We apologize for the delay in producing this review. We hope you find it helpful for the website! :great:
In-Depth Review
Site Name: Level Unlocked
Site Type: Gaming
Age: ~9 months
First Impression and Interest
The first time visiting your website, the name "Level Unlocked" does not truly show a gaming site until the site actually loads. 'Level' does ring something, though not in direct connection. The first impressions were good from all the reviewers. Level Unlocked has quite a nice and clean design, easy to look around. It makes visitors feel comfortable to browse and look around with the soft, calm colors. The pictures used in articles give additional invitation to check around. Although as time goes, the body area for the posts are rather small so visitors end up having to scroll down a lot, and that is slightly annoying. To take a quick look at the activity around, there doesn't seem to be many comments posted lately that it feels rather silent. Also the website has many blank space that it gives the impression of being empty.
Appearance
Starting from top, the banner and logo suits the theme name well, though not so much compared to the games content provided. The banner is good but too small and simple for a gaming site. We also think that the reflection of 'Unlocked' is rather strange; you may want to revise it a bit more. You still have so much space to the right side of the banner; it is something you can use for a bigger banner, more pictures, or probably a slogan. Level Unlocked also has double navigation bar, at the very top of the page and below the banner. You don't need it, in our opinion, as it looks kind of redundant; stick to one but use all space you have there to the fullest. The bar below the banner might work best; if you need space you can move the search bar to the right side of the banner to fill in space together with the social network buttons. The 'Support' and 'Donate' menu, if being looked at in general, give the impression that they are not different, since 'support' can also be in form of donation. Only upon checking the two menus that we see the difference in both. To avoid confusion, you can change 'Support' to 'Contact' or simply merge the two menus together, providing an integrated informative page. Same goes with the repetitive search box at the top and bottom of the page.
The index body is a bit too long with empty side bars. This might be because of the size of the pictures and texts of the news which are slightly too large. This causes visitors to have to scroll down quite far to get the bottom of the page. You can also decrease the number of posts shown in each page to avoid the massive scrolling as it could be kind of annoying. For the blank space around, you can use it to expand the index body or give pictures to perk up the experience visiting your site. About the side bar, the 'Latest News' section is rather repetitive since right next to it visitors can also view the same thing. You can remove it and replace it with an archive link, for example. The side bar is very empty, nothing much else besides latest posts and entries from social links. You need to add more there to remove the impression of having an empty site; you can do so by adding 'Picture of the Week', or 'Game of the Month', or links to special sites featuring news or games or reviews, and so on. Integrate your site with various fun and new information to invite people to look around.
The footer is very empty with only search box, as stated before you already have a search box at the top so no need to have another one here. You also have "Back to top ^" text. The sign "^" is actually already clear enough to show that the link is to bring you to the top of the page, so either use the text or sign only. You may want to make the colors of the text and sign clearer, though. Against such a dark background, they are rather hard to be seen. Same goes to your copyright and webdesign notice. Change it to a brighter white or another light color to make it easier to read.
Statistics and Activity
Article/post wise, you have around 130 articles in about 9 months. That number, divided roughly, means around 14 entries per month. Counting it deeper, it means you produce an article every other day. That is not a bad number, although for websites related to gaming that may be slightly low. Gaming-related websites usually produces update more often in the same time period. Given from the drop-down category of "News" and reviews, you seem to have quite a large scoop area about what you can write. You also have quite decent amount of writers as your team members; you could have created some kind of schedule or plans so that you can still provide articles in a more steady, regular basis. This can be a point to consider with your team members.
Comments wise, Level Unlocked doesn't seem to have many comments. Most new entries do not have comments; old ones have them more. Articles posted around March and April have most numbers if we look at the distribution. In between we find "Meet XXX" posts, which talk about your team members, and they gain number of comments almost similar (if not more) than other articles. Unfortunately, they are off-topic posts. You may want to review about how you present the material or content of the site; does it appeal to the readers already? Or the news are not very interesting? Or not complete? Besides from entries, you can also try to pump in more activity by requesting comments exchanges to perk things up.
Content
Most posts are pretty short, mainly covering the latest things happening in the gaming world. Keeping it short makes it easy to read, but elaborating the news with additional content, like explaining what the games are about or any background story of it can help to integrate a better, clearer news for readers. Not every reader has the same amount of knowledge. You can also make it longer by adding in writers' opinion to the end of the news, or a short interview with another person to add to the article in relationship to the news or reviews, or add questions which can act as a trigger for visitors to leave a comment.
"Reviews" category needs a reorganization as it is rather not tidy; "Mobile" sub-category has no post in it, best be deleted or removed. Taking it from your website description, 'Gaming News and Reviews', the review section is very lonely. To start with, you should consider again whether to continue providing reviews or not. If yes, then you have homework to do: add more review-related posts, cover various genre of games, and add arguments to encourage visitors to post a reply to it. If not, you should change the website description and start to add another kind of content to the site. For example, you can talk about tips and tricks for the games, or a short quick walkthrough of particular aspect of some games, and so on. Be different, be unique.
Aside from that, grammar wise, you have already done a great job.
Organization and SEO
Searching 'Level Unlocked' at Google and Yahoo gave Level Unlocked in first result (although at Yahoo the first result is the Twitter account actually, and the second result is the support page which is very strange). However, if we switch to another keywords, for example 'Modern Warfare 3 News' or other specific game-related keywords, Level Unlocked didn't come up. Understandable since there is so many websites offering gaming news and reviews out there. The site probably needs more unique content, SEO fixes, or perhaps switching to another gaming points not yet covered anywhere else.
A lot of work needs to be done on directory submissions. Level Unlocked has 22 backlinks, but none of them are from gaming forums or other gaming sites. That is a good start already but you need to try to improve this so more will come from websites in the same niche or similar content to make it worth while. That way you can also get more activity around the website. One of the ways to do this is by going to another gaming websites, leave comments and links to your website so people can check it out.
Alexa Traffic Rank in global is 2,236,167. Google Page Rank is 1/10. You also do not have a sitemap. While rank numbers may not be very important just like a sitemap, for the long run they may help to get better indexing in popular search engines. Still, unique content and proper link buildings are the top priority.
Words from the Reviewers
It is not easy to build a website in quite a saturated niche, meaning that your website will surely face hardships as there are already many gaming websites out there with strong basis of news and articles. You have to be unique in order to strive. Each administrators or writers or websites will have different style in presenting the material; this is where you have your area to explore and to work on. Good luck!
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