Wanted: Website Review Please review mobilephone-news.com blog :)

[taolaga]

Hi all
I've just lauched a Mobile Phone News blog
Please review my design
Thanks

 

[dashu1]

If you scroll down the page you have some great images of some very high tech phones, and yet the header text looks like it came of a 1940's typewriter - it doesn't fit the theme of the site at all in my opinion, so I'd change that and put better quality images in the header.

I also don't like the banner stuck between the header & the posts, it looks unnatural and breaks up the flow of the site making it look crumby - I'd get rid of that altogether.

I'd also get move the text at the top of the first post below the image - you want a nice picture to grab the visitors attention at the top otherwise they'll be hitting the back button before you can blink.

 

[RampageJackson]

This review isn't going to be pretty, if you don't like criticism I suggest you look away now.

Woeful use of a free template, terrible domain, spammy ads. Yet another site on a fast road to obscurity.

The good news is, 2 of the 3 are easily fixable.

Let me put this honestly - your site looks terrible. Its on a poor quality free template. You make this even worse by using a low quality header image. You are flowing pagerank out to a designer site because you are forced to leave a credit link. Your site has no credibility because it looks so bad.

If I wanted to make a mobile phone blog today, I would start with something like Thesis as the base template. I would also recognise the fact my photoshop designs come out looking like something Muhamed Ali done with a particularly bad case of Parkinsons that morning, so I'd outsource that - pay $100 for a top quality header image.

You are making a bad looking site even worse with spammy ad placement. For a site that gets no traffic and is trying to establish itself, you need to go light on advertising - not a huge Adsense banner before you even see any content. How much is that earning you right now? Is it worth killing the chance of getting links or growing the site to make a few cents a week?

All the above could easily be fixed with $200 and a couple of hours.

Your final problem is the domain - its awful. There really is no other way to describe it. Your website is 3 words, which in itself isn't a huge problem. But you need to either choose hyphens (cheap option) or non-hyphens (better option). To have no hyphen between the first two words, then a hyphen between the last two is beyond bizarre. You've just made your website totally unbrandable, and instantly forgettable.

I would seriously considering moving all the content to a real domain, and 301'ing it so you don't lose those links you already built.

If you fix the above 3 things, you have a chance to make a success of this site. If you choose not to, you'll forever be chasing adsense pennies and the site will be just another junk site which every visitor will mentally file under "junk spam site", before leaving never to return.

Brutal I know, but I think anyone with experience will agree. Maybe not publicly though...

 

[dashu1]

LOL - come on Jackson, stop pussyfooting around & tell him how it is

 

[GreyWing]

LOL - come on Jackson, stop pussyfooting around & tell him how it is

He can't he's just clocked on at the samritans for tonights shift, you'll have to wait till morning now.

 

[FagEnd]

Liking that RJ, that's a "proper" review

 

[RampageJackson]

I was the recipient of a similarly brutal site review years ago when I started out. It was the kick up the arse I needed really.

I think I was on my 4th or 5th site, every one up till then had failed miserably. I guess I was just new to the net, and figured this looks easy, I'll throw up some junk sites and be making a fortune in no time. Someone telling me how it is really made me sit down and evaluate what I was doing.

Then rather than build more sites I spent the next month looking at other peoples sites, what was working and what wasn't. The next site I built after that didn't make any money for 6 months, but only because I wasn't monetizing it. The traffic was growing at an amazing rate. I sent the brutal reviewer an email saying thanks, he remembered writing the review and we had a laugh about it. I wish I had copies of my old sites saved, I could give everyone a laugh with just how bad they were