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tuitionsource
02-10-2009, 10:52 PM
Hi guys. Newbie here. Paul has been critiquing my website and suggested posting over here. So here goes... I copied this from the PM's to let you see our previous discussion.

Re: Web site URL
TS:My readers return to find out what has happened and is going to happen in their community. I am running low on current things for the last 2 weeks.

Paul:You might consider posting the menus of the local schools. You may be able to get some of them as feeds. You can also encourage the schools to send their menus for each week/month.

With bad weather, do you post school closings?

TS: I typically show up at events and take pics or vids and post them. So they also come to see their pics or vids on the site. We are averaging about 500 hits a day.

Paul:Great! When you photo/video an event, do you have cards to pass out to the crowd that give the URL for them to check out the site?

TS: The plan is to be very visible in the next few months locally.

Paul:What is your plan to do that?

What information would your visitors like to notified of? Set up a squeeze page for those notifications.

TS: Right now 51% of my visitors have visited over 50 times. Is that a good rate? 36% only visit once.

Paul:I'd think that is a very good rate.

Why is the realtor listed on your home page? It seems her area is not Johnson County.

On your business listings, do those spaced out at the top of the page pay for their position?

Are the others lower down on the page simply scraped from elsewhere?

How about posting the pics and bios of the reporters at your site.

Consider having OpEds from local movers and shakers. That should give you plenty of content.

When you solicit restaurant reviews, how about giving the reviewers a format to follow or fill in with a 1-5 star rating system. You can do Yahoo Local and Google.com/maps one better by doing that.

Insist that the reviewers give you their first and last names, and email addresses but give them the option to post anonymously. Also, give them the option of listing their website URL.

Glad We Ate Here (http://GladWeAteHere.blogspot.com) is an example of a restaurant review blog to which I contribute.

BTW, do you have a journalistic or writing background? Just curious.

Paul

P.S. We should consider posting this thread on the main board. I think you'll get more ideas from the Forum members. They're really good about that.

tuitionsource
02-10-2009, 11:05 PM
Paul:You might consider posting the menus of the local schools. You may be able to get some of them as feeds. You can also encourage the schools to send their menus for each week/month.

With bad weather, do you post school closings?

TS: I have not been doing school closings or menus. Thank you for the suggestion.

Paul:Great! When you photo/video an event, do you have cards to pass out to the crowd that give the URL for them to check out the site?

TS: You betcha. I pass out cards, I have a jacket with my URL on it. I have banners on my truck and my scooter with my URL on it. I have sponsored several local school events as well.

Paul:What is your plan to do that?

What information would your visitors like to notified of? Set up a squeeze page for those notifications.

TS:My plan is to be at a lot of springfest events and stockshows. The videos really draw the traffic.

Paul:I'd think that is a very good rate.

Why is the realtor listed on your home page? It seems her area is not Johnson County.

TS:The realtor is my realtor. She has helped me a LOT, she looks good, and I figured I would try to help her out. I tried to get local realtors on board and I'm getting the cold shoulder, even for free.

On your business listings, do those spaced out at the top of the page pay for their position?
Are the others lower down on the page simply scraped from elsewhere?

TS:Yes the prime positions are reserved for the paying sponsors. The others are on there as space fillers.

How about posting the pics and bios of the reporters at your site.

TS:Reporters? As in plural, are you kidding? That would be me right now.:) I have had lots of promises from free lance people with no follow through.

Consider having OpEds from local movers and shakers. That should give you plenty of content.

TS:Awesome idea.

When you solicit restaurant reviews, how about giving the reviewers a format to follow or fill in with a 1-5 star rating system. You can do Yahoo Local and Google.com/maps one better by doing that.

Insist that the reviewers give you their first and last names, and email addresses but give them the option to post anonymously. Also, give them the option of listing their website URL.

Glad We Ate Here is an example of a restaurant review blog to which I contribute.

TS:Thanks

BTW, do you have a journalistic or writing background? Just curious.

TS:Nope. Just a school teacher. Thank you for all your words of wisdom Paul. I have a lot to learn yet.

vangogh
02-11-2009, 11:59 AM
I'm assuming the site in question is the one in your signature.

My first impression on seeing the site is it seems very busy to me. My eyes aren't sure where to look and so I try to take everything in which leads to confusion about where to look. I'm also not sure right away what the site is about. Why not have a logo in the upper left with a tagline like "community events for Johnson County" or something to that effect. Let me see that right away so instantly I can tell if the site is for me or not.

The design comes across less as a cohesive design and more as a collection of elements thrown together on the page. Think about what you want someone to do on every page and make sure it stands out on each page. Right now all the page elements are fighting for my attention.

In Firefox the images for your navigation (the tabs) start to repeat. I see the tops of the images again as the start of a second row of tabs. You probably have these set as background images. Add no-repeat to the css so the images appear only once.

rezzy
02-11-2009, 02:29 PM
The adverts really break up your page. The ones on the top only serve to confuse and fill the page.

The top of the page is a prime location, instead of using it to sell your site to us, you sell someone else's products. This is a bad move in my book. With the first view I am already thinking this site is a big advertisement.

It looks like the site was coded and then someone tried to add elements, by using tables (bad). The items look like they were stuffed into spaces which they weren't originally meant for.

Your navigation isnt very nice either. Hovering one link to get to the other isnt nice and hurts people navigating your site.

tuitionsource
02-12-2009, 11:39 PM
The adverts really break up your page. The ones on the top only serve to confuse and fill the page.

The top of the page is a prime location, instead of using it to sell your site to us, you sell someone else's products. This is a bad move in my book. With the first view I am already thinking this site is a big advertisement.

It looks like the site was coded and then someone tried to add elements, by using tables (bad). The items look like they were stuffed into spaces which they weren't originally meant for.

Your navigation isnt very nice either. Hovering one link to get to the other isnt nice and hurts people navigating your site.

Thanks for your input rezzy. I will incorporate these changes into the next site improvements.

Greg

tuitionsource
02-12-2009, 11:42 PM
I'm assuming the site in question is the one in your signature.

My first impression on seeing the site is it seems very busy to me. My eyes aren't sure where to look and so I try to take everything in which leads to confusion about where to look. I'm also not sure right away what the site is about. Why not have a logo in the upper left with a tagline like "community events for Johnson County" or something to that effect. Let me see that right away so instantly I can tell if the site is for me or not.

The design comes across less as a cohesive design and more as a collection of elements thrown together on the page. Think about what you want someone to do on every page and make sure it stands out on each page. Right now all the page elements are fighting for my attention.

In Firefox the images for your navigation (the tabs) start to repeat. I see the tops of the images again as the start of a second row of tabs. You probably have these set as background images. Add no-repeat to the css so the images appear only once.

Thank you for your suggestions and solutions vangogh. I will print them out and work to fix the problems.

Greg

vangogh
02-13-2009, 11:05 AM
Glad to help.

rezzy
02-13-2009, 01:23 PM
Show us the improvements and get some more suggestions for further developement.

tuitionsource
05-01-2009, 11:31 PM
It's been a while. I changed the format. Things have gotten real busy. I also have 11 other sites just like it in various stages of development.

Spider
05-02-2009, 08:11 AM
It looks good to me. A little busy, perhaps, but that's good for a news site, I think. I particularly like the bold access bar (Home, News, Archives, etc.)

I think the page would be easier to read in a sans serif font. What's the rule? Serif for print on paper and sans serif for the screen?

Good job, Greg.

tuitionsource
05-02-2009, 10:03 AM
Thanks Spider, I had not considered font. I will have to look into that some more.

vangogh
05-02-2009, 01:48 PM
I agree it's a little busy, but not too busy for a news site. People will naturally expect to see a lot of info.

To me the font is very small. It's showing as 10.5 px on my monitor. Personally anything below 12px is hard for me to read. When it comes to using serif or sans-serif fonts, serif has usually been the chosen font type in print. The serifs tend to make things easier to read. However they can make things harder to read at smaller sizes, which often happens online. The common wisdom is to use sans-serif fonts for your main copy online, though I think either can work if you know what your doing.

Safer though would be to use a sans-serif font like verdana or arial since they are easy to read online and common on most computers.

tuitionsource
05-02-2009, 07:40 PM
Thanks vangogh. Lot' s to learn.