49 replies to this topic

[jonbey]

OK. Recently (I honestly forget where) someone did mention that the images in my right sidebar looked liked adverts and put them off. So that is one consideration - do I need to change these? They are all there to showcase parts of the site (there is one banner ad style ad that still goes to a review page on the site, rest are articles).

Next, I put the homepage up on 5 second review and got some feedback:

Did you feel compelled to read more?
seems like a scam site
Not Really, the stock imagery did the site 'in' for me
Not really - not my thing
Read more articles yes
(plus a pretty balanced yes/no that I assume really is down to what people want etc.)

The "scam" and stock imagery are a concern though.

What action, if any, would you take next?
Most of the replies to the question were promising, such as:
Read more on the page to find something of interest
Click on a subject that catches my interes
click on a specific workout program that interests me
Click on a photo to go to an artivle

What could be better?
less boxes, less text, colors in images didnt match colors in site CSS
a central message. The site feels like spam.
less busy
too many words
Yes the site is nicely arranged (woot, one happy customer!)
Looks good to me, how do I get back and look at it again. (make that 2!)
everything. It came off as an add more than a blog/site ( )
More modern design
Not keen on the color scheme, and the text could use some formatting wor
the look and feel isn't very modern
the graphics and images
The lay-out could be a bit better
the design, it looks too modular. it doesn't flow
I think the site looked good. Maybe a obvious feature on weight loss.
It seemed like a well designed front page
More sex appeal

So, there you go, The feedback from 5 seconds review. Now I plan to put some of that into action, but need to prioritise. One consideration is that I may have reached the limit of my design capabilities, maybe time to get a company to do some work on a new theme (I know, I only just updated it last summer/autumn!).

Certainly need to make it look less homegrown, I do think that the homepage and category pages probably let the site down, maybe a fresher template, some much better images and improved homepage layout would do the ticket.

So, what does team Cre8 think?

[EGOL]

Jon,

I think that your site looks better every time I visit.

I don't think that the images in the right sidebar look like ads.

My only concern is that the site looks a little unrefined around the edges.... specifically... the headline box for "Connect With Us!" has small white snips showing in the four corners and the small boxes in the left and right sidebars do not have consistent appearance. Perhaps this could be simply solved with a white background and some CSS tweaking.

I otherwise think that you have an attractive site with an informative look.

Keep up the great work.

[DonnaFontenot]

In my Chrome browser (linux box), the menu is borked. Here's a screenshot, attached. That's with me just loading the page and doing nothing else.

 oopsymenu.png   96.92K   58 downloads

I agree with Egol that the white corners on all the sidebar sections is odd and needs to go.

Yes, I would recommend getting a professional to reskin it.

Yes, I agree that the stock images make me think it's a typical health scam site, but I'm not sure there's a way around that considering the topic.

[jonbey]

Quick update - I am trying some little changes (will try to tackle those silly white corners too).

Made site a little wider, right sidebar slimmer (giving more room for content to allow a right alignment of the in-content advert, so it no longer stops the flow of text) and stripping out the images.

Had a last comment on the 5 second review (only had credit for 20, and had 19 replied when I posted). Someone felt that there were too many naked people!

I am going to change this - not just because of 1 random reviewer, but also because I remember that in the Google search preview these images are sometimes blanked out, so as well as looking spammy they may be triggering some sort of filter alter at Google HQ too. Best try without. Got some nice images that look less stock-photoesque with people wearing more clothes (funny, I never even noticed the partial nudity! oh well).

So, for future reviewers, the site has changed already, and i am out of space to attach a screenshot, and not got time to stick it in photobox. Check the G cache, bound to be one in there somewhere!

Oh - the other reason - site speed. Was going to compress those images more, and look at sprites (???) but may just stick with most text and create one image with text on it to showcase a section.

So, work in progress as usual!

Thanks Egol and Donna for your replies!

[jonbey]

OK, before and after (sorry, this is not about the homepage here, but thought as I had already started the thread I may as well carry on).

Before - wider right border, advert bang in the middle breaking up the content:



After - sides equal size, advert aligned right with a border - to clearly separate ads from content:

[jonbey]

when I started using this theme it seemed like a great idea, now I am getting really naffed off with it. Deleted out loads of CSS, every reference to the silly corners I can see, and they are still there. Tsk.

Doing someone crazy and irrational - testing totally new themes out.

Found one that is very clean, minimalist, looks nice..... testing on another site.

[Michael_Martinez]

How is this site doing so far?

[jonbey]

Gone back to the old theme, I think I need to get a very basic theme and work from that.

Site, not doing great, taken another downturn, which is annoying.

actually re. theme, I did ditch the background image, and that makes the site look a bit fresher and hides the dodgy curved edges a little too.

[DonnaFontenot]

Yep, I do like it better without the background. Good decision.

[A.N.Onym]

It were probably not the corners themselves, but the header image itself with white, instead of transparent, background. Or just the corners with white background. It's relatively easily fixed, if desired.

Good to see you working on your site, Jon

Afterthought

I really should update mine to Drupal 7 and get to work

Edited by A.N.Onym, 23 April 2011 - 03:27 AM.

[jonbey]

Been trying to work out in which part of the code that image even gets called up. Oh well.

Thinking of getting a pro to make a theme, but worried that they will just make a hash of it and try to do their own thing!

[jonbey]

sort of hacked it, removed loads of code, no idea what half of it did but site seems OK. At one point it was actually broken in IE (if the script error thing was on) and I deleted loads of js stuff.

So, cleaned the siderbar headers, tried to make the main header line up a bit better, set the width of the content area as it kept going under the right side.

Changed some images, may change some more.

Back to looking for low quality content and hoping like hell that it is what is causing me problems ...

[EGOL]

I like it a lot better without the background image. Starting to look "clean".

[jonbey]

Thanks. I think I just saved myself 1000 quid in a redesign.

I think what I do really need is some better graphics. I think the home page needs to be designed, but not the whole theme. Same with the category pages. Something really stylish should give the site a more professional edge.

[tam]

I think it's looking pretty cool

Only thing, layout wise that I notice is that you could do with a little padding on the article image so they text isn't right against it.

RE images: I don't know if if this is right or not, but to me the images are very professional looking, the people in them are posed and look shiny and the lightings perfect and not a freckle to be seen. I know you're selling an ideal, but I wonder if there is something in between the perfect and the average person that would maybe make the people look more like real people than models. A lot of the weightloss ads you see do this, with 'real' people looking slimmer/fitter rather than just a good looking model - maybe people feel that makes things more obtainable.

[jonbey]

Cheers Tam, I am happier with the way it is looking.

Just changed the first photo on the homepage. Batter? More natural? Friendlier?

[tam]

I like that photo, she looks like a real person, her hairs not perfect and she doesn't look airbrushed smooth, but she's got a contagious kind of smile and that's likely to make people feel good.

The third photo down is quite good too, I think the background helps it look more 'real'.

I know your limited by what stock you can get hold of though and models will be the more common option, which probably makes finding pictures difficult.

[DonnaFontenot]

Good news. Something you did un-broke the funky top menu on my Chrome browser. So the menu now looks good there.

[jonbey]

Cool! Totally unintentional of course. I did make the header a little bit wider. Funny as it always looked ok in my Chrome.

[jonbey]

Big changes today (or was it late yesterday.....).

2 columns.

Also shifted 125 pages to the .net (what I consider weak/low quality, hope googlebot agrees!) and also all the yoga articles to their own dedicated domain (yoga was slightly off theme and had many short articles). Seems to be doing well for "madonna yoga" and "yoga ashtanga workout" (at least in Canada!).