New homepage news section

[Momo]

Hi,
You have probably already seen that I have a site news section, but now I've renovated it and changed the layout for two purposes:
1)Easier to notice
2)More news text room

Now, all the articles open in an individual window and there is much more space to view them in. Also work in 640x480 screens, coincidentially.

If you could, please visit my site and tell me what you think of the news section/news articles. They are in the left box in the center of the homepage. Thanks! :) Go to http://www.themotec.com

Is my site user friendly and easy to navigate? Are the page explanations on the top helping? Any feedback is grealty appreciated! http://www.themotec.com

[webado]

Mo! Why am I being prompted that there are ActiveX controls on the forum page?????

[Momo]

How? I don't have control over that! That's ridiculous! :evil: :evil: :evil: The free forum hosting has control over the ads and I can't install one myself on my site because I've used my db. It doesn't ask for any activeX for me! Can you tell me more? Thanks! I'll look into it.

[trackerm]

I feel you could increase the space you use to describe whats on your site, and reduce the tech bit on the home page.

The 'Welcome' part is very small, however the tec stuff, site news, newest content takes over as it is prominent in the middle of the page. It looks like a tech site for computer boffins so I would click off. Throw in a bit of excitement... live life on the edge :)

You dont need the W3C logos so either get rid of them or cut them out of the middle of the page.

The banner at the bottom just says its the best... but doesnt tell you what it is. And the pics are too small to look enticing.

I suggest you:

1) Increase the welcome in size and prominence, explain what your website has. "forums' is not good enough, I want to know what sort of forums they are.
2) Remove or move to less prominent position the 2 boxes of links in the middle about site news and newsletters.
3) Increase the size of the photos so I can see their quality on the home page banner.
3a) In the gallery increase the photos to near full screen size. They are great photos but when I click on a thumbnail I want to see it BIG! :)
4) describe what sort of pics you do: "Visit Mo's specialist Landscape Photo Gallery" or "Mo's World of Travel Photography" etc
5) thumbnails on the games page etc

All the best, as you have wonderful content! :)

Mark

[webado]

How? I don't have control over that! That's ridiculous! :evil: :evil: :evil: The free forum hosting has control over the ads and I can't install one myself on my site because I've used my db. It doesn't ask for any activeX for me! Can you tell me more? Thanks! I'll look into it.
It asked once, I denied it and it's not asking again. Maybe that particular ad needed that, but don't know which one.
Maybe your settings allow activex to be installed?

[Momo]

In the gallery, just click the medium image to get a 640x480 or 800x600 version. I will work on making the banner more concise. Also, I will improve the forum description when hovered over. I personally like the news section, but if I take out the w3c logos then there will be more room for the site description. Its a huge improvement, though, becasue once I didn't even have a site description. I'll work on the homepage more tomorrow.

Thanks for all the suggestions and feedback! I can tell by the amounts of visitors I get that there is good content, but I just have to lead people to there from the homepage. Usually, all the traffic I get is from search engines, links, or forums. Not many people stay at the site if they're not looking for something specific- like Pentax lens name explanations, train photos, lens galleries.....

About the ActiveX, I have 3 firewalls*, so it was either automatically blocked, or the ad needing it didn't show. My firewall removes banner ads off sites when I view them so they actually look nice. :) I've disabled that, though, because sometimes off-site linked images didn't work.

*Router firewall, norton firewall, windows firewall

[Momo]

Ok, now I've done two minor changes to my homepage: I made the forum rollover description more detailed and I added a description onto the banner. Does the banner look better?

[Momo]

I've upgraded hosting plan so my photography forum (http://www.themotec.com/Forum/nfphpbb) no longer has any ads.

I've considered removing the W3c logos, but they stand out and point to the "bookmark us" link. If I remove them, the link will be harder to notice. I am getting a much higher number of returning visitors now, and based on the fact that many don't come from a referring link, they probably came from the bookmark.

I even got a visitor who registered and posted in the user photo gallery (http://www.themotec.com/picturepro/nfpicturepro) who is not someone I know. I hope my site grows even further in the future, and I'm off to a good start. Hits and search engine rankings are increasing and that's definitely good. :)