Full Review by phio_chan
Before I start, upon browsing the links around your forum, I noticed the domain is actually quite big with various content inside. Unfortunately, I am unable to talk about each of them in details in just one full review. Therefore, in this review I will concentrate on the forum only. I may relate to other elements in the domain, but no further elaboration will be made.
Scoring:
First Impressions & Appearance – (5 out of 20)
In this area we are going to talk about the impressions from the forum's appearance. Unfortunately, it is not a pleasant one for me. One word which could sum up my feelings upon visiting the forum for the first is confusing. It took me too long to get into the very core of the forum. Information box or lines before the forum is not a bad thing, but when used excessively it makes scrolling tiring. Even after I clicked on one of the links in 'Threads we want you to be familiar with!' box, I still had to scroll down a few times before being able to see the content. There are so many additional elements to the forum, both at the top and the bottom, which makes me feel compressed with so many details at once. And they are not aligned in a tidy manner, which hurts my eyes. In real life I am known as a person with quite an obsessive-compulsive characteristic, with special love for tidy organization of my things, including with forums. It may be exaggerating, but I do feel there is a need to decrease these elements a bit.
Let us talk about the default theme of the forum, the only available theme for the forum. Being quite familiar with ZetaBoards, I know the support forum offers quite many themes to choose from with various color schemes. Although the name of the theme is 'Zeta Original', it is not the original default theme. I appreciate the effort made. The color scheme chosen is not bad; it suits the forum genre/niche quite well. The design of theme is quite pretty. You also added your own forum markers. For those, you have my approval.
Now, the main problems seem to lie in the elements of the theme.
Starting from the top. The banner is quite a nice attempt, so to say. I must admit I am not very comfortable with the sparkles of blue, pink, and purple behind the text. They do not match the forum's theme and its color scheme. And with the space available for the banner, there are much room to use. For example, aside from adding image or icon in the banner which represents the forum, you can probably add promotional banners, buttons of social networks, or important links up there. It can be a way to prevent using too much space above and below the forum which may hinder the view.
Next is the element before the forum body, which is identical to the element after the forum body. I am unsure about why it has to be repeated, especially when they take so much space which makes scrolling a little troublesome. I think repetition is not a good idea because it feels like you are pushing the visitors to pay special attention to those elements very much, which may become annoying to certain people. I would suggest to remove one of them and combine the two lines into one. After all, the icons are similar. You will also have to re-organize the placements of the elements; for example, I would place the advertisements and the social media buttons next to each other to save excessive line usage.
Looking deeper the images used for additional elements are still standard ZetaBoards button. Probably no graphics specifically made for this theme. The colors do not match but they can still work. Though if you have free time, I would suggest finding a theme with complete customized graphics, or request one in graphic communities for ZetaBoards forum.
Site Layout – (9 out of 20)
The first point of layout I am going to talk about is the portal. I see that it has been used quite well; links to the forum is directed to the portal so it does not stand there for no use. The content of the portal is somehow not balanced, in my opinion. The center of the portal, which contains the posts, is too long compared to the side bars. There is only one widget each at left and right side bar. Added with the advertisements and social network icons at the top, it feels neverending to scroll down on the portal page. I would suggest to cut down the number of posts to be displayed at the portal. And you can also include more sections which posts can be displayed at the portal, aside from the 'latest posts' widget, to give more exposure to new threads made at the forum. For example, you can dedicate a section for articles about tips and tricks to make easy money with online forums and it can be displayed at the portal. That can be beneficial for the thread and the forum with better exposure, not just for forum news threads.
Shifting focus to the forum now, in general there is no big problem. The navigation menu on the bar at the top is very straightforward and contains useful menu which are all important. About the categories/forums layout itself, I feel that it could use a re-organization and probably expansion to see how far the community can talk about different topics. I am not too familiar with online marketing forums, so I searched at Google to see what other forums and websites are doing. I see they are pushing the general discussion area for fellow online marketers to discuss about the methods and then its additional elements, such as hosting, SEO, and social networks. They also give space to talk about design, programming, codes, mail techniques, as far as writing techniques too. Seems like a quite broad niche to check out, no? You can definitely research more and see which ones could be applicable for the forum. You can start the new section as a sub-forum under general discussion, for example, to see how members respond to it. Including about affiliates, where the forum and website's name comes from! I would also suggest to merge the lonely 'Offline Entrepreneurs' section to the category above it, renaming the category to reflect both online and offline marketing.
Statistics and Activity – (7 out of 20)
As the time I wrote this review, Affiliforums has a total of 5,055 posts with 187 members. It roughly means 27 posts per member. Not necessarily bad numbers, but since the forum has been going around for a year now, it sure is quite a slow growth. But a growth is still a growth, so don't feel so bad now! Moving on, around 82% of the total posts are from 3 members only. Looking from the member list, other members did not make as many posts compared to those members. Two of them are the administrators of the forum. While that shows an admirable effort from the staff members, it also becomes a point of reflection as to why members did not seem interested to join in the discussions.
I ventured inside one thread with highest number of replies at the section with highest number of posts. I noticed there were many updates to it, but these three main posters only posted about the news and articles of new technology, without actual discussion between themselves about the articles posted there. I checked several other threads, and generally I got the same impression. Perhaps this is one of the points you can explore further as the staff member of the forum. With the current active member group base, try to actually build a discussion by responding to each other and analyze the topic. Since the forum talks about revenue and its tips and tricks, there are some rooms left for exploration. Hopefully this can help bring the forum more active.
The current staff team consists of one owner and one co-owner. With the size of the forum, you can probably add at least one moderator. Aside from helping to keep the board clean, he/she can probably help to add content and discussion as well, to make the forum more alive.
Content – (10 out of 20)
Before I start talking about the content, I need to remind you again that I am no expert in online marketing, so I may have the wrong understanding of several things. I will try to deliver my best analysis, though.
I personally think the content Affiliforums has so far is one of its strength. There are still rooms for improvement, definitely, but what the forum currently has is one good base already. One important point about the content has been touched above, at 'Statistics & Activity' area. I feel that there is not yet much discussion going on, especially in topics which are very potential to be put into further elaboration and opinion exchange between members. Perhaps one of the ways to solve this is to make separate threads for each new article. If the topic of the articles is similar, they can probably be merged into one thread. This is to help focusing the attention so there is a clear idea on what to talk about. For example, maybe one thread for new discoveries related to computers, printers, and other elements. One other thread for energy sources. One other thread about smaller components and molecules, and so on. Still rather vague, but it's not only applicable to the technology thread I mentioned above.
Second point I feel like mentioning is the variation of the topics. In 'Internet Marketing Discussion' the variation has been quite good; it shows with the number of topics displayed there too. I see the section also has a thread talking about the effectiveness of the main website in helping the users. That is quite a good thread idea, and could probably be made as a sticky thread and encourage members to respond there to see ways to improve the site as well as searching for possible discussion topics from members' responses. I am especially fond of threads like
this, which describe and take a deeper look on certain element of the internet related to the forum genre and leave spaces for members to talk about. I think this kind of thread is what you should attempt to make more in various sections of the forum to encourage discussion. It will especially beneficial to newcomers to the field, don't you think? For example, an explanation about the basics of SEO, a deeper look into social networks and which may be the best to use to market a product, the possible domain names and its impact, the relation to price, analysis of host services, suggestions of new good hosts, and so on. Guides, tips, tricks, and information sharing in easy, simple words are what members would be interested in, as I imagine it.
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism – (11 out of 20)
The overall professionalism of the forum is in quite a good state. The not-so-tidy organization of the home page elements is rather troublesome for me, unfortunately, so it takes the points from this section. I notice in some posts there are images added to it. While it is an interesting approach to the post, sometimes it feels excessive to always attach images to the posts. Some posters also break down the post into several lines which I think is not very necessary, but I can live with that. Other than those, there are some grammatical mistakes such as:
Search Engine Optimizitaion
and
Arguably the most inportant thing you can do for your site. All else will pale in comparison...
The categories and forums names are easy to remember and straight to the points. The descriptions could probably be made more creative if necessary, but what the forum currently has is not bad either.
Total Score - (42 out of 100)
Final Remarks:
Affiliforums is a part of a grand project which seems to be built carefully. It actually has the potential to be a big forum to support the website and other elements of the project. It has the basic components laid down quite well. What it needs right now is probably a good execution in terms of advertising and content management. With active and dedicated members it has at the moment, try to expand that interest and explore the abilities of the forum. There are many rooms for improvement and it takes time to build a website. You have come this far in a year; do not give up and keep on going! Best of luck with the project.
Strengths:
- - Active staff members
- Good start of basic content
Weaknesses:
- - Unorganized and repetitive theme elements
- Sections can still be expanded more
- Lack of interaction and discussion between members
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