10 21 2024 11:20
reading time: 5 min
Greetings to everyone following COCO updates!
This week has been busy and productive for the Countertops Contractors team. We continue to actively develop our project, learning from mistakes and celebrating our victories. Every day, we make changes to improve our service and make it even more convenient for you.
Now, let me share what we accomplished over the past week!
We decided to rent a small office. Although most of our team works remotely from different countries, the office is necessary so we can have a physical address on Google Maps. This will allow users to leave reviews about our service.
Our frontend developer started working on the new website design. However, we faced unexpected challenges when processing ratings for companies with multiple branches in different cities. This led to a discussion during our standup meeting, and we decided to keep the current system that ties companies to specific U.S. regions.
After studying user behavior on the site, we realized we were missing a subscription feature for our updates. We added this feature through pop-ups, which appear only when a user is about to leave the page. This way, we made the subscription process non-intrusive.
Our social media manager, Vikki, selected high-quality photos for 17 companies, and these images are now actively used to promote the companies on social media. Over 22 photos have already been posted on our Pinterest, each accompanied by a description. I’m pleased to see that traffic has stabilized and has even started to grow!
Out of these 17 companies, six were chosen for their large follower base. For these companies, we prepared photos that will be used to create Reels on Instagram. We plan to tag these companies in our posts, which will help attract more attention to their services.
This week, our analyst Ann handed over data from nine cities to the copywriter for article creation. Each of these locations was thoroughly checked to ensure the accuracy of the provided prices and information. Ann verifies the data gathered by our mystery shopper, Maya, who requests quotes and collects the necessary information.
The mystery shopper method allows us not only to gather real pricing data but also to evaluate the quality of service, client communication, and adherence to deadlines. This helps us create an honest and transparent ranking of companies.
This week marked an important moment when one of our active contractors contacted us with a request to update their information on our site. Maya and I quickly processed the request, demonstrating our high level of service. This also shows that contractors are finding our site more often through search results!
However, six cities were sent back for further review because, in some cases, the information was incomplete or the companies had not yet provided their prices.
As our project grows, the number of tasks increases constantly! Our goal is to become the leading experts in the countertop industry in the U.S. and around the world. To achieve this, we started publishing articles not only on our site but also on external platforms.
We launched a blog on Substack and have already published our first post! Now, you can follow our project there as well.
We had also planned to start publishing on Medium, but we ran into some technical difficulties. We are currently working on resolving the issue.
In the Substack blog, I shared how the idea for COCO was born. If you’re interested, follow the link, read the story, and share your thoughts — I’d love to hear your feedback!
This week, our copywriter Alisa wrote seven articles about countertop prices in different cities. You can read all of them on our website.
Additionally, Alisa completed an article titled, “Does a Higher Price Mean Better Countertop Quality?”. This article analyzes reviews of companies that provided the highest quotes for our project. The article will answer the question: Does a higher price guarantee better quality? It will be live on our site soon, as we’re just finalizing the last details.
Alisa is also working on the page with publications about countertop prices, which is an important part of our project. And this is just a small part of what our copywriter is working on.
These are the highlights of this week! Thank you for your support and stay tuned for more updates!
