Wide Open Question!

CJacobson · #1 (**permalink**) 01-09-2007, 02:19 PM

Okay guys... how would you improve this site?

http://www.britishv8.org/

Does it look "professional"? Is it easy to use? What would make it better?

Any and all suggestions are welcome!

Dubbya · #2 (**permalink**) 01-09-2007, 04:52 PM

It's not bad but you could do a few things to improve it. You might want to maximize the real estate "above the fold" by making the "banner8" image smaller.

The logo needs to be smaller and less embossed. You've got jaggies around each chrome letter and it looks pretty rough. You might want to soften that up a bit. FYI, It's a trait commonly associated with people that just learned how to do "chrome" in Photoshop. The bottom "donate now" banner looks much better.

In addition, you're using text in your top banner. Since that's the space checked first when a page is spidered, you might consider using CSS to format "Performance Modified British Sportscars" in actual text and put it in the same place.

It'd be much more effective from an SEO point of view, since those are some hefty keywords.

You might want to ensure that the "british v8 conversions" links are placed more prominently, since those appear most likely to drive visitors to your site.

The page title should be revised immediately. Something like "British V8 Conversions Engine Swaps & Modifications : News & How To's" would better target your audience.

The main heading needs some love as well. Look at it, read it aloud and say "So What!". You need to explain what makes yours the best British V8 Newsletter site on the net.

The 24 image slideshow and the javascript to run it is way too taxing and slows down your page loading. Consider making that a flash movie. It'd be much more efficient and would look every bit as good.

The "How it was done" articles, utilise tables. Not a big deal, but I'd recommend that you remove the table borders and increase the distance between the rows. Use alternating row colours in light tones to break up the information and still maintain a smooth and tasteful visual appeal.

All in all, it's a pretty good use of space and I like the colour palette you've chosen. You've got great content and lots of links to related information.

A few small changes will "pop" your page and I'm confident you'll do well in search results.

Those are my .02

Good Luck.

corporateface · #3 (**permalink**) 01-10-2007, 01:33 AM

I apologize that I don't have a lot of time to comment much. At a glance. I believe that the layout of the "sub" pages are better than the home page. Also the logo on the top looks "homemade" pixelated etc...

Other than that ... You seemed to have plenty of good content.

And Yes, I would say it "appears" professional.

kevinper · #4 (**permalink**) 01-10-2007, 04:13 AM

Well, I personally liked your site, including your logo. I'm no good at building web sites though so it looks amazing to me.

The one thing I would change is the copyright at the bottom of the pages as it's 2007 now.

twist · #5 (**permalink**) 01-12-2007, 05:21 PM

Your menu at the bottom looks like adsense links, many people are now adsense blind.

Secondly, why have a second menu at the bottom, whats wrong with the top menu?

Use anti-aliasing on your logo to blend it.

nseidm1 · #6 (**permalink**) 01-13-2007, 10:00 PM

Center the main navigation links.

CJacobson · #7 (**permalink**) 01-24-2007, 05:12 PM

I want to thank you folks for EXCEPTIONAL advice!

I'm sorry it's taken me awhile to respond... but I have been working hard to implement it. (More changes are in the works too.)

The website has a brand new top banner! (Clearly better "chrome" and "embossed" effects.) My plan is to update the banner frequently to keep the whole website looking "fresh", which is why I'm reluctant to make it smaller. The size is just tall enough I can fit a decent photo image of a car in it. The suggestion to layer real text or headers on top of the banner (instead of embedding text, for SEO reasons) is brilliant, but it's also frustrating because it really limits font choices.

Dubbya's suggestion about alternating row colors is now implemented... I think that's an especially big improvement. I've extended that idea to all the "Gallery" index pages. Example: http://www.britishv8.org/Photos-MG-Conversions.htm

I guess I'm gonna have to break down and learn some Flash. What I like about Java slideshows is they're reliable (across browsers) and easy to modify (e.g. photo selection and sequence)... maybe my images could be lower resolution?

Yes, the bottom navigation row is redundant... but when you get deeper into the website there are lots of very long pages. I like a bottom navigation bar on long pages. I also like the site-map link there.

Centering the top navigation row is giving me problems. I think I've got it looking right in every browser except IE.

Thanks again!

---

Does anyone else have suggestions for me?

Make sure to let me know if I can return the favor of a review.

Dubbya · #8 (**permalink**) 01-30-2007, 03:08 PM

MUCH better, CJ!

The only thing I'd suggest now is that you modify your table tags a bit. Close the cell spacing and add some cell padding. With more space within each cell and no breaks in the background colour, It'll make each row a little easier to read.

Replace:
<table border="0" class="body-estext">
With:
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" class="body-estext">

nseidm1 · #9 (**permalink**) 01-30-2007, 05:28 PM

Keep the adsense, in the future, after much much SEO and html optimization you will eventually start to get revenue. I already make 5-10$ per day of of only 1500 hits per day, and my SEO and html conversion to pure CSS hasn't even kicked in yet.

Although I do recommend having no adsense on the hompage. People will be more encourage to enter sublinks. Place the adsense on subpages only.

All in all I like what you are doing and have done. Very professional. Keep working, keep upgrading. Your on the right track.

CJacobson · #10 (**permalink**) 01-30-2007, 06:33 PM

Thanks for the follow-ups, guys!

Dubbya, that's a neat trick with cell-spacing. Done. Thanks!

nseidm1, apparently your content/topic leads to higher ad fees per click. I'll try to keep from getting discouraged, but so far Adsense hasn't met my revenue hopes at all. The search box is a great feature though! I'm thinking about putting a small search box on every page.

One thing I need to figure out is an efficient way to alert repeat visitors to new content. It seems like I add more photos or articles every day.

Anybody else got a suggestion? What should I work on next?

janeth · #11 (**permalink**) 01-31-2007, 03:39 PM

If it was my site I would have a custom designed logo that was a lot smaller and would allow me to make the header smaller and move the text up on the page.

I would change the contact page to have your contact information on it.

I like the site colors.

nseidm1 · #12 (**permalink**) 01-31-2007, 04:51 PM

Overall nice alignment, just center the main navigation links!!