Please review my Travel site

[prawn_86]

hi all,

would be much appreciated if you have a look at my site:

www.aussietravellersforum.com

I know that the layout is a bit dodgy, so i am searching for an appropriate skin, but am more focused on building my members at the moment.

any input appreciated :)

Prawn

[prawn_86]

please let me know what you think

[cri8bat]

I agree the layout is a bit doggy....
try to put all the small boxes on one side only or just create a big horizontal skycrapper for that and put on the top or botom. That way the forum would look must bigger

and try to change the color, currently it dosent look like a travel forum at all.

[prawn_86]

I'll play round with some diff colours today.

more comments welcome...

[river]

I would put all the sidebar information one side using a two column format. I tseems a bit too busy.

[prawn_86]

talking about the homepage River?

I have updated the colour scheme to a bit of a lighter colour, but i am possibly the least artistic person on Earth so i struggle to know what looks good

[KutheMedia]

Get a professional logo done and also make the adsense at the top blend in with the forum...

[prawn_86]

The logo will change once a new background colour is decided on.

I thought it would be better having the adsense stand out so people take a bit more notice of it? What are the thoughts/reasons for blending it?

[prawn_86]

any other comments/advice appreciated.

[prawn_86]

more comments please

[kingofsanda]

To make the site better you should get a professional logo and change the
color scheme of the adsense banner in the header to match the theme
of the site.

[prawn_86]

The logo will change once a new background colour is decided on.

I thought it would be better having the adsense stand out so people take a bit more notice of it? What are the thoughts/reasons for blending it?

Can those that have commented on this please elaborate futher.

thanks

[infoworld2u]

Yeah man the logo is important and needs to be done professionally.

[zloi]

Interesting site, but my opinion it's site with simple design. Add more colors :-)

[prawn_86]

Aside from the background colour of the logo, what is wrong with it?

And yes the design is simple so far as its my first ever site, and i am focusing on building users at first.

Thanks for the feedback, keep it coming :)

[prawn_86]

still looking for more ideas/feedback

[onedime]

Try playing with diff colors. Try different forum skins. Making the layout appear seamless and continuous!

You dont need two logins boxes!

[prawn_86]

Yeh i am playing with different colours, just to experiment.

Im new to this whole webpage design thing and the last time i tried to put a skin on it just totally screwed everything up so i think i'll just stick with changing colours for now and try and find a good combo.

Login boxes disappear once your a member ;)

[prawn_86]

Keep the feedback coming please :)

[prawn_86]

New skin implemented. Background of logo will change.

Please let me know what you think. :)

[prawn_86]

Alexa rank was 7.8mill when i started and is now 5.4mill, 10 days later, a long way to go i know but it shows that these things are working.

I have started doing article submissions also.

thanks for your help so far, keep the ideas coming.

[MrBoss]

Add some more colors, I did not like the yellow touch.

Rest is your choice! I would suggest the colors like the blue & White.
The site is well designed. make it some more professional. Develop a good logo, if possible

[robbertl]

Hi,

I'm not an expert, so please take my comments with a pinch of salt.

1) the logo needs a bit of work... perhaps the image of australia in your site colours

2) a bit of info about the site on the main page would be useful... i.e. what the site is about, what its for etc.

3) perhaps a funny section for 'culture shock' issues for non-aussies about australia i.e. WA stands for Wait Awhile! When you ask a question and the answer is 'that'll be right...' means yes, we will! - sill stuff like that

4) the ads on the top of the page take away from the feel of the site, perhaps keep them for internal pages not the main page.

Am just back from Auz.... look up lithgow NSW... home of the tic tac!

Hope this is helpful and good luck.;)

[prawn_86]

Some good ideas there Robbert, i will work on them soon.

Keep the ideas coming people, much appreciated

[zahid444]

u follow thorntree. famous web travel forum !

[prawn_86]

u follow thorntree. famous web travel forum !

Yes, but Thorntree has a very confusing layout, so im aiming at trying to keep my site relatively simple to avoid clutter like Thorntree has :)

[prawn_86]

New logo background implemented, and am figuring out ideas for a banner logo.

[prawn_86]

as per Robbertl's suggestion an intro box has been added for guests, with a brief description of the site :)

[prawn_86]

as per Robbertl's suggestion an intro box has been added for guests, with a brief description of the site :)

[HostScorpion.com]

I thought your website was pretty informative. I thinkl you should experiment with a bigger range of colours though. That would make it more aesthetically pleasing.

[shanmclean]

i like the logo and there is a lot of info but spaced out enough to still look good

[prawn_86]

Glad to hear that im starting to get it right.

I def like the new skin, it gives it a much more open atmoshpere. The layout is deliberately simple as every other travel forum is rather confusing with multiple threads all over the place. I only want one thread for each country so then all the info is contained in the one place

[mamaroach]

I think the design is not a problem can change. In my opinion, you can try to make up PR also with make the community then people will help to join yours coz PR is high ^ ^

[prawn_86]

Well this has been my first site and after 2 weeeks my figures are as follows:

www.aussietravellersforum.com
Threads: 78, Posts: 283, Members: 38, Active Members: 38

My Alexa ranking was 8mill when i first went live and it is now down to 1.9 million.

Thanks to everyone that has helped so far. I still have a way to go but its good to see things are moving :)

[Bocce]

Great idea... logo needs work, looks a little web 1.0.

Using gradients in your headers (how they do here on D.P) works great to soften up a site. Colours are, um, Very Australian - green and gold. From Aussie to another, I'm proud to be a Melbournian, but who ever chose green and gold for our national colours didn't really look at the colour spectrum as hard as they could have.

Site looks neat, well aligned and text is good.

Play with the colours to soften it up a little

[prawn_86]

Thanks Bocce.

Im pretty new to it all so i dont know how to put gradient colours, but i do agree with you. I'll look into it further and try and figure it out.

PS - feel free to sign up and tell us about Melbs :)

[Sweex]

Looks good, nice color match, good layout. I think it has everything, that a forum should have.

[opinionhun]

Hi prawn 86!
Great idea for a website. I'd move the header to the center and display the weclome text in bold or in a different colour, it took me some time to find it, I was looking for a brief description of what the site is all about and what I can expect..I'd also move the Ads elsewhere, they distract the attention from the content. Maybe you could change the background colour of the site too.
Good luck.
Rob

[Bocce]

Hey Prawn 86,

Gradients can be made through design programs like Corel Draw or photoshop - if you have them. I'm not too sure if you can use gradients through free programs like paint, or paint.net. Google it, see what comes up. once you know how, its pretty easy.

Yeah, I just signed up to DP, so gotta make a few more comments before they'll let me post. But in regards to Melb's and checking out a site, I've launched my own website recently called Thirty Dollar Date Night (dot) com - check it out and let me know what you think. Just had MX newspaper do a double page feature on us which turned out well. But still got a long way to go in promoting the site.

Cheers mate...

[mldl]

im not impressed sorry....

[prawn_86]

im not impressed sorry....

Care to exand as to why?

[hellaska]

Hi I think the way you organize the posts by country is great and it’s an excellent idea to people chare the experience they had with others because without knowing they can help others in other countries.

[prawn_86]

Thanks hellaska that was the plan.

All other travel forums seem to have their info spread across a heap of different threads, so finding specific info can be a bit of a nightmare. Im hoping with my site it will centralise a lot of the information and if someone is interested in the USA for example they will only need to read one thread, or ask a question in one thread as opposed to starting a new thread.

Now to attract some more contributing members....

[elv8]

logo needs to be done more professionally and since its Aussie Travel Forum then you could use some other colors from the Australian map like add some darker blue into the page..

[prawn_86]

After 1 month:

Threads: 101, Posts: 387, Members: 57, Active Members: 57

Are those figures about normal?

[FriendlyBear]

prawn, if you care what I think:

Once I visit websites like this I get a lot of bright colors into my eyes and I find them too detailed.

Now, this is something subliminal, but I actually DO THINK that dark backgrounds or at least colours which are relaxing (green, dark grey, black) are more likely for people to stay longer on the website.

It's a proven method. But well, different people- different understandings.

Best Luck with your business.

[prawn_86]

Finally figured out how to get Google Analytics working so i can have some actual proper stats now :)

[prawn_86]

Am now starting to get visitors from search engines so it shows my efforts are working :)

[prawn_86]

New logo implemented.

More reviews appreciated.

[sweet-isabell]

Nce site, neighbor :D

[prawn_86]

Still looking for more reviews and feedback as its my very first website....

[prawn_86]

More reviews and feedback would be much appreciated