Name of Site: PromotionZone Site Genre: Promotion/Advertising | Webmaster Talk Site URL:www.promotionzone.net Type of Review ( Full/Quick ): Quick Opening Date: Apr. 2 months ago Additional Notes:
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The theme and images.
When I first viewed your forum, I was impressed by the theme. You have a very nice premium theme. Honestly, when I first looked at the forum, I did not realize that it is a MyBB forum. I think if you just look at the top of the forum on the index, it could seriously pass for a paid forum software. The theme is that nice. Next, I really like the Promotion Zone logo. It is nice and basic, but it gets the job done. I do not know how relevant the check mark is though. Are you sure it would not be better to have an icon that is more relevant to promotion? Still, the icon looks nice, and I like that you also have a check mark as your favicon. It looks great when the logo and favicon match. I also like the board icons on your forum. They look professional. I think your forum could use more custom images though? I have not seen a lot of Promotion Zone images, so I think you should work on getting more of them. For example, a custom userbar set and a custom default avatar would be awesome. I did notice that an administrator has a Promotion Zone userbar, but it is bright green. I think you should get userbars that match the current theme. As far as the default avatar goes, the current one is just a bland no avatar image. I think it would be cool if you had one made that says the forum name on it. That is just a small thing, but I feel like it will make things look a lot more custom. Overall, I am a big fan of your forum's theme. You made an excellent decision purchasing it.
The statistics and activity.
In about three months, your forum has managed to grow quite a lot. Promotion Zone currently has 6,806 posts, 850 topics, and 150 members. I feel like these are definitely respectable statistics. They could be better and you hope for activity to increase as time goes on, but your statistics could be a lot worse as well. Since it has been three months, your forum is pretty much passed the stage of being a new forum. When a lot of forums first open up, they start out with amazing activity, and then after a week or two, the activity disappears when the forum is no longer new. It does not look like this happened with your forum. Nearly every board on your forum has a post made in it each day. That is awesome. You want to have all your boards updated with new content each day. The only board that seems to be struggling with activity is the "Support Zone" board. This board definitely has a purpose, but perhaps it could be made a sub-board? Boards like it always seem to have issues with inactivity. Overall, your forum's activity is very respectable.
Weaknesses:
Posting packages and reviews.
Like just about all promotion forums, Promotion Zone offers a few services. One service is the famous "Posting Packages" that people love to request. If you can successful run a posting service, I think your promotion forum will be a lot more popular. Personally, I have seen a lot of promotion forums come and go over the three years I have been on them, and the source to a lot of problems always seems to be the services. Members want their forum currency to be worth something and they want to be able to spend it on things that are of value to them, so if a service is not working properly or is closed, that leaves members unhappy. As of right now, you guys seem to be struggling with the posting package service. A package service is awfully difficult to run no matter what forum it is on, so I understand the struggles you are having with getting packages completed. If it is possible, you need to work things out. The review service is kind of in the same boat as well. If you can get these two services running efficiently, I think your promotion forum would definitely become a lot more popular. Personally, I am always looking for promotion forums where I can request packages and actually have them completed, so if you can figure that out, I can guarantee you that I would be ten times more interested in Promotion Zone. Overall, you need to work on keeping these services going.
Advertisement services.
Next, you offer two other services on your promotion forum. These services are kind of unique, but I feel like more could be done with them. In particular, I am referring to the "Box Ads." When I first noticed the advertisements in the side tables, I thought they looked very bland. They do not really stand out, so I feel like you should have an image in the table as well, so it is not just text. If you do not want to do that, you could at least color the text or something. The advertisements are not really getting very much exposure if they are not standing out to anyone. On top of that, while these services are a bit different then the type of stuff I usually see on promotion forums, I do not think they are very good as far as advertising goes. While it is great to have unique services, the popularity of the service is just as important. It does not seem like your advertisement services are very popular. One of the hardest things for promotion forums is being unique. As your forum grows, it will develop its own creative things, special qualities, unique features, and more. So, no one expects you to have completely unique services when you start your forum. Because of this, there is no reason to potentially harm your forum by having services that people won't like. If that means having a couple advertisement services that are not unique at all, so be it. If you have a committed member base, things will probably be better that way. In my opinion, creativity can come later.
Final Remarks:
Promotion Zone seems to be a very popular promotion forum. When I first heard about the forum, I was definitely a little skeptical about it, but nearly three months later, things still seem to be going well for your forum. If you stay committed to your forum, I expect Promotion Zone to continue to improve. Anyways, I wish you the best of luck with your forum in the future.
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