- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
I’m excited about joining this forum, my site is only a week old and my marketing is producing a lot of hits, but not many sign-ups. I was hoping I could get some sage advice about what’s wrong with my site, and if there are any sections that are not user friendly, or if the layout is clunky to determine if the problem is bunk hits or site related. Thank you in advance for any constructive critisism you can provide! The webmaster section is password protected Username: Joeuser Password: password.
http://www.freemoneyandgambling.com
Warm Regards,
W. Allen Wallace
[email protected]
:withstupiI first noticed when I tried your site that it took a while to load.. 30 seconds on a 1MB connection. So I checked stats on a webanalyzer and it showed:
Connection Rate Download Time
14.4K 320.79 seconds
28.8K 160.39 seconds
33.6K 137.48 seconds
56K 82.49 seconds
ISDN 128K 25.26 seconds
T1 1.44Mbps 2.19 secondsPretty high. I would consider optimizing your graphics.
Otherwise I would add a little more content and a few less banners.
Possibly some Casino Reviews….
Something to draw in the web surfer. They might click on a banner, but it is less likely if that is all they can find on the site.
kw
Otherwise, nice start.
I like the look and feel of the site, but I agree with kwblue, way too long to load. I’m on dial-up and if I hadn’t wanted to look at it for you I would never have let it finish loading.
HI there
I just had a look and here’s some constructive criticism / advice:
The homepage is waaaaay too heavy. I’m on broadband and had to wait a while…i thought there was something wrong!
The main culprit is the web address image which appears to be on ‘fire’…it is 121k in size. Unless this is an absolute necessity to the site (which is probably not) i say get rid of it. If anything your web address should be at the top where users have a greater chance of remembering it.
Next thing is that there are a lot of banners. If each one is 10k on average then you have an extra 100k on your homepage. Besides, it’s not good to have too many becuase a lot of users have Norton Antivirus which blocks them, so you’d be better off having a little write up about each one. Besides too many flashy graphics distract and confuse the user
Remember people on the internet behave differently to real life. By this I mean that we are extremely impatient. if a user doesn’t see anything in the first few seconds likelihood is they will click the close button and never return.
Cures:
1. Try optimising your graphics, there are some good cheap packages out there which will do the job for you. Paint Shop pro i think does a good job, might even be free these days. You could also get your hands on more professional software like Fireworks which will reduce the size of the graphics dramatically.2. Replace excess imagery with text. This will also help you on search engines.
3. When designing always do so for the layman and put yourself in their shoes.
Take my advice, I’ve been designing websites for a living for many years. It will pay off in the short and long term.
Good luck and if you want any more info or help don’t hesitate to contact me
Great Feedback so far. I’ve added a casino review section, and am working on the “academy” to add some non-banner related material. I’m also working on taking some of the banners off of the inex.html page and moving them to other locations to speed up initial load. I’m using net mechanic to optimize graphics, it’s kind of clunky and distorts the image terribly, does anyone know a better way to decrease file size of the graphics without making it look like a kindergarten art project?
One big thing that I didn’t even think of, I had black background in my .gif logo at the top of the page, which is obviously unnecessary due to the entire page being black…it’s amazing how much little things can really speed up loading! Thanks for the tips, you’ve both been really helpful. It’s hard to tell about page loading speed for me because I’m running cable, and the page loads within 2-3 seconds.
W. Allen Wallace
freemoneyandgambling.comI use Macromedia Fireworks to edit and optimize all my graphics. I use:
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/index.html
To analyze the web site to see if it loads quickly.
Also, it appears that your menu structure (such as the Academy) are at the bottom. I think they should be more accessible (at the top or on either side) so that users can quickly get to where they want to go.
kw
I’ve taken 95% of your advice, and I think my site is much, much better now. here are the latest load figures:
Connection Rate Download Time
14.4K 110.91 seconds
28.8K 55.45 seconds
33.6K 47.53 seconds
56K 28.52 seconds
ISDN 128K 8.73 seconds
T1 1.44Mbps 0.76 secondsI’m still not at 8 seconds on a 56K, but I’m getting much closer. I still haven’t had time to optimize the graphics, so that should help. But I think that for the couple hours I worked on it today, with all of your helpful suggestions, I’ve made great improvements.
Thanks again.
W. Allen Wallace
http://www.freemoneyandgambling.comGreat improvements. Well done
Glad you’ve taken a lot of it on board.Awesome! Great changes so far…
The graphic optimization will definitely improve your load time. Depending on the amount of graphical objects, it can improve by a ton.
I have a website which I took from about 70 second load time to under 1 second off of graphic optimization. (Of course, all graphics were not optimized initially which made the load time looooooonnnnnnggg). I had about 20 graphic objects at the time as I remember.
Just my 2 cents, but I think the user experience could be greatly improved. The design is not very sophisticated and the content on the page leaves the user wondering why they are at the site. These days, for a user to trust your site, it takes strong content and decent packaging. Content is key though, so my advice would be to try and find something different to say about the casinos you are listing.
On a side note, optimizing the graphics is a very simple task, if you have any time at all, that shouldn’t take you much. A 40k download is the industry standard these days.
Thanks for the honest evaluation webber. You’re right, the site is not very sophisticated compared to yours. I’m slowly adding content as I can find it. As you can tell the sit is brand new, and instead of waiting two months to get it to perfection I opened it right away and am building as I go; unfortunately, the site is more of a “hobby” than a day job; but I will continue to improve it.
Glad to provide some constructive criticism. Been designing and developing web sites since 1995, so I have a different perspective than most. In any case, worry the most about your site’s content, that’s what works the best for any site. Good luck.
:Pisser: I didn’t quite hit it yet, but this is big difference.
Connection Rate Download Time
14.4K 36.47 seconds
28.8K 18.23 seconds
33.6K 15.63 seconds
56K 9.38 seconds
ISDN 128K 2.87 seconds
T1 1.44Mbps 0.25 seconds :chearleadI think you should have a light background with black text. Your logo looks really bad, it would probably be better with only a Header text instead. I think it wouldn’t be a big loss if you just removed the pages that only contained a lot of banners, text links with a little info on every Bingo room would probably be better. You should make every page contain a menu with the most important links, also it would be good if most pages had a similar layout. Still, it is not easy to get all things right in the beginning, it takes time. Good luck!
