Suggestions on my site

[bLaDeY]

Hi Guys,
I've been running my site since May 2003 which started out as a hobby but has since gone far from my expectations. I didn't market it at all from the start which I certainly wished I had which was part of the reason it took a good 6 months before I really started to notice a marked improvement in traffic and ultimately members whilst the search engines picked up that the site existed.

I've recently moved domains (close to 2 months) which we saw a real big slump as the search engines thought we were non existent due to me not planning it as well as I could have done but on the bright side it has come back near to what it was just without the ranking in the search engines which we once had.

I'm now at a stage where I want to go one step further and improve the site even more so people find it, active members doesn't seem to be a problem although it's always nice to have even more.

Recently after much reading I have elected to use 2 main keywords which are frequently used throughout the site (holden and commodore) along with others which are searched for regularly according to Google and Overture. The site itself doesn't appear in Google, Yahoo or MSN under these keywords but I have only made the changes a few weeks back.

If you could have a look at the site and tell me what you think whether it be negative or positive and where it can be improved that would be very much appreciated.

The link is here (http://www.justcommodores.com.au)

The main site which is linked above is generally used as a front page with pretty much all the action happening in the forums.

Thanks

Cheers
Darren

[david_sakh]

wow - that's a really great design you have there. The colors are bold and the design is pleasing to the eye. Having the poll options wrapping oddly looks a bit strange tho, but when I say a bit it means I really am hard pressed to find something to complain about, visually.

[pinkpanther]

agreed. The site is very good looking!! Very eye catching.

I noticed you are using table layouts. Have you thought of using css layout instead? Using css layout will allow switching sections in your html which means you can put your main text(with a lot of keywords) higher up in your html. But getting the code compatible with all browsers can be a pain.

[J.D.]

Nice website, man. Just a couple of things. Your poll (left side, bottom) doesn't look nice - experiment with styles so that text doesn't go left of radio buttons. Another thing is - stick with CSS consistently (this doesn't have anything to do with div-based design, btw). That is, don't use valign, cellspacing, etc. CSS has very nice table formatting features, which you can use to control site layout from one location in the code.

J.D.

[dchoe]

nice layout and awesome design/graphics

[bLaDeY]

Thanks for the feedback guys, I do agree the poll on the left does look ugly.

I will have to have a play and see what I can come up with.

[riziko]

Overall the site is nice. Good colours. One thing is I have a high res monitor and the font is very small. Also it seems to be fixed so that I can't adjust the font size (View > Text Size > Larger). If you use a relative font size (e.g. 80% or 0.8em) then it will size based on the Text Size setting. Using 9px or something like that makes it fixed.

Ross

[bLaDeY]

I can agree with the size of the font as it took me a while to adjust to it, the majority of the users though are 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768 to my amazement which is mainly why I've left it alone.

I guess back to my original question, can anyone shed some hints or tips on increasing my rank for my chosen keywords (holden & commodore). I have made a few changes although don't know whether I am heading in the right direction.

The focal point of the site would have to be the forum, now I guess where Ive gone wrong is when submitting my site I've used my main site address and not the forum, will this make much of a difference other than BL's?

[nicknick]

Hey,

I don't see the problem. I have you listed as the #4 site on Google for Holden Commodore.

You have a ton of incoming links. Make sure they are linked to your key words instead of something like "click here". That would help. But the real problem seems to be that Google is ignoring some of the site because it sees it as a duplicate. Pay attention to your page titles and you may want to add a utility nav at the bottom to help the bots get around.

Sorry but I don't like the design much.

Try the page titles and the utility nav and see if that works out for you at all.

Good luck.

[voltaire]

that's a nice site you got there. you concept is well illustrated and organized. and it is easy on the eyes. i think you did a good job.

[pcdoc]

Beautifully designed site, kudos to ya.