Revamped my site, looking for feedback/ideas

[Vendikarr]

Years ago I came here and got advice on setting up my website http://scifiontv.com

This January I gave the site a needed facelift, added a wiki, blog and forums.

What I need most is ways to get people to look at my site, and participate on the forums. I think it's in poor taste to go to forums and self promote myself on their boards.

That is not what I am trying to do here (even if it feels like it a little) but I would appreciate any tips that can be provided to increase site traffic.

 

[Mr. B]

It looks like you have some good content going, but the presentation of that content could use a lot of work. Style-wise, I'll just say the site looks indistinguishable from one designed ten years ago and I would consider that to be undesirable... one last thought about style. Whatever it is, consistency throughout the website is important. It would be prudent to better match the wiki and forum sections with the style and layout of the rest of your website.

More importantly, I think the arrangement of content needs attention. As the homepage and blog portions of the site are so similar, I think they should be merged to the homepage without a separate "blog" section. That would fill out the homepage with a better appearance of a content-rich site. Were you to do that, it would be prudent to cut way down the number of embedded videos. You could also merge the "headlines" sidebar into this main stream of information to simplify your layout. I think two columns is sufficient for the amount of content you have.

I think you should lose the rotating quotation that tops the homepage or at least dramatically de-emphasize it (a la Slashdot). You have real content and that sort of canned stuff is unnecessary for your site.

The quotation also figures in to another issue with the homepage in that it's not clear where the eye should go when you first look at the homepage. The best, newest stuff should be clearly emphasized... partly by it's placement at the top.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Style-wise, I'll just say the site looks indistinguishable from one designed ten years ago...

This is true, with the exception of the predominant use of sans serif fonts which is a good thing - ten years ago it would have been the browser default serif font.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

You seem to have no listings for cartoons, e.g. Clone Wars, Young Justice.

Calling yourself The Home of Sci-Fi etc. is pretentious. When I visit a pretentious site that clearly is not what it claims, it gets crossed off my list more or less permanently. I'd scale back the implication of being the one and only.

 

[Vendikarr]

You seem to have no listings for cartoons, e.g. Clone Wars, Young Justice.

Calling yourself The Home of Sci-Fi etc. is pretentious. When I visit a pretentious site that clearly is not what it claims, it gets crossed off my list more or less permanently. I'd scale back the implication of being the one and only.

While trying to keep up with live action, I let updates for animated series slip. I have animated data as of the original launch date of the site in 2003. I just need to find a few good sources of animated series data.

You do have a point, and I will work to remedy that this weekend.

 

[Chris3123]

While being able to view current shows separate from historical ones is a good idea, it would also be nice to be able to view every show in a single list.

ETA: I tried to register on the forums, but it won't send me the conformation email. Also, there's no option for me to register as a user to edit the wiki. Have you just not set that up yet?

 

[Vendikarr]

While being able to view current shows separate from historical ones is a good idea, it would also be nice to be able to view every show in a single list.

ETA: I tried to register on the forums, but it won't send me the conformation email. Also, there's no option for me to register as a user to edit the wiki. Have you just not set that up yet?

I activated the forum membership myself. I am doing that to start with so I can keep a handle on spam memberships.

I thought I had the wiki registration turned on, I'll have to look into it.

As for the list, let me look into adding current to the search options for the historical list. It just won't be part of the default.

 

[reversepolarity]

Some site traffic tips:

Don't know if you've got Google Analytics or similar software installed but make it so if not, keeps a great check on the visitor numbers.
Speaking of visitor numbers a way to boost them might be to improve your page title, which currently reads "Sci-Fi On TV" - not very google keyword (KW) friendly - by which i mean a lot of people probably aren't typing that exact phrase in on Google and it isn't bringing your site up much or in a high result for more popular phrases (such as "sci-fi shows")because it isn't seen as relevant.
I haven't spent much time on your site but i'm sure there's something else to be had; for example if lots of your posts are about the X-Files then it might be wise to change your page title to something like the following:
"Sci-Fi On TV - X-files and more"
which will help capture an additional audience to the one you have now.
Or here's a gimmie;
"Sci-Fi On TV - the science fiction show review site"
this will help capture people googling for science fiction and not just sci-fi plus people looking for reviews of sci fi/science fiction shows.
Remember changes like these take time to register, so think it over carefully and once you've made the change be patient, it'll take weeks or months to really benefit.

You're doing well updating the site so often, maybe you could make the updates a little longer though, even if it meens they're a little less frequent. I always have tried to aim for a more substantial post to benefit Google (say 200 words), it's not always easy- but obviously don't wreck what you're trying to say.

The "comments (0)" thing is really depressing btw, people are like sheep, if they see no one else likes the site and it's a ghost town then they'll assume it's junk and hit the back button.

I think you could much improve the [confusing]wordpress theme too, i dont know much about this though so i'll leave it to someone else, though i'd say in terms of fucntion that simpler is better.

Hope it's helped a bit,
Mark.