Website Review and Suggestions

**Mays Financial** · 05-05-2010, 01:56 PM

I’m seeking an honest opinion of my site please. I did everything myself, but also realize that my knowledge is limited.

The site provides free education and information. I have adsense and am an Amazon Affiliate to try and cover hosting costs, but am still trying to break even. I've designed the whole website including logos myself to keep costs down and used all the free/cheap web tools I could find. I'm trying not to pay for anything to keep the site free.

What are your honest evaluations of the site? It is basically just a free information site. My long term goal is to be a free comprehensive financial resource for those that can't afford the services of a professional. I have a full-time job right now so I'm working on this goal a day at a time.

I did the whole website myself including design and the artwork. Does it look crappy or home made? The logos were made in MS Paint and the picture on the front page is just my wife we took in Lake Tahoe.

I coded the site myself, which is why it might load slow...any suggestions? I'm trying to do it all myself to keep costs down since I want the site to be free to people. I'd be happy if I could just break even on costs for the site since I already put so much time into just putting up content. It’s taken me about a year to develop the site to its current state and I am happy with the progress, but also realize my limitations and lack of experience. I appreciate any feedback, thanks.

What do you think? What can I improve? www.maysfinancial.com
Aside from the design critiques, is it a helpful site or useless to you? Content is light since the site is new, but I’m working on it.

I appreciate your time.

**Chris Guthrie** · 05-05-2010, 06:09 PM

What I suggest is to remove the ads you have on the site. Especially the Amazon widget on the sidebar - people don't click those. I specifically ran a test all through 2009 using separate tracking codes to see how well they performed when compared to other methods and they consistently performed the worst across all of my test websites.

Also, I'd remove the adsense as well. Your website is brand new. You don't want any reason to make people leave. Your goal should be to convert visitors into readers.

I'm not a fan of the header area. I think the photo of your wife should be removed and the links to the left reoriented as well. The reason why I think this is because it's not completely clear to me what your site was about just after landing on it when I saw that type of photo. I think you could use the space to further promote your content or perhaps an eBook that you write to get newsletter subscribers going.

Is this your first website?

**Chris Guthrie** · 05-05-2010, 06:20 PM

Also, I would add I think you should define the focus of your website more clearly. Target a specific niche i.e. personal finance and stick to that etc.

**Mays Financial** · 05-05-2010, 07:03 PM

Thank you very much. Yes this is my first site. I opted for Amazon to go more for education/helpful stuff than just selling, but I'll take your advice and remove the amazon widget.

Yeah, previously I was told the site was too dry or impersonal and if people were going to listen they had to know me so I added an extensive 'about me' section and put a picture of her up on the front to sort of make it 'everyday' if that makes any sense.

I'll have to figure something out with the header area. I wanted to advertise all topics, but I may have to find a better way of doing that without making it so big.

I chose financial planning because many people don't understand that all areas need to be considered, but you're right, it is very difficult to populate such a wide range of topics.

Do you think it would still be workable if I took down the Amazon books and just put up a single adsense strip? I'm trying to at least break even what I pay for hosting since this is just a hobby. I appreciate your feedback.

**DesignChic** · 05-05-2010, 08:07 PM

Yeah, I'd say the site looks like a home made site. It doesn't seem like things tie together nicely, like the photo of the girl in black and white...nice photo..but what does it have to do with what you're offering? Your logo is tough to make out, not enough contrast there...maybe you could adjust it and make it color.

I probably wouldn't see a need for visiting the site.

**Mays Financial** · 05-05-2010, 09:51 PM

I appreciate the input. I made the logo a bit higher contrast. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the menu/main section with the picture. If you guys don't see a need I may have to reevaluate the site all together. It's supposed to provide a benefit, but if it doesn't then it serves no purpose. I really appreciate the feedback.

Do you think it is salvageable? Should I hire a professional? Scrap the idea? I might just end up giving it another month or two to see what develops.

**Chris Guthrie** · 05-06-2010, 08:06 PM

Personal finance is a very tough niche to break into so whatever you decided you have to go all out.

If you don't go all out it will fail. By all out I mean you need to write good content yes, but more important than that - you need to promote your content / brand.

I do think those though that you should just do the blog design over. Go to WooThemes.com and get a freebie or pay for a theme then customize a bit.

**Knight13** · 05-06-2010, 09:53 PM

Do not scrap the idea just work on it more, look at similar websites and see what they are doing and take some ideas from them, just tweak the site a little and it will start looking good.

**Mays Financial** · 05-08-2010, 12:22 AM

Thanks. I'll look into pretty-ing up the news posts. It's actually a raw RSS feed. I'm not really into blogging, to be honest. Point taken though, it's ugly haha. I'll work on it and get back to you guys.

**navweb** · 05-08-2010, 11:20 PM

Nice layout and content

good site

**bradoeoe** · 05-09-2010, 04:30 AM

Yes nice layout but I dislike how long the index page is

**Mays Financial** · 05-09-2010, 06:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bradoeoe

Yes nice layout but I dislike how long the index page is

Thanks for the feedback. I edited some of the content/presentation based on feedback from users here and elsewhere. I 'prettied' up the index page because it looked like the internet circa 1995, but in doing so I lost the ability to utilize paging. Previously I had only 5 articles per page, but now all 60 most recent articles are listed. I spent three hours working on fixing it, but no luck. For some reason the old code stopped working when I rewrote it. Oh well.

I'm glad you folks that posted more recent reviews like it more with the changes. It is definitely coming along.

**DomainOutlaw** · 05-10-2010, 05:56 AM

Wow first look was a wall of text for me and instantly put me off... Maybe get some stock photos if you can. Its a hard niche to get photos in mind you.

**webdigr** · 05-10-2010, 01:27 PM

Nice and clean layout. I would consider working on the logo. Mainpage is way too long.
Good luck!

**Mays Financial** · 05-10-2010, 04:57 PM

Can you be specific about what needs work on the logo? ...besides being made with MS Paint haha...

**Mays Financial** · 05-10-2010, 06:30 PM

I finally fixed the paging on the front page (php in the rss feed was off), so now it presents only 5 articles per page. It may still be too long on again at times, just depends on whether a summary is available or just the full content. Let me know if you see any other major issues. I really appreciate the feedback.

**Atilla** · 05-16-2010, 03:43 AM

I woudn't say it looks like a home-made site. The design is very good. Only the related posts block somehow doesn't fit in the center

**kumarimcs** · 03:27 PM

hi,
The design is very nice. but I have some suggestion.

1. home page is too long. if you reduce the article size that will look good
2. regarding the popup menu use some separator between the menus
3.quick link area - use some background color

regards
<link drop removed>

**Mays Financial** · 05-17-2010, 09:45 PM

Thanks. I added some background color. I lowered the number of articles generated for the first page from 5 to 3. Some articles show a sentence or two, some show full articles, so the length of the front page is highly variable. I messed around with trying to add separators between the menus but failed miserably. Maybe I'll eventually figure it out. I appreciate the tips, it's a work in progress...