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Web Dev Review

by waloosh
8 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
    • |
Hey guys, I haven't really posted in a long time. The last time I was on here, I was still just barely coming up with an idea as to what I should make my site about... Well, I finally found it and hoping it kicks off fast. It's a Web Development + Internet Marketing site.

It's mostly going to be a place for IMers to find free designs, concepts, ideas, etc for their niche / marketing sites.

Right now, it's dead and empty -- only because I finally got to a point where I feel comfortable advertising and showing it off. I've been working very hard on it, it's almost been a year now, I've gone through multiple hosting servers for various reasons. Lots of transfers, lots of edits, lots of ups, and lots of downs, but I've finally gotten to a solid state.

Through trial, error, and everything else, I present my Web Development site, Waloosh.com

Please tell me what you think about the design, functionality, navigation, and features. I'm really anxious to hear everything!

I'm going to be replacing the navigation soon with an easier one. It's easy now, but I'm hoping to format it just a little better so it's even easier to do whatever.
#dev #review #site #web
  • Profile picture of the author waloosh
    Just a small bump.. as SOON as I posted, I was thrown down to mid-page =(
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    • Profile picture of the author Karen Blundell
      first things first:

      take off the donation goal! Let people donate if they want to but they don't need to know what your goal is...some people might take offence to it...I learned the hard way, people don't need to know about your money...People are funny when it comes to money. The less they know about how much you're making, the better.

      2nd observation: you said you've been working on this site for a year? Where's the content? I clicked on the Tutorials to see how you did them...but found...nothing.

      As for the features, functionality, etc...for a VBulletin forum script mod, you've done a nice job...

      So get some content up and advertise, advertise, advertise so that you can get a booming community.

      Good luck with it!
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      • Profile picture of the author waloosh
        Originally Posted by Karen Blundell View Post

        first things first:

        take off the donation goal! Let people donate if they want to but they don't need to know what your goal is...some people might take offence to it...I learned the hard way, people don't need to know about your money...People are funny when it comes to money. The less they know about how much you're making, the better.

        2nd observation: you said you've been working on this site for a year? Where's the content? I clicked on the Tutorials to see how you did them...but found...nothing.

        As for the features, functionality, etc...for a VBulletin forum script mod, you've done a nice job...

        So get some content up and advertise, advertise, advertise so that you can get a booming community.

        Good luck with it!
        I have been working on it for a year, but only the functionality, design, small details, usergroups, rules, and other stuff like that. I've been waiting to get the script for my tutorials for a long time and I JUST got the script a few days ago, so that still needs a lot.

        No content because I have no users and I've been too busy working on the finer details, functionality, etc like I said before.

        Thanks for the help and looking for some more ^^ You also probably saw the tutorials when I was working on them. All I had was one tutorial and a bunch of categories, I just added a new tutorial and will start bringing more and more soon. Just need to make some time, been busy.

        Also, the reason I have the donations is because it's for server upgrades, which is actually very important to me right now, but I could take it off, I guess.
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  • Profile picture of the author waloosh
    Was hoping to get some more reviews from more people =)
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  • Profile picture of the author theIMgeek
    Hi Waloosh,

    I come from a web dev background as well, so I can understand the reasoning, but here's my advice... STOP WASTING YOUR TIME!

    No content because I have no users and I've been too busy working on the finer details, functionality, etc like I said before.
    You've probably noticed that a lot of successful, profitable websites are both UGLY and POORLY CODED (sometimes half-broken). As a web designer it breaks my heart, but over time the lesson has sunk in... that stuff doesn't matter right now.

    You can easily spend another year tinkering on module integration, upgrades, and tweaks and still be at the same spot as you are now... ground level.

    The CONTENT and USERS are the only thing you should be concerning yourself with right now. The design looks better than many solid communities, so stop fussing and get to the real work.

    Perhaps you've been avoiding it because it's outside your comfort zone and skill set. You either have to learn it fast, or find somebody to do it for you. (a mutual JV would let you stick to the programming and let another expert handle marketing)

    Here's the thing... until you site starts moving, with real users, and real content, you wo't kow for sure if it works. If it doesn't work, all this effort will be for nothing... so it's in your best interest to launch FAST and put it to the test.

    Fix things only after they are found to be broken. Programmers often try to fix problems that have not (and perhaps will never) come to be.

    Just launch it.

    -Ryan

    P.S. My only comment on the site itself is that the front page has nothing to grab my attention and get me to sign up. Answer the question: What is this site about and why should I get involved right now?
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    • Profile picture of the author Karen Blundell
      Waloosh...I didn't say remove the donation button...I said remove the words "My goal is to raise $200 a month" or something to that effect.

      RJP is right! You've been tinkering for a year and you still have no users and no content...
      stop making excuses and get your community going already...
      don't mean to sound mean but I speaking from experience here...

      as you get users, your users will tell you what stuff needs to be tweaked...for now, it's just fine...

      just do it!
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  • Profile picture of the author waloosh
    I accept the criticism and don't take any offense, this is helping me in the long run. =D

    However, I do know that most of it works as I've tested over and over, and had some friends test as well.

    The donation thing.. That specific box I had on there was part of a mod, I couldn't take off the goal without removing the entire box. The link is still up there in bright yellow, lol.

    I'm done with excuses really, I'm just having a hard time getting the users, lol.

    Also, thanks for mentioning the front page.. I was actually working on that last night, but I got too tired, lost my creativity from being too tired... eventually fell asleep. I will work on that ASAP though!

    Thanks everybody. If anybody else wants to review it, that'd be nice too
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  • Profile picture of the author jficarro
    Just wanted to call Waloosh out (he's a great guy). But, you didn't take the very good advise you were given here..... It's June and you are still tweeken that site. hahahaha.

    It's a freeken Great SITE!!!!!! start promoting it. It already rocks, you just need members and some more content.
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  • Profile picture of the author waloosh
    Only because I didn't work on my site for a long period of time, then upgraded to a new version of the forum software, needed to make a layout for that because default is boring.

    After a few weeks of stress and irritation to new coding and incompatible mods / coding, I went back to my original site. However, amidst everything I backed up on it, I was stupid enough to not make a "new" backup before starting over, therefore losing all of my hard work with the previous layout.

    Right now, the layout is back to normal, a lot of my images are back, and the only "tweaks" I've been making are for functionality. If I didn't go back for functionality testing, I wouldn't have known that my new Usergroups couldn't view my website because permission isn't automatically given and I have to go through and get it manually.

    As for the other tweaking, I was reinstalling my most needed mods including a feedback system and then I had to manually edit the coding so everything can work properly. I haven't done nearly half the tweaking as I did before. Now it's just trying to catch back up to everything I missed before.
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