Nice looking Joomla website www.informedbuilding.com

[BonkersTwo]

NOTE TO ALL: If some comments seem a bit out of context, I have PM'ed the owner comments and am explaining more here.

I am going to assume, the content is at least average or better. I am not a home building expert so I will just ignore the content.

Design is pretty good, Joomla chioce is good being a home building website. The green accent color with the building green homes is.


Personally, I am starting to like 2 column layouts better than 3 since you can empasize your content and put in bigger ads, does Joomla has a 2 column layout?

Do you have a plan for the "sign up"? Why? Newletter? Special Offers? If not it is taking up prime realestate.

TO DO LIST:
These give you website a lack of professionalism. (Many of my websites need these as well)

I have firefox 2.0.0.6 and the fonts in the center column are different for the stories. This needs fixed ASAP. The First story has a large font, and the other story have a hard to read tiny font. The large font is not properly line spaced so it blends lines together.

The website is a little bit slow, when going to any page. Is it you webhost? or Joomla setting?

You need a advertising page like:
http://natewhitehill.com/advertise/

To get advertisers, which I am sure you can, you need to have at least a PO box with a phone number with at least voice mail.

Cut the forum to just a few areas to post until your website grows.

You need to have someone post questions on the forum and have you answer them. Have the posters use multiple accounts for someone (spouse, mom, dad, brother, sister, unemployed friend) to post. You can post answers and with good answers gain crediblity.

If you do not know much about Joomla, there are 2 books on Joomla that you can read to get up to speed on it. Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Building-Websi.../dp/1904811949 or
http://astore.amazon.com/gp/detail.h...sin=1590598482
Beginning Joomla!: From Novice to Professional

When you do not have a address, phone number it is tough to gain credibility.

Do a review section where you read about and tell your opinion about "green home" items. If you don't need them for yourself. If your website has the few items I mentioned above. You can contact the suppliers, tell them you want to review there product for your website.

BEFORE Calling suppliers, make sure you have all ISSUES solved, fonts, forums active (even if it is just you and friends/family)

If they ship you something, tell them that you will have a give away. It works trust me. When I first did redrocket.com toy reviews (6 years ago), I ended up with a roomful of toys.

Lots of potential, just needs the details.

1. Faster Webhosting
2. Active Forum
3. Fonts
4. Contact Details

These are the biggies

[gawnd]

thanks for the constructive criticism bonkers. i will be getting to work addressing the issues I can.

[Makis77]

i dont get it,
r u selling this or want someone to do all this stuff?
or just promoting?

[gawnd]

ok, let me clarify. in another thread bonkers stated he would provide constructive criticism if anyone wanted to pm him sites they were working with. i did and he replied here. site is not for sale - i'm just looking for suggestions for improvement.

[dolansco]

He is advising ,,,, or giving his opinion on "Gawnd" 's site ..

as it seems he was asked to do so ..

------------EDIT------------------
answer posted above at same time as I was posting ...

[BonkersTwo]

Hopefully everyone will critique my critique

This can be a learning tool for everyone.

My reason behind the Forum comments is most people NEVER post on forums, the just love to read active forums, go figure, so you have to have some people post quality questions and MUST have quality answers.

This creates stickiness, which creates VALUE to advertisers.

FROM THE website sample I gave:
Nate Whitehill dot Com has been online since January 2007 and has seen experienced exponential growth over the past few months. The blog is updated 5-6x per week with over 300 comments per month.

The bad thing about NATE's website it is a low demand area. Not a high demand area. TechCrunch.com is the leading website review company now, so he commands huge fee's. I do think Home Building can get 4 or 5 sponsors at 2k each.

Nate also does NOT use TextLinkAds or other professional services, which I believe hurts him at this stage.

If Nate had a automated system which advertisers could do a IMPULSE signup and try the website for 30 days for $100 why wouldn't they? Heck they only lose $100, BUT Nate wants you to email him and discuss crap. This is the internet baby, now is the time, not in the next hour. Plus who wants to hear a salesman pitch there service.

After looking for a minute, I found this:
If you’re interested in purchasing a banner ad or text link, please PayPal payment to nate@infinFX.com, along with anchor text and/or banner graphic.

Errr...Not a confidence builder, I guess that is why his pricing is 50% off currently

[gawnd]

does anyone have any script or service recommendations for selling ads direct to end users? i use TLA - even with rel=nofollow - no one seems to mind. but wish i didn't have to pay 50& commissions.

[BonkersTwo]

wow, i didn't know text link ads, takes 50%...wow

what does adbrite.com do?

[gariben]

openads