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Thread: Guitar Reviews site

  1. #1
    Registered Hylo's Avatar
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    Guitar Reviews site

    Can some of you please take a look over my guitar news and reviews site and offer any advice on how it's coming along?

    Guitar-Reviews.net

    I've changed the look of it over weekend and started doing more news and reviews over the last couple of days but just want to make sure folk think I'm on the right lines.
    Last edited by Hylo; 02-27-2006 at 12:40 PM.

    For every chemical you trade a piece of your soul

  2. #2
    Website Developer
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    Looks good to me, how is it doing for traffic?
    Make more money - Read my Web Publishing Blog

  3. #3
    Registered Ben's Avatar
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    Yeah I would like to know because I have a music forum that I would like to affiliate with guitar reviews

  4. #4
    Registered Hylo's Avatar
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    Cutter - I haven't updated it much since I originally put it online about November time because I've been busy with other things but it's ticking along at about 15 visitors a day with no promotion and no new content. Trebled that yesterday after doing some reviews and some new releases news (and posting this here) so there's a small base to work from. Mostly MSN traffic.

    Ben - give me a couple of months and see where my roadmap with the site leads to and if the traffic picks up. I've got some plans in that area myself
    Last edited by Hylo; 02-28-2006 at 02:42 AM. Reason: Spelling mistake

    For every chemical you trade a piece of your soul

  5. #5
    I'm the oogie boogie man! James's Avatar
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    The Marshal Amp design is very neat.

    Maybe try a little less brown of an orange?

  6. #6
    Registered Hylo's Avatar
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    I had a very basic variation on the Black Letterhead Wordpress theme on the site until the weekend when I got the brainwave for the Marshall stack. I'm not graphical in any way but I'm rather pleased with how it turned out.

    Not sure about the shade of orange myself so I might do some playing around with that.

    Also need to get my finger out and get about 500 more reviews now...

    For every chemical you trade a piece of your soul

  7. #7
    Is Still Alive! Johnny Gulag's Avatar
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    Hello

    Here is my 2 cents for what it is worth.

    I like it overall! It looks great. The Marshall amp theme is an awsome idea.

    Now for the few and I mean few, maybe even petty things.

    I would add a bit more left margin on the content and reduce the top margin.

    I would move the right column to the left a little to get the right column content off the image/amp border, and just make it look more uniform.

    You could replace the site title with text and use CSS to place the header image there. Or use the same image just replace actual text with an image. http://www.pmob.co.uk/temp/headerreplacement3.htm

    There are some validation errors that could be fixed. I mean it is no major deal but you might as well. Most of them seem to be with the RSS trackback code added below each post:
    Code:
    <!--
    <?php trackback_rdf(); ?>
    -->
    They seem to be missing the:
    Code:
    <!-- -- >
    Pretty simple to fix.

    The other error is the header <img /> tag missing it's closing slash /

    There may be more errors and warnings HTML Tidy stopped counting, so I am unsure. Fix the RSS deal and most will go away than we can see the rest.

    As far as link color, maybe something a bit lighter than the orange maybe: #D0AB5D (copied from the amp head wood grain)

    Though, like I say that could just be my tastes and pickiness.

    Thats pretty much it, like I say it looks great. Good job!!!

    Hope my advice proves fruitfull.
    Last edited by Johnny Gulag; 03-01-2006 at 05:14 AM.

  8. #8
    The Beave Doug's Avatar
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    I like it, it will be a good site when you get more content. A lot of interesting stuff there though.
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  9. #9
    Registered Ben's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hylo
    Ben - give me a couple of months and see where my roadmap with the site leads to and if the traffic picks up. I've got some plans in that area myself
    Smooth, well keep me updated so that I know when you are available

  10. #10
    Business Owner Excite's Avatar
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    I am really picking on it, but from a design pserspective there are two things I saw right away. Granted, I look for things like this in my work, but you should be aware of it.

    There is a fine yellow line that runs down the right side of the entire page.

    Your graphic ads are also bleeding into the background "frame" of the site.

    Also most of the images starting at "Michael Kelly Ships The Valor Custom Electric Guitar" have the text dead set against the side of the photo. Moving this away would give the text more breathing room and make it easier for your readers to focus on the text and the images as individual elements on the page.

    The use of the amp photo as a page structure is very clever, and obviously ties in with the branding of the website. Nice work on that.

    Hope that helps.
    Last edited by Excite; 03-10-2006 at 02:27 PM.

  11. #11
    Registered Hylo's Avatar
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    Pick away at it guys, I didn't put the link up here to get any backslaps, I'd far rather get some constructive criticism and other people's opinions, for good and bad.

    All the advice above is much appreciated especially the design based stuff as being a developer rather than a designer it's something I'm not at the top of my game on.

    Thanks again everyone.

    For every chemical you trade a piece of your soul

  12. #12
    Junior Registered
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    What a great idea, I liked the site a lot. It looks good, and is fresh.

  13. #13
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    I am also a big fan - love the stack idea, although I do think Jim Marshall's heirs may be a tad upset about his signature in the header - might be an idea to change that, perhaps using a similar font to deliver a message in its place.

    I think the images need a little more space around them, and that they could do with a little blending to achieve a more fluid look.

    Overall though, pretty great effort

  14. #14
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    After another quick look, I would also reduce the number of entries displayed by default.

    You could actually make the site amazing if you made use of the "on" button on the Marshall, and a little clever JS (degrading gracefully obviously). Take an image of the button when lit, and make that area into a link which actually displays content the page content (other than the header). Obviously the button displays as lit when the site is on, and unlit when the site is "off".

    Utterly pointess, theoretically a usability obstacle, but I think that anyone interested in the site would be familiar enough with amps to get the picture without any prompting, although you could add it.

    Very cool though, and would make people remember the site.

  15. #15
    Is Still Alive! Johnny Gulag's Avatar
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    Hey

    Looking really nice!!! Great Job!!!

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