Will this new homepage design have visitors stay longer?

[Momo]

Hi,
Since August 15th, 2004, I have had over 10,000 hits to my site. However, the average # of pageloads per visitor is only 12, and some visitors only viewed my homepage and left. Therefore, I have made a new homepage design in attempt to attract visitors and have them stay.

Please tell me if you think this homepage will have more visitors stay and if you have any suggestions. I will soon add a paragraph about Motec to the homepage, too. The link is http://www.themotec.com/index.htm

It will state that my site currently mostly focuses on photography, but still has games, product reviews, and more. It will also have a sentence about why I made my site and what the goal is.

Thanks for any feedback or help! :D

Edit: If you are using and 800x600 screen, see this future design for Themotec.com that works with most screens: http://www.themotec.com/Newdesign/index.html

[Nomad]

sorry but didn't impress me that much..I hate horizontal scrolling for 1 thing...Looks like some thing a learner would do in frontpage..I know that sounds very harsh but that was my overall impression - I wasn't even enticed to click any of your links ....

sorry to be so harsh about it but if I was just bored and general surfing I would click/ return to search...I'd spend seconds there....

I'd suggest you add features to your main page, something that gives an idea of your content, the basics of what your about etc maybe some visual stuff etc.. I know I am losing return visitors because at the moment my main page is just to plain ...I'll be enhancing the page cell over the next mnth or so breaking the cell up a bit , maybe using some css block stuff for rss feeds etc...

Nomad

[Momo]

What screen size do you have? The site fits perfectly is 1024x768. Also, If you use firefox, consider this homepage: www.themotec.com/photo or these promotion banners www.themotec.com/temp/promotion2.htm

Thanks for the feedback. :D No hurt feelings at all! I do not use frontpage, just so you know. I hate that program. But if my homepage did not impress you, I ask for your feedback on this page: www.themotec.com/photo.

I will work to improve the homepage, but I think that it is a bit better now considering that the previous one had no link or featured content at all.

Thanks!

[webado]

Mo, I've been meaning to tell you for a while. The orange font color is not all that attractive on the purplish blue of the background. You could try a light peach like Peachpuff #FFDAB9.

Also, over on the menu side I find the > rather busy and distracting. Frankly, there too the font color used for the links could be different, as it can be in the body of the text as well. I'd opt for Aliceblue #F0F8FF which is possibly lighter than the backgound of this page, and let it roll over to Peachpuff.

Just my 2 cents' worth :lol:

[Momo]

I'll try that. And its easy for me to change it on all pages since I use templates.

Thanks for th feedback.

[Momo]

For now, I have made a test page with those colors. www.themotec.com/photo/indextest.htm

Here are my thoughts:
The color's dont have enough contrast, but I could make each just a bit darker and I would like it. Also, it is hard to see a difference on the rollover link on a bright screen. Otherwise, I think that the colors are OK.

But please tell me, because it will really help,
Why do you dislike the current orange? Too dark? To bright?

[webado]

For now, I have made a test page with those colors. www.themotec.com/photo/indextest.htm

Here are my thoughts:
The color's dont have enough contrast, but I could make each just a bit darker and I would like it. Also, it is hard to see a difference on the rollover link on a bright screen. Otherwise, I think that the colors are OK.

But please tell me, because it will really help,
Why do you dislike the current orange? Too dark? To bright?
The orange has a strange glow against the purplish blue, like those ornage fog lights. Visible yes, but tiring on the eyes. It would be ok on teh dark grey or on dark maroon. Just not on that blue.

There are not many colors in the spectrum I dislike, perhaps just cotton candy pink :lol: It's the combinations that can be tiresome.

Mind you, I'm using an LCD screen, maybe this explains it. It might look perfectly ok on a CRT.

I had to change some of the colors on my site too because they started to look bad on the LCD. But many people have LCD's - desktop or laptop.

I find the rollover effect good though, not a big fan of big changes in color on rollover. Just me, maybe. You can increase the contrast just a bit I suppose.

[Momo]

I am using a laptop, and have viewed the page on all the brightness settings. So I am mostly and LCD user, since the only CRT I have is my old 200 Mhz Micron. I am currently running a Sony Vaio V505 laptop.

I will work on perfecting the photo site colors. But other than those and the '>' do you find it all right? And what do you think of my homepage at www.themotec.com?

Thanks for your feedback. I am beggining to have a view of what users think of my site. On my site, I have an in depth survey. I have gotten 7 surveys so far, and 6 had positive feedback; 1 was negative. If you would like to take it, it is at www.themotec.com/news.htm. Just so you know, I have no email lists and all surveys are sent as email through the auomatic form.

Also, I have made a new site map. I wanted to make it pleasing. It is at www.themotec.com/sitemap.htm. If you want to review it, then many thanks :D .

[Momo]

I have now made a site design that is compatible with almost all screens, including 800x600. It's at www.themotec.com/Newdesign/index.html. It is very simple and straightforward.

I also have a very subtle rollover link effect.

Perhaps it is better than my current design?

[Nomad]

Now that I like clean, crisp, simple and easy to use! I was even encoraged to click a few links allthough pages had content they had 404 error for some reason? Also the whole of the pages (including index) seem to twist down to the right as if it's skewed over for some reason..(I'll grab some scren shots 4 u).

But the layout/design get a thumbs up from me - definately a step in the right direction..

I'll email those SS's 4 u..

edit weird seems to have sorted and why r you using redirects? I go to a page I decide when I leave that page not you! You have just removed my choice ...What other messing about are you up to? Those would be my immediate thoughts on starting to investigate your site...I wouldn't be back ..

So yes I really like that layoutand it gets thumbs up as I said but your site would be immediately in my bin list at the end of a session - hopefully not coming across it again because of the messing with refresh.
I know thats harsh and very critical but I try to give an honest opinion and I'm not only looking at your site from a coders point of view but also I'm trying to view it as a 'General Surfer'.
As that, a general surfer - you would fill about 30-60secs boredom space with your current site...

Get rid of your redirects, go with your new layout and scope your site from there and you will have a nice clean crisp site. A site like yours fully optimized should easily do 20k+ stats per week...with maybe even spikes of 35-45k tops .

I hope that is somewhat balanced and (I'm gonna keep repeating myself here) - really do try to get into using xhtml and css -- it's not hard believe me......and I guarantee you will thank me in the end! One reason I started to use this place was because I finally found a place that gave me xhtml code for stats..That was the tops for me! I am getting really annoyed at Paypal at the moment because I have a page in-valid because of there old coding standards, so I'm going to have to change it all and go through about a hundred e-mails to get it fixed..

I'm not sure if they have the 'Forms' of browser yet but I do know that is the next stage like css . That I believe is teh next stage in the xhtml standards and browsers have to be re-configured to accept the update - (src W3C documentation).



Nomad

[Momo]

Thanks! The links dont work because it is a sampe design. I can get them to work, but then I risk messing up many other pages if maybe I make a faulty template.

About the sereenshots..thanks :D . I think that they will really help. But I've viewed my site in all browsers and it looks identical. Maybe its related to OS? I have seen that before.

[weborg]

Your home page needs a little more interest to it. Check out some of the business-photography templates at www.pixelmill.net. I'm expecting since you have photography that your home page is going to be as stunning as your work. For my part, I'm not big on opening a new browser when viewing your gallery. I'd prefer the one browser window open. The gallery set up is good and easy to navigate.

Chris

[beerorkid]

I would suggest adding some design to it, it seems very vanilla. make some things with photoshop or somthing similar. This is a great place to start with PS http://www.good-tutorials.com/

that is where I learned all of my PS knowledge. my site isnt all that great but it has some cool design elements to it. www.beerorchid.com I need to redo it for I have saved the main header image in ever decreasing quality accidently for a while now and it is starting to show. I liked the newer revisions you posted. Pagging is so fun and a learning experience.

[Momo]

About the popup gallery, I have to make it so. When you bowse through all the images, I will be hard to return using the back button. But I will work on making the homepage better. First, though, I will finish the new site.