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Old 07-02-2009, 12:59 PM
R. Treska R. Treska is offline
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Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 26
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Default Re: Honest Opinions Please

While I understand that you have put a lot of effort and dedication to this website, I honestly think that you are better off using a pre-made template with minor tweaks and customizations that you can make to fit your needs. I find this necessary for the following reasons;

a) Currently, although your website has lots of useful and relevant content, it is not organized in a manner that is friendly to your users. That is to say, some of the most important content (i.e making donations and reading about your organization) is hidden away and hard to find, while other "not so significant" content occupies "prime real estate" on your web page.

b) As a user, your website failed to gain my trust. While I have no doubts at all about the reputation and legitimacy of your organization, the visual aspect alone turned me away from your cause. This is primarly because your website looks very amateur and not trust worthy. Please do not take offence to this, but I am being completely honest with you.

c) A more organized, clean and visually appealing layout would not only attract more traffic to your website, but would allow users to be more comofortable within your web environment. I can almost guarantee you that by adopting a more "professional" look, not only will you have increase traffic, but your donations will also increase as well.

d) A pre-made layout, preferably with an external CSS file, would allow your website to have a sense of consistency. This means that all your headings, sub-headings, hyperlinks, quotes etc. will have the same formatting and make your website look a lot more professional.

e) Lastly, and definitly most importantly, a professional look will establish trust with your users. This is single handedly the most important aspect of any website, let alone any organization. Once again, establishing trust accomplishes the bigger objective at hand, collecting donations to support your cause.

Overall, as mentioned above, I think you have plenty of useful and relevant content, however it isn't organized as it needs to be. To make your life a little easier, I have included a few links you can check out for some free and professional looking templates that you can use.

Of course if you choose to go this route, you will need to dedicate a little more time to transfer all of your content over to the new template, but at the end of the day, I personally believe it will be worth it.

I hope this helps.

Links:

Free Website Templates There are plenty of good looking templates on this website.
Free HTML Website Templates - TemplateYes.com

Also, you do not have to use these templates 100%. You can download them and modify them accordingly to your needs. However, they will definitely allow you to organize your content a lot better.

Cheers.