Basic Review
Site Name: BarzRusTV
Site Type: Blog
Age: 3 months
Appearance
When I first go to the site, my eyes are instantly directed to the background. While the background is important in the fact that it tends to tie everything together and sets the mood for the overall theme, I didn't think that the current background is doing that. The background is loud, which like I said before draws your eyes away, if you try to look away, and I catch myself looking away again to the background. This is bad because you want your users to focus on the content in which you want them there for; however, the current background is inhibiting this. The logo looks nice and that fact that it is playing of the "Toy's R Us" logo adds a little fun to the logo. However, to be honest, the logo doesn’t quite fit the niche that you are portraying. When we think of Toys R Us, the first thing that comes to mind is toys and games. However, I don’t see that in your forum at all, and to a guest, that could potentially throw them off and make them close out of your site. Other than those key points that I aforementioned, try to clean up both the header and the footer. The top navigation bar is alright, but I didn’t see the “Lost your Password?” and the “Register” link because it is black which makes them difficult to see. The search area can also be cleaned up in this respect also. One more thing that I just looked at is your page numbers that users can use to jump to different pages, make those stand out too. White would make a good color. The footer is alright, however, it doesn’t offer much in the sense of organization. Try adding some kind of tables or special footer that will allow you to organize the links in a way that would both offer more functionality and organization. Near the “Like us” and the “Contact Us”, there is a lot of open space. Try to think up some cool ideas for things that you could place there to fill that wasted space!
Layout
The layout of your site is rather simplistic which in your case is good. Seeing that you have more video content than anything, it is really important that you display those videos in a manner that will best show them off, and that is achieved here. The sidebar that is displaying the latest videos is really nice to see because they are the latest, they are the ones that should be found and watched the first. I do like that you managed to incorporate a jQuery slider on the homepage that is cascading through different slides. I have always been a fan of jQuery because of how it looks and acts. This is really nice. The “Chip Drops” is nice, however, trying cleaning up the bottom portion of the text and make it spaced evenly. Other than that, there really isn’t much to comment on this other than I liked how you are displaying the videos! Nicely done!
Statistics and Activity
As requested from the user, I will not go much into depth in this section. The homepage looks like it has been updated; however, you still have a “Merry Christmas” as an article. Maybe move that to an archive and place a new article there.
Content
The content looks good from what I am seeing. Maybe offering more of a variety when it comes to genres of music or even videos too. The only reason that I am saying this is mainly because it seems a little shallow in the amount of videos that are on the site. However, if you add more videos and get more people to look, you will have quite the following because there is a calling for this type of content, if you can play your cards well.
Organization and SEO
I like how the homepage is laid out and how it displays your content. However, your SEO isn’t backing that up. You have a page rank of 0, which doesn’t mean your site is all that bad, it just shows that you haven’t built up enough inbound links with high enough PR. If you do this, you will see your PR slowly rise. To back up the link issue, I am seeing that you only have 4 links coming in to your site. This isn’t the best seeing that you have had 3 months to improve this part, start getting your name out there to more sites and start linking back. The links that are coming back has a positive are ¾ webmaster related, so that is good, but you still want to target other sites and more webmaster forums with a high PR.
Words from the Reviewer
I like what you have going on here, but I am afraid that without adding more videos and getting your name out there to the mass, you will not get what you are expecting. If you keep trying, great things will happen and you will be able to say “Yeah, I did that.” I hope nothing but the best for you on your webmaster journey. Good luck!
After reading your review, please click here to rate your review.
