Website Review and Suggestions

#1 (permalink)

Alright, so I have a site: www.aaronsinfo.com But I'm having major traffic issues, and I'm wondering if I should ditch the guides and how tos and stick with reviews. The reviews get the most views from wandering or random traffic, but as far as advertising, search engines, and social bookmarking... how tos have been a bit more helpful. But then again 100% of the reviews are original content, while 75% of the guides and how tos are taken from free articles, encyclopedias, books, and so on and so forth.

Any suggestions for my site? Suggestions on traffic would also be greatly appreciated.

#2 (permalink)

My first suggestion is the first impression your site makes. There's so many things you could do to improve the way it looks, which in turn would keep people around the site longer. The design needs work. Consider migrating the whole thing to Wordpress (if it isn't already on Wordpress) and then find an attractive free theme. There are thousands of them.

__________________

Please login or register to view this content. Registration is FREE

#3 (permalink)

Alright then...besides moving to wordpress, what design improvements could I make? Since you've posted that, I've started to redesign my site...and it's coming along nicely so far. But more specific suggestions and critique would be nice.

__________________

Please login or register to view this content. Registration is FREE

#4 (permalink)

Aaron, I'm going to just rattle them off in list format here, so I apologize if I sound curt:

1) most of the busiest sites in the world use dark text on a white background; there's a reason for that: it's more readable than light on dark

2) an eye-catching image banner at the very top of the page would greatly improve the design

3) get rid of the spider likes your mouse thing. it's a cute diversion, but as a diversion it totally detracts from any content your site has to offer

4) speaking of the content, pull some content out to display on the front page. there's nothing on the site when it first opens up to entice anyone to click the category links you have at the top

5) speaking of the category links at they top, they're hard to see; they don't contrast enough with the rest of the page and are easy to miss. increase the space between the content above and below them by a line or two (about 1/4-1/2 inch)

6) choose a layout with more than just one wide column. your site isn't google and has a lot of info it needs to convey on the first page. having 1 or 2 sidebars tightens up the page and gives you some flexibility in terms of where you place information

7) images, images, images. add more images throughout the page, but particularly "above the fold" (the top of the page area that visitors can see when they first arrive on site and haven't scrolled down at all), but by "images" I don't mean ads.

8) speaking of ads, no one is going to be swayed to click any of those amazon.com affiliate links at the top until you convince them that the rest of your site is worthwhile. to do that you need to redesign and focus on your content.

9) speaking of content... what the heck is your site about? pull out some of your best content and place it above the fold. give me a reason to spend time on your site.

10) don't give up; it's hard work and a lot of trial and error

10.5) I highly recommend going with a blog like Wordpress. blogs are easy to update for people who aren't html experts

11) get rid of all those meta keywords. you aren't foolin' google with all those. stick to no more than 10-20 total keywords separated by commas. google is probably penalizing your site for trying to be sneaky with keywords

__________________

Please login or register to view this content. Registration is FREE

#5 (permalink)

ok...in my redesigning, I already took care of 2, 3, 6, and 8.... And I'm also planning on redesigning the navigation at the top with images instead of just text. But two questions:

One) When you say pull some content out to display on the front page (which you mention somewhere else) do you mean in the form of actual content, a link, or both? I was considering having images link to my most popular pages from the home page.

Two) On a scale of one to ten how high would you rate having dark on light? 'Cause then I'd have to change my banner and my whole color scheme, both of which I very much like...and I've had compliments on.

btw that wasn't too curt, it was exactly what I wanted

__________________

Please login or register to view this content. Registration is FREE

#6 (permalink)

When I say pull some content I mean an actual title of one of your reviews and the first paragraph or so of text as well as a picture, kinda like what you're doing now on the review pages themselves except with just the first paragraph or two of text.

Simply posting a title link with no guarantee that the information to follow is well-written and helpful isn't going to entice people to dig deeper or to stay on your site. Web surfers are impatient. You have to give them a compelling reason to give you their time, and you only have seconds to do it in.

As for the dark on light thing, I'd say it's an 8. Light on dark designs can work, but they're far more difficult to design. In your case, if you're only in a position to implement relatively minor design changes to the overall design, I would say that a change to a dark on light design would get a 10, i.e. extremely important. Other than your site, write down a list of the first 10 sites that come to mind. Now, how many of those have light text on a dark background?

__________________

Please login or register to view this content. Registration is FREE