Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance
I always look on the landing page as a forums shop window, if people like what they see they will go in, it is even more important for a promotion forum that the landing page looks good in every detail, the first impression I have of yours is a somewhat plain site, starting with the banner and continuing right through the theme, I’ve mentioned in previous reviews that blue seems to be the new colour for forums, which is not a problem if there are splashes of a contrasting or complimentary colour to go with it.
(Score: 14/20)
Site Layout
The site layout is typical MyBB, and from what I can see there has been very little customisation to give it a unique look and feel. The large navigation tabs are very intrusive, they tend to shout at you instead of welcoming you in, the images on them are also pixelated and designed for light backgrounds, not dark ones. The marquee of chess piece pictures is boring, it does nothing for the forum, it should at least be below the announcement/welcome panel, which by the way is a colour that clashes with the main forum colours.
Your footer links need attention, they are bleeding out of the bottom of the navbar because you have tried to cram too many on it. Do you really need the “Promotion Stadium” link to be an essay ? ( sorry that’s cynical, but you get my drift).
The forum Icons and banner image do link, however they are very rough, they are not a good advert for your graphics team, I would engage them in designing some new more attractive ones for you.
(Scored 12/20)
Statistics and Activity
A great deal of your regular members are recognisable from other promotion forums, the most active ones look as though they are visiting you on daily basis, this hides the underlying trend that “new” members are not sticking around for that long and using your services, this could be for a variety of reasons, the main being they are cheaper or better elsewhere.
Your busiest thread is “Introductions” the next busiest is “Basic Promotion”, this should tell you that people are joining, introducing themselves, posting 10 times then advertising their forum in your basic promotion thread, and not really contributing to the board.
(Scored 15/20)
Staff Moderation
For your activity I would suggest you have too many staff, and not all of them are putting in as much activity to the board that I would expect them to do, you also have a VIP section two of which haven’t logged in for several months, hardly valuable contributors.
You also have groups in the legend which have no members, like Graphics Moderator, in my opinion it’s better not to advertise you don’t have MODs, rather advertise for them on the board. I also think it’s not a good idea to show that staff have retired, it makes me think, “Why did they retire”
(Scored 12/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism
Spelling is quite good,grammar is generally poor throughout the board, there are a couple of instances where proof reading would reveal the odd mistake :
“
Discuss generally about things that do not fit in other forums or have a talk not to do with promotion and chill out.
Request a forum or blog posting package to boost the activity of your site.
Are just two examples
You’ve also got random capitalisation syndrome in your forum descriptions, a capital should only come after a full stop ( period), or if it the name of a person place or thing. :
Talk about anything to do with Sports here.
(Scored 10/20)
Total Score - 63/100
Final Remarks
Strong Points
A good range of forums for members to use and get involved in.
A marquee which could be adapted to advertise a lot more forums, it is sort of unique.
Things to Improve
On a promotion forum little details really matter, if every thing is right, members get the feeling of being part of a professional site, then they will stay and take part, you need to be self critical and concentrate on those details.
The banner and forum icons need changing as soon as possible, you also need a more inspiring banner, yours is fairly plain.
Try to introduce some splashes of colour with the forum icons, just to make the forum more pleasing on the eye.
You need to discuss with your MODS ways of making the less active forums more active, I would up the post count before members are allowed to use the Basic Promotion forum, and in turn choose which forums count towards the post count. You could also consider using forum cash for members to “buy” the right to advertise.
In time you really should consider more customisation, or a premium theme, this will help to give your forum a more unique look and feel.
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