Promo Forum
Review by Kino
First Impressions
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First impressions are always super important and I think your forum has left me with a good first impression. I don't know too much about ProBoards, but it definitely looks like a theme you would not find on the market or for free. As for a fact, I know you designed it and I think that is what gives me the good first impression. Everything is light on the eyes, it looks like I can navigate to where I need to quickly, and just looks visually appealing. Nice work.
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Good
Design Quality
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So let's chat about the design. It's very unique and I like it. The colors seem to go nicely together. I've always been a fan of blue and gray together. It's nice and easy on the eyes, but I wouldn't mind the background color being a tad darker.
I'm not overly impressed with your logo. I think it could use some serious work. It looks like its just ordinary text and not a custom font. I would like to see it a little bit bigger and maybe some more color in the text. I thin the bold on Promo would look real nice in the blue color you have on the edge of your forum categories. It would give it a little bit of depth and make your banner area a little taller as well. Speaking of the banner area, maybe you could incorporate a subtle design that could really add depth to the entire banner area. Once that design is done you could use it on all of the forum categories as well. It would create a really nice stimulating effect.
I'm not a fan of the HUGE search bar right at the top. I mean the search bar is bigger than your logo for Pete's sake. Normally sites have a search bar or a search function but it's hidden somewhere where it's easy to find but subtle. I would highly recommend getting rid of that search bar and replacing it with my recommendation above.
The advertisement spaces you are offering are too big. 728 is huge. I think decreasing it to somewhere around 500 would definitely look more appealing than a huge ad right in your face.
Some positives that I love: the featured section with the cool images you have designed, your forum icons are beautiful, the originality of the theme, and your status features and menus on the right side.
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Average
Site Statistics
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For being 2 months old, 5,000 posts is quite a success in my book. I think you're on your way to hitting more and more as long as your content keeps up.
So I just did some statistics because I was curious as a member and obviously good friends with you. 48% of the posts made on your forum are by your staff members. Don't know if that's a good or bad thing, but if you consider that the biggest posters on your site are your staff, then I would be a little concerned. This could mean a multitude of things. One - you aren't providing enough content for members to discuss regarding the niche of the site. Or two, your staff just really love your forum. I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing, but I would consider that you should entice members to post a lot so that it doesn't look like your desperately trying to get your total posts count up.
I always look at how many posts are actually made within the forums that your site actually represents. So I looked and only 1,595 of your posts are directly related to the niche of your site. I included the Bulletin Board, Feedback & Support, all of Promotion & Services, P2P, and Webmaster sections in my count. This means that only 31% of your public posts relate the niche of your site. I would really recommend getting this number up. Stimulating content is always crucial and I think that it would only benefit you to increase this percentage so that you can entice more and more users to use and learn from those sections.
Again looking at more numbers, I added up all of the public posts and I get the number 3,983. That means there are 1,165 posts missing. I know there's a staff lounge and probably a thrash can for spam, but that's a significant chunk of your 5,000+ posts you have. I mean that's over 1/5 of your total posts. I think either you should disable post count increases in some sections or encourage your staff to contribute more content into the niche sections rather than spend a lot of their time in the staff lounge. The site won't be successful with a ton of content in the private areas of the site, the public sectors are what count the most.
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Average
Originality
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I don't really see anything original on your site. Whenever I review a review forum I get pretty partial because I've been here at Forum Promotion for so many years. When FP came around, they were pretty much the first generic promotion forum that promoted all kinds of forums and not just specific ones. I know FP set the standard on a lot of services (ex. packages, reviews, exchanges, forum cash, etc.) but I think it's still important to remember that on top of those you need to create your own unique services and features. Otherwise, people will just say why should I join because FP offers the same features with more viewingship than PF. Just food for thought.
I don't really see any unique services you're offering. I mean it's all pretty generic and almost identical to FP's services. You have reviews, a site directory, member exchanges, forum cash exchanges, staff hiring, achievements, and a battle area. I mean those are practically taken from FP and revamped and new descriptions set.
I think you have something good going with the ProBoards stuff though. If maybe you themed the site on promotion and features for ProBoards, you could create something completely original. I'm sure there is a lot of ProBoards stuff you can develop or design to really bring your site to the new level.
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Poor
Site Structure
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I think your site is structured well. You thought out where to put everything and it fits in a common sense aspect. Nice work.
Some of your forum descriptions are much longer and detailed than others. Maybe just try to focus on making them kind of look equal. This will add depth to your forum and site in general.
I'm on your homepage now and I'm trying to think if you really need one or not. Right now you really don't have much content on there and maybe that's a clue that you don't need the homepage. I've never been a fan of homepages. Why waste someones time when they just want to get to the forum? It just looks very plain and maybe some little designs or graphics can be thrown in to give it a little bit of life if you keep it.
Didn't know where to put this - it doesn't affect any score or rating - I thin you have too much staff for such a small site. Just wanted to throw that out there. 4 admins, 3 mods, and 2 reviewers. That's a lot of staff for only 78 members.
Nice work structuring your site though.
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Excellent
Spelling & Professionalism
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Obviously I'm not surprised with the level of great spelling and professionalism. Your staff seems to have a pretty good demeanor about them and you don't have to worry about them being active because they contribute 48% of your overall posts. I think it's great to have a vibrant and competent staff, and you do. I did find one typo on the homepage: "Please bear with
is while we are working vigorously and tirelessly to bring you an awesome new forum."
I just wanted to point that out. Otherwise, everything else looks nice.
🙂
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Excellent
Final Remarks
Overall, I think you have something that can be turned into a great success. You really need to focus on recruiting membership to your site. I'm happy you have so many posts, but they're mostly from your staff which is a small number of people. I think once you sprucen up the theme a little bit with some depth and an updated logo, the site will look much more appealing to me and everyone else. The creation of custom services that you can't find anywhere could also be a really good benefit to you. But overall, I think you can do better than what you have. The potential is there, you just need to find the success.
Biggest like about the website?: Custom theme
Biggest dislike about the website?: Lack of originality and content
What could I do to make you (the reviewer) join my website?: Add cool new services I've never seen before
Your Score
