I've recently started a Photoshop resource/tutorial site. I'm looking for some people to take a look at my tutorials and let me know what they think. Is it easy to follow? How is my style of writing? Is it clear? Personally I think it's quite bland, but it's hard to spice things up when you're trying to give someone step-by-step instructions. Let me know what you think! http://mintyferret.com/ Feel free to comment on other aspects as well - design-wise or other. Is the content helpful? I'd like to know what you think about my adsense placements as well - what would you suggest to maximize CTR? Thanks!
Just a quick review here; Your website does not work in IE 7. It's really messed up, it's not aligned or anything, and while I know most tech-savvy people use Firefox, there is an IE population and you don't want to risk losing them as visitors, so try and get that fixed. This applies only for the front page, for me anyways the actual tutorials are fine. Your content is good, lots of pictures which is great, if you submit to a lot of tutorial sites I'm sure you'll get a lot of returning visitors. Just fix the problems with IE 7 and you'll have a nice site. Good job.
Thanks for that - in all my excitement I completely forgot to check IE! I just updated various things a day ago and I think that's what messed up the layout so much, I'm stepping out for the moment but I'll need to fix that pretty soon. Thanks so much for the heads up I really appreciate it!
I like the design. The tutorials don't really seem bland at all. Everything is clear and easy to follow. Nice ad placement also. The logo (just the minty ferret text) could be sharper. It seems a little low res or out of focus if you can understand what I'm saying.
Hey, thanks for the kind words. Yes, now that I look at it the text could be sharper. It's a jpg image at lower compression, since the header was quite large file-size wise. I might be able to split it up or something, thanks for the catch! ps. Just got an infraction saying 'rep begger'? Not quite sure why, I never asked for rep, quite the opposite actually. I just let people know that if they were kind enough to give me a quick review I'd rep them, is that not allowed?
I just took a look in IE 6 and still pretty messed up. Both right columns are staggered well below the content and you images are center of page. Res. is 1024 x 768 Again just on front page..I am at work, but will be a for sure bookmark at home, nice looking site. Good luck with it.
Hi WACMan - thanks, I still haven't fixed it up yet, I'm still working on something for another client. I'll post once I've had a go at it and I'll ask you guys to test it in IE then - it's weird because when you go to a single post it looks half-fine! (Sidebar gets pushed down a bit). I'll have to dig around to see what's up.
I think I've fixed it so the post doesn't extend all the way over the page, but I'm not sure what's wrong with my sidebar. Here's my code, can anyone give me any insight? <div id="sidebar"> <?php if (is_home()) { $check_home = '1'; } else { $check_home = '0'; } ?> <div class="sidebar_left"> <ul> <li> <?php include('adsense_sidebar.php') ?> </li> <?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar(1) ) : ?> <?php endif; ?> </ul> </div> <div class="sidebar_right"> <ul> <?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar(2) ) : ?> <li> <?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/searchform.php'); ?> </li> <!-- <?php wp_list_pages('title_li=<h2>Pages</h2>' ); ?> --> <center><?php if (function_exists('useronline')): ?> <li> <ul> <li><div id="useronline-count"><?php get_useronline(); ?></div></li> </ul> </li> <?php endif; ?> </center> <li><div id="side"><h2>Categories</h2></div> <ul> <?php wp_list_cats('sort_column=name&optioncount=1&hierarchical=0'); ?> </ul> </li> <li> <h2><div id="side">Recent Posts</div></h2> <ul> <?php query_posts('showposts=10'); ?> <?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?> <li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title() ?></a></li> <?php endwhile; endif; ?> </ul> </li> <li> <h2><div id="side">Pages</div></h2> <ul><a href="http://mintyferret.com/request-a-tutorial/">Contact</a><br> <a href="http://mintyferret.com/mintyferret-usage-license/">Usage License</a></ul> </li> <li> <h2><div id="side">Archives</div></h2> <ul> <?php wp_get_archives('type=monthly'); ?> </ul> </li> <li><h2><div id="side">Affiliates</div></h2> <ul> <a href="http://www.photoshop-pack.com" title="Free adobe photoshop tutorials" target="blank">Photoshop Tutorials</a> <br><a href="http://www.freshtuts.com" alt="Fresh Tutorials" target="blank"><a href="http://www.freshtuts.com">Fresh Tuts</a> <br><a href="http://mintyferret.com/affiliates/">View All/Apply</a> </ul> </li> <li> <ul> <center><a href="http://mintyferret.com/request-a-tutorial/"><img src="http://mintyferret.com/wp-content/themes/default/images/request.gif"></a><center> </ul> </li> <?php /* If this is the frontpage */ if ($check_home == '1') { ?> <?php get_links_list(); ?> <!-- <li><h2>Meta</h2> <ul> <?php wp_register(); ?> <li><?php wp_loginout(); ?></li> <li><a href="http://validator.w3.org/check/referer" title="This page validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional">Valid <abbr title="eXtensible HyperText Markup Language">XHTML</abbr></a></li> <li><a href="http://gmpg.org/xfn/"><abbr title="XHTML Friends Network">XFN</abbr></a></li> <li><a href="http://wordpress.org/" title="Powered by WordPress, state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform.">WordPress</a></li> <?php wp_meta(); ?> </ul> </li> --> <?php } ?> <?php endif; ?> </ul> </div> <div style="clear:both;"></div> </div> HTML: Thanks so much!
Messed up for me in IE7. A tuturial on save for web and how to optimize different formats would be good. also a semi transparent divs over fixed backgrounds would help. Good luck
Still messed up? (sidebar aside, I'm still trying to fix that). The rest isn't ok? Thanks for the tutorial suggestions, I'll keep those in mind. Also - Nova Scotia Canada? What part? I'm in Halifax!
Yeah, it's the same for me. I'm having a really hard time figuring out what's wrong with it though. I've been fiddling around with the CSS but I just don't know why it's perfectly fine in Firefox and pushed down in IE. Help?
I think it's fixed! Is the sidebar pushed down in IE for you guys anymore? It looks fine on my end now. Unfortunately, for some reason, my 'earlier post' link comes up with a 404. I took it off and replaced it with the sitemap for the moment, but the url used to be http://mintyferret.com/page/2/ (and so on), but they all return as 404s. Ah man, but I'm sick of debugging at the moment!
The writing does seem like it could be spiced up a little bit. Try adding some humor in there. A little joke can go a long way to keep their attention. Also, you can go more 'bold' in your headlines to the articles. Make the posts seem bigger and better than they are. Instead of "Animated Banner Tutorial" make it something like "The Best ... Tutorial" or "Create an Animated Banner in 5 steps"
Thank you for the suggestions! I didn't even think of making the titles better - I was mostly thinking of SEO when writing (and it's been working!) them but I'm sure I can make them more 'catchy' without sacrificing that.
Hey there, you recently emailed me and we affiliated, my site is PhotoshopStar. I really like how your site looks, it seems more unique than other sites, and your content seems more well-written than others. Keep up the good work.
You've done a nice job on the design of the site. With a few adjustments to the layout like has been discussed you should be good to go. Just looked at a couple of the tutorials but they seem to be pretty clear and well written. Nice Job. hlq