Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance
When I first visited your forum, I could not tell what it was about. H5 network doesn’t tell you much. Under the header you currently have, I think you should have text explaining what the forum is. Just put Designs, Programming, Web Help & More, so you can clearly see what the forum is when guests first visit. Other than that, the banner looks pretty good. Under the banner I notice there is a large space between it and the rest of the forum. I see you have very boring board markers for new replies etc. I think you should get some custom one’s made. It should say H5 or something like that, as it is your forums name. Your topic markers are the same, these should be changed as well. Some of your affiliate images are broken, they have a code instead of the image. This is something that should be fixed. Also, you don’t have a proper domain, you have a proboards domain. You should get a TLD, it shows you are prepared to spend money to help your forum succeed. It would be easier to remember as well. Your favicon is PB, which is assume stands for proboards. As it is a free host I’m not sure if you can change that, if you can you should change it to H5. It’s simple and it’s your forums initials. Other than that, your appearance is okay.
(Score: 10/20)
Site Layout
I see you have 19 boards. This is a not too bad for the size of your forum, but there are still a few things that can be changed to look better. Most of your boards are active, which is good. The welcome cnetre is difficult to find, I think it should have it’s own board. I think it would look better that way, but keeping it how it is would be okay. The entire Computechs has only 5 topics total. I think you should have one computechs board and maybe a sub board or 2, at least until you get it more active. The county forum fair only has 2 topics, I think this should be a sub board as well. Anything that you are struggling to keep active probably should be a sub board. This way your forum looks more active. Why do you have a board for outdated posts showing to everyone? When I try to access it, it says I don’t have permission. Why not just hide it completely? I find it annoying seeing boards that I can not access. The participate board has not had a post in it since 2009, you should consider changing that to a sub board as well. Other than that, your layout is okay.
(Scored 15/20)
Statistics and Activity
You opened August 17th 2008, and since then you have managed to accumulate 22,361 posts in 1500 topics, with 344 members. This is not too bad, but could be much better. About half of the boards have had a post in it in the last few days, which could be better. As I said above, if you are struggling to keep a board active you are struggling to keep a board active, it should probably be a sub board. You have some boards with no topics at all, which looks really bad. You should make sure every board has at least 5 topics. You have a very high number of members for the amount of posts. This means many members have a low post count, which is not a good thing. Try an active for active exchange with someone here at Forum Promotion. You have 13 members on including staff in the last 24 hours, which is pretty good. But you don’t get many posts for this amount of members, maybe try a posting contest to improve the number of posts to members. You have 6,000 posts, which is almost one third of total posts. This is good, it shows you are a dedicated admin. All your staff appear to be doing a pretty good job of posting.
(Scored 13/20)
Staff Moderation
From what I can see, you have 4 staff members, I see you have 2 administrators, and 2 moderators. I’m not sure if four staff members is necessary, I wouldn’t hire anymore and maybe think about demoting one. As I said above, you have over 6000 posts which shows your dedicated. The other administrator has 5800 posts, which is pretty good. One of your moderators has 600 posts, but your other moderator only has 35 posts which is not good at all. You should encourage him to post more. All you staff appear to be doing a good job moderating, I don’t see any trouble or any spam anywhere on your forum.
(Scored 15/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism
Your board descriptions are not good. Firstly, your community and gamer boards have exactly the same descriptions except you added ‘and just fun for gamers’ to the end. This does not look good, every board description should be original and unique. Many of your boards start with ‘A lounge, and...’ which is boring and repetitive. I did not see any spelling mistakes though, which is good. Also, where are your rules? If you do have them hiding somewhere, you should consider adding them to your menu. If not, you should definitely write some. Rules are very important for every forum, you should make sure they are very detailed and exact. All your staff appear to be posting around with good grammar and professionalism, which is good to see.
(Scored 13/20)
Total Score - 66/100
Final Remarks
Just stay dedicated and make the above changes and I’m sure your forum will improve.
Strong Points
Your theme and your layout.
Things to Improve
Improve your board descriptions, and activity.
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