[jaywbigred]

I will work this year to expand that, and try to keep as current as possible. It's just tough to do a semi-daily update of that scale when I have life outside of the internet!

Yeah, I was thinking it would be. Maybe if you had set times that you updated it, a couple times a week?

Like 1 midweek update and 1 weekend update. Make the update same time every week, e.g. Tuesday Morning and Thursday morning? And then when it gets easier, you can update more often. A lot of the time there would no change anyway, I would imagine.

Or I could be wrong. STOP MOWING DOWN THE BUMPS PEOPLE!

 

[Jeff Isabelle]

Rattler

I went to the site the clip is cool - Tigne. I think mogul skiing has changed severly from when I was a mogul freak. It was part out of bounds mixed with huge volkswagon sized bumps. Today its manicured and the path is perfect it seams. It certainly takes huge leg power to do moguls well period but now its boring and predictable.

I know of a few top past mogul skiiers that would be fun to see clips from but probably this is not available. The craziest mogul skier that I think ever lived was Jack Taylor and Nano Portier a Coach for the French Freestyle Team. I saw both of them first hand do things years ago before their time. Nano Portier is was a rotation king in any mogul field 1080's etc.... I saw him too often jump past finish lines, and Jack Taylor would jump sections at will under full control at high speed. Just these 2 alone are far more interesting to watch as compared to the short manicured mogul championship competitors of today.

I think they should go back to include a option for free skiing comp class also approach to moguls. Anyone can ski pattern moguls they might as well be slaming barn doors. Twenty years ago the runs were also 20 times longer than this its boring to watch now. Few spectacular freestyle types of personal style. It now all looks the same.