The New Website
Posted: December 6th, 2009, 11:56 pm
Hi Nathan, I love the new site. I took a quick look around and thought of a few things that you may have already considered. I'll toss them out, though, just in case any of this is helpful.
1) The image link on the upper left of the forums (with the typewriter) goes straight back to the forums when clicked on. I think it would be better to have that link go back to your main home page rather than the main forum page. For starters, visitors can already get back to the main forum page by clicking either "Forums" on the row beneath the typewriter, or by clicking on "The Forums" in the next row below that (next to "Board Index <").
But more importantly, you're going to get a number of people finding your site via search engines that direct people to specific discussions taking place on these forums. Once you get them to the forums, I'd want to make it as easily as possible for them to find your main home page and all the goodies there. A small point, but the "Home" link under the typewriter is too small IMO to be the only one that brings people back to your home page. And the normal expectation on websites is that the main graphical link in the top-left of a page will go back to the main home page.
2) I'm sure this is something that has already been considered, but I think you'd get a higher click-through rate on your feedburner, twitter, and facebook icons if they looked more traditional, i.e the orange for feedburner, blue for Facebook and light blue for Twitter. I think it's easier to miss them when they are gray like they currently are. It's more artistic to have them in gray, but our eyes will recognize them more quickly in orange and blue, and if that increases the click-through by even 5% it's worth it. If I wasn't looking carefully at the page, I could very easily have missed them.
3) I did a quick CTRL-F search for the word "submissions" on your main blog home page and didn't find anything. Then I realized that in order to submit a query to you, you have to click the "Contact Me" link under your picture on the left-side of the page. You might want to have a link for "Submissions," "Submit Query," or something like that. Or possibly rename it to something like "Contact Me/Submissions." This isn't really an issue on your main home page because that page is very simple, but some people might find your blog first (such as from Google or a direct link from another website) and think that that is the main home page (I did this), and be distracted by all the links. In that case, they might end up scrolling up and down that page looking for a page about your submission guidelines. Small point, though.
Thanks for an amazing blog and for being so generous with your time.
1) The image link on the upper left of the forums (with the typewriter) goes straight back to the forums when clicked on. I think it would be better to have that link go back to your main home page rather than the main forum page. For starters, visitors can already get back to the main forum page by clicking either "Forums" on the row beneath the typewriter, or by clicking on "The Forums" in the next row below that (next to "Board Index <").
But more importantly, you're going to get a number of people finding your site via search engines that direct people to specific discussions taking place on these forums. Once you get them to the forums, I'd want to make it as easily as possible for them to find your main home page and all the goodies there. A small point, but the "Home" link under the typewriter is too small IMO to be the only one that brings people back to your home page. And the normal expectation on websites is that the main graphical link in the top-left of a page will go back to the main home page.
2) I'm sure this is something that has already been considered, but I think you'd get a higher click-through rate on your feedburner, twitter, and facebook icons if they looked more traditional, i.e the orange for feedburner, blue for Facebook and light blue for Twitter. I think it's easier to miss them when they are gray like they currently are. It's more artistic to have them in gray, but our eyes will recognize them more quickly in orange and blue, and if that increases the click-through by even 5% it's worth it. If I wasn't looking carefully at the page, I could very easily have missed them.
3) I did a quick CTRL-F search for the word "submissions" on your main blog home page and didn't find anything. Then I realized that in order to submit a query to you, you have to click the "Contact Me" link under your picture on the left-side of the page. You might want to have a link for "Submissions," "Submit Query," or something like that. Or possibly rename it to something like "Contact Me/Submissions." This isn't really an issue on your main home page because that page is very simple, but some people might find your blog first (such as from Google or a direct link from another website) and think that that is the main home page (I did this), and be distracted by all the links. In that case, they might end up scrolling up and down that page looking for a page about your submission guidelines. Small point, though.
Thanks for an amazing blog and for being so generous with your time.