Hello, I've been working on a news website sourcethenews.com for over a year now. I first thought it would "flourish", for the lack of a better word. However, as time goes by, it seems like the site hasn't caught any attention and it doesn't get good traffic nor followers. I've been wondering what went wrong or what am I missing? Are the pages not as appealing as I thought they were? I may be at fault here but I just thought the whole package of the site itself is not that captivating for news readers. Please review the site and share your comments, suggestions, reactions or some piece of advice. Thanks
Your receiving a lot of views with very few comments from DP users. Let's hope that changes. I may be wrong......... but I am feeling that most people viewing the site - may simply not get it? The problem for most websites, is that the marketing message/idea needs to be instantly "getable" Within a few seconds or they simply click away. On that point: Are you aggregating the news? Are you offering polls to the news? Are you a source of new news? Are you sourcing the news(domain name) for the news? Since the layout is more like a forum, or a polling system, it may be ...... that you are alienating your users/readers - they may be expecting a more traditional newspaper or magazine layout - and there confronted with something else. They neither know what to do, nor how to interact. When they finally spend a little time to read and interact. They are bounced off to the actual source. That being one the main providers of news. CNN. ABC. Fox. Huffington. Etc. Your users will already know the main news providers, ....surely? So they may appear to have no reason to visit you(your site) again. They can visit their favourite news broadcaster. Or use RSS feeds from their favourite blogs, and smaller sites. Hopefully some more DP users will open up the debate? And give you more to go on.
I use and read a lot of news websites so I hope that my comments help you in some way. When I first looked at your website I was slightly confused. The layout isn't what I would expect from a news website and I just don't get all the options and bits of info on the website. What I mean is, I like to go to a news website and see headlines or a summary that I can click and read the story. With your website if I click the headline of a story it takes me to a page with one sentence then provides me with lots of different information that I just don't get? What is gov size or positions and what is sourced and unsourced? Also where is the rest of the story? I want more of the story available on your website than having to click source it to get more. Obviously I need to click source it to read the article but you need to give more of the article on your website than currently available. You also need to explain what the various bouts of information are on your website and what it means to me as a reader? On the positive side I really like the idea of the website and can see where you are going with it but I think it needs to be a bit more modern and user friendly. Make two columns instead of one on the homepage. I'm sorry it's quite a negative review but I seriously can see the potential your site has here.
It appears that the people viewing the site don't really get it. But I am glad you showed interest and shared your comments about the site. I don't really intend to use this for marketing purposes. I only wanted to know what others think of the site and solicit ideas for modification. The goal of the site is to allow users to have an unbiased information dashboard. This is done by evaluating the news to determine which positions are taken in a particular article and if there are any logical fallacies made in those positions. Positions are considered a theory if there are no studies backing them up. If there is evidence that supports a position, than those are entered into the system as evidence and linked to the positions. So that's basically the purpose which turns out to be really hard to pull off.
Thank you Wizza for the comments. It really helps. You seem to have a lot questions than suggestions. I would assume that most viewers or those who visit my site have exactly the same questions as you have. I think that's where I should definitely work on and probably make some modifications.