Check out my fan site.

thepeoplesjules · #1 (**permalink**) 07-22-2005, 02:24 PM

Created this website to work on in my spare time and for the fans. Just wanted opinions on it...

http://www.batista-unleashed.com

Thanks.

Evic · #2 (**permalink**) 07-22-2005, 03:26 PM

The Bad
Why the intro page? It just adds another click to get to your content and, as a visitor, seems like a reason to get an ad in there. Which is kind of counterintuitive as there is no content on the site, your AdSense ads are irrelevant to your website content, and are therefore seen as an ad rather than an extension of content.

The site seems very tall to me. I think the topmost image can be done away with, there's really no reason for it, and you can incorporate your website title into the main header image, right below the menu.

The header area should be expanded so it lines up with the content portion at the bottom. That's something I really noticed and stuck out to me.

In general I just feel really confused by the layout, as a visitor there is to much going on for me to focus on one thing. I don't really want to stick around and read any of it (and I'm a wrestling fan too). Why the split design towards the bottom? The content is mirrored in the two columns towards the top, then all the bottom half of the right column does is reflect highlights of your other sections. Wouldn't it be better to drop the right column, lose the iframe on the left and make the left column the width of your header. Then move your highlights up into the header area (with the rest of your highlights)?

The Good
The content is top notch, a lot of great articles and images. I really like the candid photo area, it reveals a more personal side to Batista.

The artwork is very well done, although I think you could do some more work on your color scheming. It's apparent you've tried to match the color scheming with the artwork, but I think a better job could be done. Maybe ditch the effort of using colored backgrounds in your tables and go for a small image solution. The left column on the bottom really stands out as inconsitent in coloring.

AdSense
You have the AdSense code running, just not in the right places. Try to incorporate AdSense as an extension of your content rather than an ad. Remember, the AdSense code analyzes each page it is found on to return the most relevant ads. If you place it on a page with no content, well your ads aren't going to be very relevant.

andrewtcrane · #3 (**permalink**) 07-22-2005, 11:42 PM

Very nice site, great use of pictures, colors and fonts.

I agree that the site is somewhat tall.

Also, when you go to the photo album, and click on the photo, you always get the main Photo Gallery photo on the top that takes up practically the whole screen. You then have to scroll down to see the photo that you selected. I would make the Photo Gallery Header much smaller so you don't have this inconvenience.

Besides that, great job!

Cheers,
Andrew

wrmineo · #4 (**permalink**) 07-23-2005, 12:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evic

The Bad
Why the intro page? It just adds another click to get to your content and, as a visitor, seems like a reason to get an ad in there. Which is kind of counterintuitive as there is no content on the site, your AdSense ads are irrelevant to your website content, and are therefore seen as an ad rather than an extension of content...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Google AdSense TOS

No Google ad may be placed on any non-content-based pages. This includes error, login, registration, "thank you" or welcome pages.

If you're going to keep the intro page - though I don't know why - your adsense should come off. First, it will turn many visitors off thinking you're only wanting CTR/$. Secondly, you could end up in trouble with Google. They don't go looking for these necessarily, but the people paying big $ for AdWords do - it's the advertisers who will complain to Google most likely, else some holier than thou surfer will send in feedback. Best to do a little CYA and either drop the intro page, or at least the GoolgeAd.

webhost1 · #5 (**permalink**) 07-23-2005, 02:53 AM

Don't care for the intro page. Black background usually means you have something to hide or something to do with adult stuff.

Your second page probably should be your main page.

You need to even out the top of this page with the rest of the page. If you have a table width of 748 than this is what should be used for the rest of the page. Keep everything uniform.

web-D-zines · #6 (**permalink**) 07-24-2005, 01:03 AM

Drop the entrance page and Adwords. I have a strong feeling Google is going to start losing revenue and stock share on this, as why would you want to push people to another Web site that; if using AdWords properly, contain links similar to your site message. Anyway, the site looks great. A little hard to read using a HD laptop (small font). Asside from that, if I was a wrestling fan, I would frequent your site. Professional looking.

David Opie
President

P.S. We afe currently working on a full Web infrastructure and layout change that is going to explode are product listings. When complete, I would appreciate some feed-back from you and poster on this site as well. Reply to me if you wish. Maybe I can offer further possitive suggestions.

Good day my friend.

KeithO · #7 (**permalink**) 07-25-2005, 01:31 PM

I love Batista. He's a bad mamajama. It just doesn't look right to me having the news area wider than the header. The firefox compatibility needs worked on. Graphically it looks good though.

send2paul · #8 (**permalink**) 07-25-2005, 01:38 PM

It's ....er...dark - I think you need to turn the lights on a little - and let's see what you're hiding? ;)

MuNKyonline · #9 (**permalink**) 07-26-2005, 05:16 AM

I dont think the page is that long. I've seen pages far longer than that. Bottom right section doesnt align right in Firefox.

The text underneath the 'Welcome' is too small and too close to the background colour. Could do with more colour all over as others have said.

Glad there was a pic of him with a belt on his shoulder. Might want to put a big WWE logo on there somewhere so people dont think its a site about a big gay body-builder lol.

Nicely constructed site!

janeth · #10 (**permalink**) 07-26-2005, 08:10 AM

Nice site but I would get rid of the intro page and make the header go al the way across the page.

Once on the Newsboard there is no way to get back to the home page.

I see everything opens in a new window. I really do not like that. If I spend a little time on your site, when I'm finished, I have to go back and close a lot of windows.

Plus you loose any internal links back to your home page.

CJacobson · #11 (**permalink**) 07-26-2005, 05:00 PM

The intro page should just go away...

I've got a pretty quick DSL connection, and your images seemed to load slower than I thought they should. Waiting for them to load, I can see you used tables to lay them out, instead of CSS. There are a lot reasons to use CSS for page layout. One little reason is it looks better than an empty table while images are loading.

Scrolling down, it became apparant your table has coding errors. It's probably some trivial little tags left out, like missing </td> tags or something... I prefer "any browser but IE" - but you apparantly only designed for IE and didn't bother to use an error checker (e.g. http://validator.w3.org/) so the site looks okay in IE and falls apart in good browsers like Netscape, Firefox, etc. (Specifically, it appears to get wider as you scroll down, and things become dissassociated and confusing.

This text (for example) dissappears into the black background: "Backlash 2005 Autographed Event Poster #6 It was put-up or shut-up time for the new World Heavyweight Champion Batista, as "The Animal" walked into Backlash on 5/1/05 in Manchester, NH with a mission to prove that his WrestleMania victory was not a fluke, and that between himself and Triple H, Batista truly was the better man.
|View Auction|" Fix this fast! To a search engine spider, black-on-black text may look like a black-hat technique.

I took a quick look at your code:
1. you're missing a doctype tag
2. you've got two <body> tags (one is allowed)
3. you've got about a million alt tags without any text in them...
4. your table is pretty complicated. Man, you'd do yourself a big favor by learning CSS! You must have spent a lot of time creating all those little gif images and figuring out how to paste them together (e.g. "blackgreenlayout-fullver-56.gif" vs. "blackgreenlayout-fullver-57.gif"). It just doesn't have to be that difficult!!!

-C

thepeoplesjules · #12 (**permalink**) 08-03-2005, 10:07 AM

Thank you all for the tips and advice. I will definitely be looking into every one. I haven't had the website open very long, therefore it still needs alot of work done to it. Anyways, I'm not very familiar with css except for creating my own style sheets for background colors, fonts, ect....I'm not sure how to use that instead of tables though. I'm still learning. Anyways, does anyone have any tips on how to have the website line up correctly in all browser types? I know it really is only supported by IE users - preferably the 1024 x 768 resolution. That's another thing i'm still trying to learn.

It's a pain! But I try. If anyone has any more hints or suggestions or any advice i would really appreciate it big time.

Thanks again guys.

CJacobson · #13 (**permalink**) 08-03-2005, 02:07 PM

Probably the reason your site isn't lining up in all browsers is that your code is full of bugs. Down around lines 460 through 490, for example, it seems you've got </td> and </tr> tags in reversed-order. (ie: in the sequence "<tr><td></tr></td>" instead of "<tr><td></td></tr>"). Some browsers are more sensitive to code errors, and show their confusion in peculiar ways.

It's probably a good idea to fix the bugs before trying to superimpose a "fix" in the form of additional code.

Now, here's some general advice.

If you review other people's websites, they'll be more likely to review yours (or to come back and give yours a second look)... Feel free to start with the one about author K.B. Thomas.