Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance
-Let me start off by saying that the theme looks great! Lots of matching colors draw my attention and won me over for a closer look.
-The banner looks fantastic. It has a nice unique and fun look to it, but not corniness. It even showed me right away what the forum is about via the dollar sign. One thing I notice in the banner is that there is a smudge or skewed line on the right middle of the big arrow. I’m not sure if that’s just me in Chrome or a small error made while creating the banner, but it looks awkward.
-One more thing out of place. At the top where you have the links to Search, Members, etc., “VIP Upgrade” doesn’t fit on the first line and falls down to the second. Try moving the whole bar over a tad so that it all fits on one line.
-The out-of-the-way ad banner at the bottom is nice. It is a good way to support the forum without getting in the way of content which would annoy members to the point of total frustration.
(Score: 16/20)
Site Layout
-The only change I would consider is combining the White and Black Hat SEO sections into one SEO section with two subforums. It would cut down on the length of the index and would make things easy to see.
-Other than that, the layout is great. I don’t see a thing out of place. I couldn’t have ordered the forums better myself.
(Scored 19/20)
Statistics and Activity
-Daily activity is what will make or break a forum. Unfortunately, I’ll have to be blunt and say the current activity isn’t doing the forum any favors. It’s a nice forum as far as content, looks and layout go, but the activity doesn’t follow suit. I don’t know why, because it seems like a forum that would be very active.
-About half of the forums have posts within the last day. That’s not good. Almost all forums should get at least one post per day if you want to truly be successful. Do your part by posting more and encouraging staff to do the same.
-Forums like “Email Marketing” only have 2 topics total. That’s not going to cut it. Without topics, you have no posts. Whether it be asking questions or posting tutorials, you need to do something to get some topics in these empty sections.
-I’d strongly suggest having a posting or preferably a topic contest. I like what the forum is so far but the activity needs a big boost. Make sure you are hitting multiple promotion sites daily. Go for more obscure forums as well, so you aren’t just advertising to the “FP crowd” all the time. It sounds weird but it works.
(Scored 10/20)
Staff Moderation
-I’ll start with what I like. Having one Administrator and one regular Moderator is a good number for the size and activity of the forum. There’s no need to go overboard with an overly staffed but empty forum.
-Having four more Super Moderators is pointless. Until you get significant amounts of posts, two people are more than enough.
-The VIP group is huge. It’s hard to be a Very Important Person if you’re one of many. It seems as though you’re just giving them away like hotcakes. It’s a privilege that should be earned, and it doesn’t seem like that’s the case here.
(Scored 10/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism
-It would be nice and consistent if every forum had a description, especially if some people are new to the subjects in question.
-Don’t use “&”. Type out the word “and”.
-Under Websites and Domains, change the description to “Discuss who has the best hosting deals and learn where to purchase offshore hosting. You can also learn about cheap domains, domain name investing, parking domains, etc.”
-Remove the comma in the description of “The S*** List”.
-In the Freebies section, don’t use all caps. It’s annoying and unprofessional.
(Scored 11/20)
Total Score - 66/100
Final Remarks
-You’ve got a lot right and a lot wrong. There is a solid foundation, but there is still a lot of work to do.
Strong Points
-The forum looks great and has a good layout.
Things to Improve
-Grammar, staffing and activity are all things to improve on.
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