Referral Directory
Quick Review by Jadster
Analysis:
Strengths:
- Site Design
Looking at the strengths of Referral Directory, I would have to say that the design & look of the forum is one of your best features. The design is nice, with some good colors and very creative. The icons used fit the design and color scheme. The background helps make the body pop out and not just blend in with it. Your navigation bar also looks very nice with the tab feature effect to show which page you are on. The only thing that I feel is bringing your site down design wise is your favicon and banner. We will get to the banner later on, but regarding the favicon, it doesn't match your site color scheme. I would suggest getting a new favicon made for your site. Something that fits your site design nicely and just works well. Because your site design is blue & silverish, but your favicon is white, pink, and red. They don't relate to each other at all. But overall, I would have to say your design is still nicely done and very creative. I just favicon and banner need some work but we will get to the banner again here shortly.
- Site Statistics
The 2nd big strength that I feel your site has is the statistics. Your site is almost 2 months old but you have growing activity with having 334 guests, 2 staff, and 1 member in the past 24 hours. All you need is some more thrilling content and things going on to turn those 334 guests into 334 members! Another thing that is great about your site is the amount of content you have. With 183 topics & 637 posts. This is very good seeing how young your site is and your site is already showing good potential. Another thing that I should mention is that you have 54 members, which for a new forum, is pretty good but not always the best but this does at least show you are doing your best and doing well at promoting your website to get that many members and the amount of content that you have now. So overall, I would say that your 2nd biggest strength is your statistics and I feel that your site shows a lot of great potential! Keep it up! Now for the harder part of this review, the weaknesses of your site.
Weaknesses:
- Site Organization
Looking at your site, I feel you have way too many boards and categories. For a new forum, you do not need that many categories and boards. Regarding the organization, I noticed you had a forum games board in your announcements category. Really, that just shows a huge sign of unorganization. Things like that, even though they may seem minor to you, they can mean a lot to the rest of your members. You need to keep your categories and boards organized so that the members can have a more comfortable time and easier time finding stuff as well as making your website look more professional. Organization is one of the key factors that can help or hurt the professional look and feel of any website. So I would highly suggest you take some time, look through your boards and categories and delete some that aren't really needed and organize them more. Don't have random boards all over the place, cause in the end, that will just drag your site down rather then build it up.
- Site Logo / Banner
Lastly, I wanted to talk more about your site logo / banner. The banner that you are using doesn't seem to represent your website at all. It has nothing to do with referrals or directories. Also, to be honest, the design of the banner does not suit your site design at all really. It doesn't go well with the blue background, and most of it is just transparent except for the outline of the texts. I would have to say that your banner is one of the biggest let downs of your website because I feel it is what is also turning your guests away from joining your website. I would also say, you should look into getting a better banner / logo made for your website because a banner / logo is what is used to show off your website and it is the biggest thing in the header of your website so it will be shown to everybody who visits the site. So you want them to see something that looks good and shows what your site is about rather then showing them something that has no relation with what your site is about. Overall, I feel that you have some work to do with your weaknesses but other then that, your site is looking great!
Final Remarks:
Referral Directory was a fun site to get to review, it looked nice but as I mentioned above, the weaknesses that were mentioned were chosen because they are what stood out to me the most. The organization being the biggest issue that should be looked at as soon as possible and the banner needs some work as well. But otherwise, it was a great site to review and I hope to be able to review your site again in the future! Keep it up and never give up on your forum and you will go far.
http://forumpromotion.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=103101
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