Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance
When a potential user visits your forum, you want them to have excellent first impressions. I honestly had first impressions that weren't excellent, but they were still pretty good. So, I noticed a few things that could possibly be improved or implemented though. Firstly, I like that your forum has a favicon. I am failing to see what it has to do with your forum though. Favicons should somehow connect with your forum's genre, logo, theme, etc. The current favicon doesn't seem to do that, at all really. Secondly, I like your logo, but I feel the logo should have a bit of green in it, as there is no green in the header and green is used just about everywhere else, so it only makes since so the theme can be consistent. Fourthly, I like the attractive glossy background images, especially the header background and the category background.
Fifthly, I feel it's kind of lame that there are no rank images. I feel the staff members should have their own special rank image. It's a nice bonus for being a staff member, and rank images are almost always a plus. Also, the stars are too default. Be creative a bit, and figure out a better rank icon. You might be able to find a rank icon off an icon resource website. If all else fails, just colorizing the current stars to green to match the theme would look excellent. Lastly, I love your theme. Green isn't a common color in color schemes, so it's good to see the color being used in your forum's theme. I also see that the theme is a premium theme, I think it's safe to say that it's money well spent. The icons and the background images are just fabulous. Overall, I had good first impressions, but there were a couple things that weren't so great with the appearance. I wish you the best of luck making improvements.
(Score: 18/20)
Site Layout
The menu layout is just fine. I see no problem with it. The board layout doesn't look to great though. There is a total of twenty four boards in three categories. That is way too many boards, especially considering your forum's activity right now. Your forum just isn't big enough to handle that kind of layout. I think the first three categories are just fine, they're straight and to the point. The only thing I really noticed is that I feel "Questions, Thoughts & Ideas" should go under "News and Announcements" because they're the two most important boards on the forum really. They also are closely related.
Now, let's get to that final category. "Hobbies and Interests" is basically an off-topic category, I don't understand why it is so big. Firstly, you shouldn't really have that many boards in one category to begin with. Secondly, your forum isn't a general discussion forum exactly, so you shouldn't go too in depth with those boards. I feel the "Literature" board, the "Arts and Crafts" board, and the "Graphics Section" board could all be merged into one board. You could call the board "Creative Corner," or maybe something like "The Arts" instead, as the arts can refer to all of these things. I feel the "Religion," "Health, Fitness and Relationships," "Sport," "Travel," and "Food and Drink" boards could all be merged into the "General Discussion" board. I think "Debates" should be a sub-board of "General Discussion." That would turn this category into only having four boards, which is a pretty good amount. I then think you should reorder it by the following: "General Discussion," "Entertainment Discussion," "Technology Discussion," and then "The Arts," or whatever you plan to call it. That would make it a lot better. Overall, your layout needs a lot of improvements to fit the needs of your forum right now. Good luck.
(Scored 12/20)
Statistics and Activity
As of right now, your forum has accumulated 3,140 posts in 600 threads by 334 members. Your forum sure does have a lot of threads. With all those threads, I'd expect a few thousand more posts than what your forum has, but that isn't the case. Your forum averages about five posts per thread, and that is including the opening post, so that's actually an average of about four replies per thread. That isn't very good. It's great that threads are being made, but the replies need to start coming in. I see a lot of threads with no replies from the staff members, so I feel you can start off the improving by having all the staff members take the time to reply to threads each day. Pretty simple, I know.
Secondly, your forum averages about nine posts per member. That's what I really find a problem. Something must be wrong for your forum only to have nine posts per member, as active members already make statistics like this appear misleading. This makes me think that your forum has a lot of bots registering. Even if your forum isn't having a bot problem, there are a load of inactive accounts. It might just be best to prune these accounts in the future. Don't be afraid to try and get the legitimate members back though. Email reminders can sometimes bring members back. Lastly, your forum doesn't appear to be too active. Only a few posts seem to be made a day. Actually, there has only been one post today. That's a bit upsetting, as the administrators should be making five or ten posts a day by themselves really. Overall, your statistics hints at a bot issue and your activity is very low. Good luck making improvements.
(Scored 12/20)
Staff Moderation
There's little to say about moderation, but it appears that your staff team appears to be moderating posts when needed. I feel they should get to moderating accounts specifically though, as the forum appears to have a bot problem. The staff team should start reviewing over new accounts to see if they're legitimate members or not. You can sometimes tell by just looking at their email, name, IP address, etc. Your forum has a total of two staff members. These two staff members are both administrators. Two staff members is good, as it's all your forum needs right now, but I don't really feel the forum needs two administrators. One of the administrators could probably do the same thing that he or she is doing now as a global moderator or a basic moderator. I feel the staff team should at least have a variety in positions though, instead of all the staff members having the same position. Maybe adding a moderator in the next month or so wouldn't hurt either. Overall, your staff team seems to moderate posts well, but the accounts appear to have a need to be moderated. Good luck!
(Scored 17/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism
Both of the staff members seem to be posting around to casually honestly. It doesn't seem to be very professional. I know a professional atmosphere may not be your aim, but your forum should still have the essential type of things that just show intelligence really. So, what unprofessional things do I see? I see staff members not using proper punctuation or just not using punctuation at all. That's a pet peeve of mine, punctuation is a necessity. I also see a bit of text talk. Text talk is for social networks, instant messengers, actual texting, etc., not for forums. It's certainly not professional anyways. Next, let's get to the spelling and grammar mistakes. Well, I can say right off the bat that a lot of board descriptions are missing periods at the end. That should be fixed. Also, a lot of things have capitalization but they don't need to have it. Lastly, I feel the board descriptions are just too short or not very descriptive, especially the first two boards. Spice things up a bit, you can do that by possibly starting board descriptions off with questions, quotes, jokes, etc. Don't be afraid to go in depth with board descriptions either, just make sure they're not too long. Good luck.
(Scored 15/20)
Total Score - 74/100
Final Remarks
Strong Points
Your forum's theme and staff team size.
Things to Improve
Your forum's layout and statistics.
After reading your review, please click here to rate our service.
The Team Leader will deduct the cash from your account shortly.
