Hello fellow DPers, I'm in the middle of putting my forum together, and I'd like to know your opinion. I've always loved to make things with adobe photoshop and I wanted to make a community where people can share experiences for small projects they are working on. That's why I've set up this forum. Tell me what you think. Site title: Semi Perfectus - GFXing and Visual Arts Site url: http://www.semiperfectus.info I'm still messing around with the logo on the top, If you've got some ideas for it, please let me know. Greets, -Semi
Please don't take any offense from this, please use my words as a guide to help your site. First impression: Default theme with a logo made in 5 minutes. Recommendation: Take some time and find a good, free theme online. They usually require links at the bottom but I think I would rather have one link then a overall "bad looking" forum. Second Impression: Boring look, still looking to "default" Recommendation: Maybe its worth a few bucks to get a really professional logo done, unless you really think its good (and ask your friends what they think.) Try "choas"... these are my forums (www.forums.aceoftech.com) they are still under construction but you can still see the general look of the logo... nice right? Third Impression: Not very many categories... Recommendation: Simply add more. It might seem hard but maybe add sections like "GFX requests" or "GFX battle zone" for users to make art then have other members vote... Final thoughts: Not very populated... Recommendation: Do whatever you can to advertise your forums. There are 60 topics but only one member. They are all great topic but lost without members. Below are 12 of my tips to advertise your site. 1. I find YouTube to be effect. Just say "Thanks to www.yoursitename.com for this video" in the credits. 2. Posting on lots of other GFX forums with your site as a signature is good. (don't spam or it becomes pointless) Or answer questions and at the end put "I learned how to do this from www.mysite.com" 3. Post comments on GFX or art blogs on the web, if they have a do-follow attribute this could help both your PR and your "Google Juice" 4. Submitting some of your articles every now and then to www.ezinearticles.com can help you also get some good PR boost plus backlinks to your site. And if your a good writer there, people will feel inclined to come to your site. 5. When uploading images to your blog always tag them properly. You'd be surprised by the amount of people that can stumble onto your blog from Google Images. 6. Have a way to email an article or submit it to big social bookmarking sites. This way, if people really like the article, they have a easy way to save and share it. 7. Word of mouth... doesn't sound like much, but small little things about "Hey did you see that How-to guide about blah blah on www.blah.com??" Can get you some good hits every now and again. 8. Give guests a reason to register. Making readers active or giving them an incentive to stay and read can be as simple as saying "What do you think?" Then it encourages people to register and reply to your writing. 9. Send out newsletters... Try and keep them at least to monthly but remind your subscribers that your site is till alive and well. Lots of forum owner make this mistake. A forum with 10,000 members and only 5 active ones is sad, and part of it is because people signed up, then forgot. 10. Offer contests as often as you can afford. It might not sound like much (again) but people just Googling "free whatever" might find your site, and if they like it enough, they might just stay despite them not winning. 11. Be sure you submit to directories. There are thousands of free directories out there that can really help you. Some with higher PR can help your pagerank while reeling in a few occasional views (if you have made a good description for your site. 12. Try and offer downloads from your site. Such as the freeware photoshop tool The GIMP. If your hosting plan is bandwidth permitting (either unlimited or maybe 25TB) hosting full downloads from your site can be useful. People searching for say Firefox 3 might find your site, get the download from your site, then stay cause it looks cool. Hope I could help you, and good luck with your site!
hi,I think you should change the design if you can,and also add more categories and topics to make it all looks interesting
@ Ben-AceofTech: Thanks for the great review! I was already looking for a nice theme tho, and the logo will be changed of course, It's ugly. Thanks for the tips you gave me, I'll work on it! And thanks a lot for your time, since it took you some time to reply on this thread! Rep given. -Semi
Ok, I've changed the look of the site completely, and added a few more categories. Let me know what you guys think about it! -Semi
Thanks for the rep I'll review your newer site the same way. First impression: Amazing logo!! Recommendation: Nothing, that things gorgeous! Second Impression: Slick style... Recommendation: You found a good, useful style... but maybe add category icons...? It helps to open up a webpage. Third Impression: Better categories Recommendation: For the moment the categories you have a perfect, as you grow maybe add a Problem/ Suggestion section for recommendations on more categories, but you probably don't need to ad that until you get at least 100 members. You have good looking site there
Thanks again for the nice review Ben . Category icons is a good idea indeed. And yeah, once I'll get more members, the forum will grow and will get more categories. You really helped me with your review! Thanks. -Semi
The logo text needed either to be enlarged a little or made a little easier to read. I liked the logo besides that. There didn't seem to be anything to draw me into the forum though. Time to get some posters. Last thing, not a big fan of narrow forums. Forums are for reading, so I would gear it for that by making use of most of the screen.