www.newzealand-focus.com

You are probably well aware that when you spend so much time working on something, you become blind to it's faults.
Can I ask you to look at New Zealand Focus and let me know what things are ruining it for the site, or what I am lacking?

I appreciate the time spent doing this. It is great to have a community like this at hand.

Greg Scowen
www.newzealand-focus.com

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Greg,

Does your post mean that you are having problems getting traffic to the site or keeping them there? If you're having problems, it would be interesting to know if traffic has gone down, if you've changed something lately, etc. If you just need general feedback, no problem.

My first reaction to the site is that it contains a lot of useful information. I can see the amount of work you have put into developing the site.

My second reaction is that there may be too much going on. I think your site is about travel in New Zealand. If so, I would have made the domain name New Zealand Travel, but if you change the name you may lose your current ranking, I know.

If it were me, I'd use just one navigation - the one down the left side. It seems to be duplicated at the top of the screen, and that may be confusing to people. I'd also put some glorious photos to add more graphical interest - you're selling New Zealand, and while I've not been there, I know it is beautiful. I'd also add a brief intro on the home page explaining the purpose for the site and telling the visitor how they can find the things they want. I think you started that with the Inside NZ Focus information block, but the way its written, it looks like another navigation area.

Think I'd try categorizing the information into fewer categories to reduce the number of options, and put all the options in one place consistently. If you need the Google ads, I'd make the page just 3 columns. The nav on the left, Google on the right and just one solid section in the middle. Then, you could use fewer colors and colors that really complement each other. Right now, with the very strong green, then the pastels in the middle, the page looks somewhat disconnected, adding to the busy feeling.

Hope this helps!

Kathleen

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Hello,

That site of yours is so green, it almost smells like grass!
Is there a way you can make it just slightly less bold (or substitute the white sections of your page for a light green to mellow it out).
I like the little images at the top but it's a shame you only have these images.. there's a lot of text and sometimes pictures can say more then words.
You have a lot of links - how about putting little images next to the links to summarise where they are going (e.g. tourism guides could have a little map image by it) - and by spacing out the written content you can make the information more digestable.
Also, how about doing a nicer, image based menu bar - perhaps using macromedia fireworks if you have it. That has good facilities for making nice menu bars.

Wow.. it's so green I almost went color blind!

I checked your META Tags and there rather long winded and some have a /> but I'm not sure why.

<meta name="Keywords" content="New Zealand Tourism information guides, New Zealand Visitors Information ,New Zealand Pictures, New Zealand Accomodation, New Zealand, New Zealand information, new zealand tourist info, New Zealand travel" />

See it at the end. I think it's supposed to be just >

Might want to run a site checker and see what it comes up with. I bet you will find many errors.

Let us know.

And Please consider a reduction in colors. It's like when you walk into a home. It should be conforting.

My 2 cents.

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I think the site is slightly cluttered, it appears to have duplicate links i.e. you have tourism directory on the left, tourism directory in the centre and New Zealand Tourism on the right. Its not they are conflicting with each other, but the viewers are reading the same old thing, once is enough you will lose the interest of people otherwise. The colours need toning down; a few images would attract attention to your articles. I found on the first visit the amount of text hit me like a wall of noise, my eye didn’t easily rest on one item to then be guided around your page. I found myself distracted from one article to the next.

It’s a very worthwhile website to develop, I have found that a lot of information about New Zealand is duplicated across many websites and so much is missed out. I have been trying to find the name of a pub where I spent many a pleasant evening in downtown Auckland, its existence seemingly denied by every tourist website about the City.

So hopefully with a few minor changes you will be successful in promoting a beautiful country, best of luck.

First, my coment is for Snerdy - the DOCTYPE on this page is xhtml1 and the closing META tags s/b "/>".

Top o' the Mornin to ya, Laddie, and pass the green beer, it must be St. Patty's Day! Just teasing but that was my first impression. My point is - the site is too green, especially the green menu text on green. Infuse your design with a combination of tranquil colors, something with softer hues.

You live in one of the most beautiful countries in the world - show it off with photos, photos and more photos. Show me why I need to come visit. The first thing I saw on the home page was a kiwi fruit...now I'm just hungry. :)

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AlphaGeek Web Design | MarcieWolf.com

Ok I counted at least 5 different colors on your site in addition to the green on green on green. I agree you should have some pictures of your country.

The site is all to cluttered, I found myself wondering where and what to read first.

I know this is not what you want to hear but I would consider a redesign, at least of the colors and placement of your information.

Jason Tor

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