the BMB

so i putt around youtube all the time, and i often watch these porters review videos just for the hell of it.  if youve seen the newer ones, you know they give the board a terrain category at the beginning of the video with the little arrow.  something ive noticed is the "jump" category, and ive seen a lot of the great all around park/freestyle/anything boards go in there, rather than at least just "all mountain," or have a "park" category or something.  what does a "jump" board even mean?

chappy?

i always click play on their reviews, blink and i miss them!

but on the jump thing, nfi jump/jib = park makes sense just to have that.

Spenser?:

so i putt around youtube all the time, and i often watch these porters review videos just for the hell of it.  if youve seen the newer ones, you know they give the board a terrain category at the beginning of the video with the little arrow.  something ive noticed is the "jump" category, and ive seen a lot of the great all around park/freestyle/anything boards go in there, rather than at least just "all mountain," or have a "park" category or something.  what does a "jump" board even mean?

chappy?

Hey Spenser et al -

I agree with the critique and was already going to have them re-tagged / changed. 

Let me back up though first.  While I personally don't like narrowing types of boards down too much in categories, unfortunately a lot of customers "like" that and need their hand held to pick out models.  I also am not a fan of calling boards "freestyle" or "freeride" for obvious reasons......as any rider worth a hoot can "freestyle" a freeride board or "freeride" a freestyle one on any type of terrain anywhere on the mountain.

So last season we had park, all terrain, and powder as the categories of boards.  This season, with there being so many rockered boards out there, we duplicated all three of those generic types of boards for rocker.  So, for example, you could have "all terrain" as a category.....as well as "all terrain rockered".

Here's where the next wrinkle got thrown in......and this was consistent feedback from people on our live chat again who wanted more detail.  The word "park" was too broad as we got people complaining / wanting to return boards that were too soft.....i.e. soft jib sticks that really are best on rails and boxes.  So we thought why not put those noodles in their own category?

However, for a while internally with our peeps working on the videos, the terms "park jib" and "park jumps" started getting used.  Then some of the videos got tagged with that when really, in my opinion, it should just be called "park" boards as the vast amount.....and a handful called "park jib" or something.

Bottom line, here's what's on the table now:

 

All Terrain

All Terrain - Rocker

Park - Jib

Park - Jib Rocker

Park

Park - Rocker

Powder

Powder - Rocker

 

As with anything, though, the more you narrow it down, the more open to interpretation crap gets.  Again I personally could categorize 90% of boards as "all mountain / all terrain".....with a few noodle jib sticks and a few very directional / tapered boards rounding out the rest.

Thoughts Spenser?  Too confusing?  Feedback from other peeps?  And again I agree that the little meter thing was a nice thought but it's gotta be changed regardless.....

 

Edit:  and to make a long story short on the "jump" deal......that word should just be "park" instead of jump of course

 

i  think it should be

 

skatestyle

skatestyle rockers

freestyle

freestyle/rockerd

freeride

freeride rockerd

latex

paba free

organic

organic/rockered

doc....I think you missed "con carne"

Oh....and I also forgot to mention one other very big benefit by at least separating out rocker boards.  People do Google searches by general categories like "rockered snowboards".....and if we have a standalone category for that it helps with organic SEO.

Not sure if you were serious with "skate style", but ironically that's one term that we've been thinking of using instead of the "park / jib / rails / boxes / whatever"

Forgetting rocker as a subset for now, would you be more inclined to say screw trying to separate out the more skate / jib park boards from the bigger generic "park" category?

Leaving you back with just 3 general categories....

1)  all terrain (again the vast majority of boards)

2)  park

3)  powder

??

definitely powder or maybe powder/freeride (taper, mainly, like your fish/malolo/etc board) and all mountain, like your custom, uninc, and more aggressive ones like the CX and maybe t6, etc.. and between there and your super jibby boards is where it gets tough.  like an indoor for example.. true twin, so you think its a good all around park board, but obviously they work great as all mountain boards as well.  i think like you said, people like to have that category there because it helps some people make up their mind when they dont really think like you or me or doc for example, where we know any half decent rider will be able to shred anything with your general board whether its true twin or not, from park and rails to pow on the real mountain.

so at the bottom of the lineup, you could definitely have park/jib, like your horrorscope, WWW, and so on, and then when you get more toward a higher end medium stiff park board like an indoor or twin or fix or something, youd have to somehow blend it between all-around park and all mountain somehow.  what do you think of maybe even having two arrows?  sounds weird at first, but it could work.

ps - replied to your pm about something else

Thanks for the feedback......but in all honesty the rocker distinction (especially for SEO) is more important than some of these other distinctions.

So I'm more and more tempted to just go back to 3 more generic categories since we'd have to double that to 6 already with a corresponding rockered / flat category for each.

Eeeeeegads

pm'd back

in all seriousness i would do

jib oriented c/co rocker

park oriented c/co rocker

all mountain freestyle oriented c/co rocker

freeride oreinted c/co rocker

powder c/co rocker

i think this leaves it open that all boards can doeverything but some are more designed around a type of riding

c/co = with/without

do the broad categories and then have subsets if needed or where appropriate

                 > - Jib
Park- >
                 > -Jump

                       >more park
All terrain->
                       >more pow

                       > big mountain
Freeride->
                       >tree riding

Freeriding subsets would probably be overkill....and even all terrain, park is the only thing that really needs a distinction because boards can vary so much.

Adding more categories would also mean more templates which equals more work. May not be worth it.

Chappy, do you guys do meta-keyword permutations?

drjcv:

in all seriousness i would do

jib oriented c/co rocker

park oriented c/co rocker

all mountain freestyle oriented c/co rocker

freeride oreinted c/co rocker

powder c/co rocker

i think this leaves it open that all boards can doeverything but some are more designed around a type of riding

c/co = with/without

In all seriousness too.....appreciate the feedback for sure

J-T:

do you guys do meta-keyword permutations?

Even though meta tags don't carry the SEO weight that they used to, yes we still use them.  Any particular reason why you're curious?

drjcv:

in all seriousness i would do

jib oriented c/co rocker

park oriented c/co rocker

all mountain freestyle oriented c/co rocker

freeride oreinted c/co rocker

powder c/co rocker

i think this leaves it open that all boards can doeverything but some are more designed around a type of riding

c/co = with/without

 

This and J-Ts seem to make the most sense to me.

TahoeChappy:

J-T:

do you guys do meta-keyword permutations?

Even though meta tags don't carry the SEO weight that they used to, yes we still use them.  Any particular reason why you're curious?

I have been working at a company that does this type of stuff, and I just wanted to see how far Porters went in comparison....just out of interest.

Like an SEO optimization type company.....or some other online retailer and you're working in the marketing / SEO division?  Just curious too...