Name of Site: The Talking Seed Site Genre: Lifestyle/Debates Site URL:http://thetalkingseed.com Type of Review ( Full/Quick ): Quick Opening Date: Not sure the exact date, but it was around a year and a half ago. 😕 Additional Notes: Please tell me as much as you can! 😛
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Excellent professionalism.
A huge turn off for a forum is when you can tell that the owner does not treat the website with respect. I've been on your board for a few hours now, and it struck me that your account was online the entire time! That's an awesome thing to see, well done. It seems to me like your other staff member (props on only having one other staff member by the way) is pretty active as well. When you show that you have a go-getter attitude, it really rubs off on your staff members, and those who visit. Some other things to note; your board descriptions are short and to the point, with no grammatical errors, which is a huge plus. The only suggestion I would have is to avoid the repetition of the word "here." That is a really small suggestion though, and it definitely isn't something that someone will notice unless they look at your board with a fine tooth comb, so to speak.
Very nice looking board!
Now while I'll admit that I've always been a fan of the look of IPB, I really like the theme you've chosen. Even though it's a theme that's fairly common, or at least, looks like others I've seen, it is still a decent choice. While this may seem like something that's easily said about a lot of sites, it's an important aspect, and it's almost always the first thing I consider when I visit a website. Let's face it; you could have the best content in the world, but if you have a horrible design, you're going to be losing traffic. So, well done on this aspect. Speaking from personal experience, it's very hard to focus on building a quality website when you have most of your member base complaining about how the site is really ugly. 😛 In the future, you could definitely consider purchasing a custom theme when your budget allows for it. What's nice about a custom theme is that it would allow you to implement your site's name in more places than just the header, including visual imagery. When you do that, people will be far more likely to remember your site, and come back and produce activity!
Weaknesses:
Too many subforums for the amount of content.
For only having 242 posts, you have 13 subforums. This is the most counterintuitive concept ever, but having less boards will actually make your forum way more active. I struggled to grasp this on my first few forums, and it really came back to bite me in the butt. It seems like you would want to have a forum for as many subjects as possible to give people ideas, right? Well, sadly, that's not the case. People enjoy generic categories, and not having to search for the "right" subforum. If you have too many for them to sift through, they won't get a chance to view all of them; especially when they can see that they only have a handful of threads to be a viewed. So for now, I would recommend cutting down your number of boards to 6-8, and expanding when each of them is bursting with activity.
Here's what I would suggest.
Merge 'Site Suggestions and Feedback' and 'General Support.' They seem to be used for the same purpose, at least that I can see.
Merge 'Life' into the 'TTS Random Discussions' subforum.
Merge 'Music', 'Movies', and 'Shows' into a singular 'Entertainment' subforum.
Get rid of the 'Pets' and 'General Reviews' subforums. They don't really match what your site is about. If people want to post those type of threads, they can easily belong in the 'Random Discussion' board.
Merge the 'American Football' and 'Baseball' subforums into one 'Sports' subforum. Get rid of the 'Sports' category, and move the new subforum to the 'General Forum' category.
Move a few subforums around. (see next bullet point)
In the end, your boards would look like this:
>TTS HQ
>>>TTS News
>>>Site Suggestions and Feedback
>>>Introductions
>General Forum
>>>TTS Random Discussion
>>>Entertainment
>>>Sports
Lack of content from the owner.
I know that it's hard, but especially on a young forum, the owner is responsible for most of the content. While your profile says you have 1,188 posts, most of those appear to be in staff rooms (I'm guessing). When people come to a site, they almost always join in on discussions before they start making their own. What I would like to see you do, is try to create 2-4 topics per day. Jot down some ideas whenever you think of them, and make sure to pace yourself so that there's always new content provided. Don't be afraid to spam your own board. It really helps with activity. You might be used to large boards where each topic gets over 50 replies, and that's where the activity comes from. But look back to the site's beginning, and you'll most likely see a lot of topics that have 1 or 2 replies, if that. Coming up with content is always the hardest part, but if you can kick it up a notch, I promise it will pay off!
Final Remarks:
You have a nice foundation built for your forum. I strongly believe that with a little restructuring and some added content, you could have a nice general discussion forum that a lot of people call their "internet home." A word of warning; as you most likely know, this niche is very, very populated. As hard as it is, I would strongly suggest against comparing yourself to, or copying from larger boards of the same niche. The same would apply for every type of forum, but it's especially applicable when it seems like everyone has a general chat board. That being said, it will never be too late for another to rise up and be popular with a bunch of people, so don't lose hope, even if you don't take off for awhile. Good luck in the future!
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