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Website Critique     
 
This question has been closed, and points have been awarded.
Ideas To Revamp Prdomain.com
Posted By: sdsondhi on 1/6/2005 7:16 AM (CST) 500 Points
Ok..so it's myturn to be the lamb to the slaughter.
My company is planning on revamping one of our websites at the URL: www.prdomain.com

The site presently is a press release showcase.

The new site design proposed is just a face-lift and I was wondering as to whether we could expand our visitor caterage and also the data to be displayd for each company.

We are presently based in India and thus the site caters to the Indian companies as such.

The present layout is a BIG yawn so suggestions for those will be considered solidly.

I look forward to some really creative,insightful and expansive suggestions seeing the massive copyrighter base on this web-site.
Regards,
SDSondhi

Posted by: Colleen Sharen* Accepted Answer
1/6/2005 9:27 AM (CST)
Congrats on posting your first question.

I took a look at your site, and the first thing that struck me was that I couldn't figure out what the site was for. So I couldn't figure out if it was useful to me.

So, here are a couple of thoughts

1) Is your objective of your redesign to increase frequency or to get new traffic to your site? If new traffic is your objective, you are going to need to get some additional information about the purpose of your site on the homepage.

2) To whom is the site targeted? Journalists, researchers, business people? Once you know that, you can figure out how the site needs to be positioned.

3) Who is paying (those posting the press releases?) What are their needs?

4) What is the problem that the site solves for your user? I need to acknowledge the problem in my head (as in "yes, that's my problem"), before I can go on to the next step of investigating the solution.

5) As a first time visitor, I found the home page a bit overwhelming. You've got great resources there, but maybe they could be split up a bit, rather than jammed into one page.

The home page was so overwhelming, that my initial response was to just leave the home page. I might not be typical, so you might want to check your stats to see how many users give up after the first page -- that might give you an indication that the home page is too much.

6) As an information portal, more information is better than less info, so adding background info about specific companies is a good idea. The caution here is doing it in a way that doesn't create more overload. You may want to consider restructuring your navigation in order to accomplish that.

You might want to consider adding the additional information as a premium "subscriber" service for a nominal price. Most researchers, businesses and journalists would pay a reasonable sum for consistent, high quality information that is easily accessed.

Hope this helps
Colleen
 
Posted by: David_Nelson* Accepted Answer
1/6/2005 3:11 PM (CST)
To be honest the site you have appears to have completely outgrown the design. A good time to redevelop. Here are some quick thoughts:

1. The welcome page needs to say what your site does, the benefits that are delivered to your customers from this site...

2. Navigatgion of your site could be drastically improved and this needs to be looked at carefully. If I click on a link I am taken to a page where all the navigation is removed other than a Home button...

3. The About Us Section contains other links to Contact Us, Our Team and Press Clippings - all of these should be a part of a primary navigatgion menu.

A professional designer would be the best starting point. If you have a low budget then I would recommend that you contact www.c-dimension.net who provide expert services at off shore costs.
 
Posted by: sdsondhi Author Response
1/7/2005 3:25 AM (CST)
My eyes are opening!
Thank you very much for the very valuable pearls of wisdom that you have offered.
Thank you david for pointing out that the site has outgrown its design. In fact our entire purpose for redesigning is tha fact that with the content pouring in the site's pages have acquired an unwieldy look n feel and that has to be addressed.
I think the very unwieldy nature of the content is what may have seemed overwhelming to Coleen. I think the layout is too texty as of now. A little beefing up of the layout and a little excitement in decor is also a consideration but the problem is that the context is very textual so we were looking at approaching companies for ad portfolio-rising but let'ssee how that goes.
Regarding the problem of niche visitor addressing. The problem is that we are addressing anybody looking for corporate information.
Like journalists, prospective business associates for clients, prospective employees( thus a list of press relaeases must be made available for each company), investors.
There is a problem due to this myriad of visitors being addressed. As a result, the website design has been made very generic. That has got to go but how?
SDSondhi
 
Posted by: sammykarij Accepted Answer
1/19/2005 7:03 AM (CST)
How do you let go the generic nature of the site ? Your product is corporate information. Why do you think people would prefer coming to this site other than any other?

These may look like difficult questions but they are the most basic to help you make various decisions regarding the information classification and navigation. The information classification should be aimed at the target users e.g how would journalists look for information ?

The various navigation links need to be placed at the same place probably at the top of the pages. Remember people spend more times on other websites before they come to yours and that is where they learn how to browse a site. See how your design compare to highly visited sites.

Your site need to collect emails at least to allow them recieve updates on what is new on the site.

Please demonstrate value of the site rather than talk about it. Let the users experience it and talk about it.

The traffic of the site is somehow low. According to Alexa ranking your site is ranked 385000 in terms of traffic. Come up with ways of generating more traffic.

Since yours is a content site and you talked of not getting enough cash from the site consider other monetization models other than adverts. Some could be obvious such as google adsense.

Regards,
Samuel
 
Posted by: sdsondhi Author Response
1/20/2005 2:28 AM (CST)
Thank god there are people who answer these queries at times..

what's the matter??
i don't know but after nearly a week i have gotten a response..
A trifle dismal but i can understand that there are more points to be made elsewhere..

anyway,
Thanks Samuel for your advice but it's very arbitrary in nature.
If you could point a few issues that are must-address it would be a BIG help.

I think this question will be closed pretty soon.
Do hoep people come here before that to have a look at it.
need more people, my superiors need more!!

S D Sondhi
 
Posted by: telemoxie Member Response
2/5/2005 10:09 AM (CST)
I'm not a web site developer, but I'll be happy to give my impressions...

I just visited the site, and literally jumped back when the site came on the screen. The overwhelming number of PR articles listed as well as the harsh red arrows seemed like just too much. The site doesn't invite me in, it pushes me away...

The type is too small for my old eyes. And I would prefer some sort of headline which describes what you do...
 
Posted by: Sanjeev Kumar Vyas Accepted Answer
2/7/2005 1:49 AM (CST)
Hi SD,
Just noticed your question on Going Going Gone section. Don't know how I missed it earlier.
If you want to keep your question open for a bit longer contact the moderator.
Ok below are my comments.
1. On the home page make it clear as to what is the purpose of the site.
2. use a consistent desing for all the webpages. User should not feel lost or feel he is in another website after opening a page. All the pages should have the same look and feel.
3. Who are hamner & Partner and what are they doing on your home page?
4. You also have some job posting on your sites? this makes it confusing as to what is the purpose of the web.
5. Why do you need goggle search bar on your site?
6. Press releases on Feb are posted but the heading is still Jan 2005.
7. Let press releases be under another heading inside. just post the day's releases.
8. Are your columnist famous enough for people to look for their writings? If yes then it is ok to have all the names inthe home page or else make a seperate page for them.
9. There is money in it " part looks like an ad but not sure what that is as some other website opens and does not seem to have any link.
Thats all for now.
You can contact me offline if you would like to discuss more.
Regards
Sanjeev
 
Posted by: thinkmor Accepted Answer
2/9/2005 10:24 AM (CST)
Hi SD

Before you do anything please visit the following websites for pointers:

http://www.prweb.com

http://www.prnewswire.com

They hold and organize a massive amount of data.

Your main conflicts, as it appears to me, is the harsh contrasts of some of your block information and titles for sections you have used - the red arrows do not help either.

Re-design the structure of the site so you e.g. have the top horizontal space (max depth 70-80 pixels) for your main navigation (as Colleen & David pointed out) the left vertical column bar for your services, resources, pr and media speak.

Clear the central and right portion to facilitate the PR articles.

You need the space so people can digest the information. Red is not a good colour to use a highlight (in Western Countries) as it appears jarring to visitors, it may not in India if this a country specific site.

I would move all of the alphabet stuff to another page entirely and include the link in the left hand column-e.g Search A-Z companies

Be careful to standardise and specify font sizes in the most common displays in your region.

Remove the Google search unless it is vital to your users.

Remove the graphic on the top right (what was that for?), the text to do with the "Division..." and move it (preferably at the bottom of the page) somewhere it does not conflict with the name and tagline. What is "The Direct Source" is this your tagline? if it is convert to a jpg and alt text it. What is "the place for business information" is this another tagline?

The place where you currently have "the place for business information" is wasted and you can better optimize this space if you need to include additional links.

Hope this helps.

Zahid Adil

P.S. Your PRdomain graphic does not link back to your homepage. This is pretty much standard and given as the norm in most sites nowadays.
 
Posted by: Val (Moderator)* Moderator Response
2/14/2005 12:28 AM (CST)
Hello all. I am closing this question, since its more than two weeks old. We do this to make sure members' contributions are rewarded in a timely manner and to improve the visibility of newer questions.

Thanks, so much, for participating!
Val (Moderator)
 


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