Hi everyone!
I'm getting to the point where I need outside opinion on my site. It's a russian-american community site with varios topics offered in both languages. Please take a look at it and let me know what you think, what could be changed, what could be done differently to attract more people and become more visible. I'm currently getting around 50 unique hosts a day and it's been stagnant for a while, anything I do doesn't seem to help.

Need a fresh look at it.
Thanks in advance.

http://www.russianeast.com

My first thought when entering your site was that I was entering a porn or dating service site not one with serious topics and discussions.

The layout is clean and neat but kind of plain ... can you add some color a splash here and there just so your eye can get focused on something with in the page and it doesn't look like the same thing all running together. Your top might be a good place to add color ... Russia has very unique architecture ... a picture of the city as a background might make a difference and then you could get rid of the banners at least right at the top.

The introduction to your page is weak, I skipped right over it. The intro should be one that draws people in for a closer look, consider revising that. I myself don't like to be referred to other parts of the website to figure out what it's all about.

Anyway hope these suggestions are helpful.

MarketingMama

First off.. i like your site. I is one that does serve an excellent purpose. I like the lay out...looks like a good news and info site.

As far as the overall look to help your traffic.... you might want to try bright clors.. and a larger website title heading at the top of the page.

mike81859

I also had the impression that I was at a Russian dating site until I read further. Although a section is designated to that.. it is not the entier focus of the site. The Google ads placed the relevance there and are more eye-catching than the content and that is the first thing you see. (same with the banner ads) If I were looking for an American-Russian discussion community, I would not have looked further since that was what seemed to be prominent.

As suggested above, some eye-catching colors and graphics would be helpful so that the attention is drawn away from the ads and put on your site where it belongs. You should put your own header at the top and not banner ads.. perhaps moving those down to the bottom of the page or delegating a block specifically for the banner ads.

The layout itself is done nicely.. but I do have a problem with one part.. you have a background underneath each block header (where it lists the last post, who by, and read more) which is very difficult to read. I am not sure if it is intended that way or not, but the text mixes a lot with that background.

Overall the navigation is easy, organization of topics and sections is done nicely, and each individual block is easy to see and understand:)

Thank you for your sugestions and honest answer. I'll see what I can do about the top of my site and possibly relocate the banners down to the bottom of the page, my biggest problem is luck of imagination :-) I'm not that strong when it comes to graphics, my specialty is systems, but I'll do what I can since it's a non profitable site and mostly done as a service to community, hence can't afford to hire someone to do the good graphics...

Regarding all the dating advertisements - I use Google AdSence and it's pulling all this dating sites I guess based on lot's of occurances "russian" as a keyword. Banners is different thing and I'll try moving it to bottom to reduce the impact.

Site introduction: I had an extencive one when site went live but talking to people who visited my site I didn't see interest in it and they couldn't even remember what it was :-) So I reduced it to current state with link to more info to get back the front page real estate ...

Colors - any sugestions as to what possible colors whould look good in combination with my current theme ?

I was thinking, on my front page, right where it's shows this line:
change the background color, but can't figure out what would be good with my current theme ? Any sugestions?