Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance
When a potential user visits your forum, you want them to have excellent first impressions. I honestly had pretty good first impressions, but there is room for improvement. I notice a few things that could be done to most likely create better first impressions. First of all, why don't you have a favicon? I for one am a firm believer: It is an essential part of any website. I suggest getting one as soon as you can. You could have "AH" on it, or you could use just any icon that relates to administrating. Just remember, if you use "AH," have it match up with the logo. Secondly, I like the logo. It's professional, and it creates an appealing engraved effect while displayed on the header. Thirdly, I feel it looks kind of cheesy with the way the advertisement links are displayed directly under the header. They're just sort of separated from the other links. I think you should have them next to the "Mark forums read" link or you could even consider getting rid of the advertisement service. I doubt it will be an effective service really if you keep it. Fourthly, I like your forum's color scheme. It's an overused color scheme, but it's still respectable because the blue used is a bit darker than the blues I see so often. Fifthly, I like your forum's custom graphics. They are nice, and it's always good to have custom stuff. Sixthly, I feel you need new ranks. The current ranks really don't go well with your forum and they are overused. Seventhly, I like your forum's theme. It still looks very default, but it is appealing. It's not very custom, but it's custom enough to tell that some time was spent working on it. It looks great either way though, really. Overall, I had good first impressions, except a few minor things.
(Score: 16/20)
Site Layout
Your forum's layout is well laid out, except for a few things. The menu layout is fine, but you could say it's sort of unorganized. All the links could be a bit overwhelming. I think improvement is needed in the category and board layout. You have a total of nineteen boards in four categories. First off, don't you think nineteen is a bit excessive? Your forum is really young, it will be a struggle to keep all these boards active. I suggest removing a few unnecessary boards. You could tone down the off-topic category a bit by turning it into a category with two boards. I think you could remove a service, and then bring it back once the forum is active enough and the advertisement spots will actually be of value. Right now, they're practically worthless. Other than that, I think everything else looks nice and neat. Overall, the menu layout is decent but the category and board layout could use a few fixes. Overall, it's not bad.
(Scored 17/20)
Statistics and Activity
As of right now, your forum has accumulated 1,524 posts in 174 topics by 47 members. That's a ratio of about 32 posts per member. That's actually pretty nice. It could be better, but I normally see worse by forums in the same genre as yours. The ratio of replies per topic would be about eight replies. That's excellent, it's good to see that there are few unanswered topics, but it looks to me like the general chat thread sort of makes this ratio lopsided as it has received so many replies. So, I wouldn't say it's really accurate, it's just an average, that just happens to be in your forum's favor. Your forum has pretty nice statistics. It's been open for a bit more than one month and it has already accumulated over 1,500 posts. That's like almost 400 posts per week, which is better than most of the forums I have reviewed. The activity is thriving as well. The forum seems pretty active, and it looks to me like it has fantastic peaks of activity some days. You should look into creating consistent posting activity-wise. If it is not consistent, it's probably not too reliable, which could mean that you'll wake up one day, view your forum, and it will be dead. You don't want that to happen. So, now how do you get all those current inactive members back? I suggest the classic email reminder, I feel it would be effective considering your forum's age right now. Don't be afraid to start a competition or contest though to create a spark of an interest to potential active members. Overall, activity is good, but it needs to be a little more consistent. Your statistics are great. Good luck making improvements.
(Scored 17/20)
Staff Moderation
It looks like your forum's staff team is doing a great job. According to the "The team" page, your forum has a total of three staff members. Two of these staff members are administrators. The other staff member is a technician. Your forum has a total of 47 members, so that comes out to be about 15-16 members per staff member. That's a decent ratio, but I feel improvement is just around the corner. First of all, I feel the technician shouldn't be a staff member. He really doesn't seem to go on the forum anymore. I know technicians are supposed to do the behind the scenes work, but he should still be required to participate in what's happening on the forum. Secondly, you have two administrators. Your forum is young, do you really think you need two people in charge? I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but I doubt it's a good thing. I think one of the administrators is better off being a global moderator or moderator though. You don't have any moderators, so I suggest you have at least one. I think you could make one of the administrators a moderator or demote the inactive technician and then promote someone to moderator. I think that would turn out nicely for your forum, especially its future. Overall, moderation is going great, but there are a few suggestions that I mentioned. You should read them carefully, talk them over with the rest of the staff team, and figure out a solution. I wish you the best of luck with this.
(Scored 16/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism
The two administrators seem to post professionally. The technician posts professionally, but it seems that he no longer posts, and he has only made four posts to begin with anyways. The forum itself seems very professional; it's the type of forum that just tells you that there's an in depth discussion going on, and it's certainly appealing to mature webmasters around the internet. I believe you have done all this with few flaws; you have just done this studiously. Now, let's get to picking out the spelling and grammar mistakes. Firstly, in the "Introductions" board description, I'm pretty sure the space needs to be removed between "your" and "self." Secondly, in the "Posting Centre" board description, "posting team" should be 'Posting Team." You are referring to a specific team (your posting team), so it would be a proper noun, thus it requires capitalization. Thirdly, in the "Review Central board description, "review team should also be "Review Team." Fourthly, in the "The Hut" board description, "taking" should be "talking" and I think "takeparting" should be "participating." Fifthly, in the "Bin" sub-board of "Job List," "a" needs to be "an." Fifthly, in the "Welcome to AdminsHut.com" thread, "uses" needs to be "users" and "apart" needs to be "a part." I think that's just about everything I noticed. Overall, your forum is very professional and there are only a few spelling and grammar mistakes. Good work!
(Scored 18/20)
Total Score - 84/100
Final Remarks
Strong Points
The spelling/grammar and appearance.
Things to Improve
The category/board layout and staff team.
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