SITE REVIEW: jobbala.com -- Job Ratings Site

I looking for a review of my site http://jobbala.com.

I was going for an organic kind of feel. Some of my friends have said that it is too cluttered. Others have said that the information was great.

Initially I was going for the Craigslist idea of putting a lot on the first page.

I am also having trouble getting people to add ratings for their jobs. I would love any input on increasing conversion rates here.

Thanks in advance.

What is the most important thing on the site? If someone came to the site and gave it one look what would you want them to notice and see above all else? Now if you go to your site is that thing instantly what you notice?

The first thing that I want people to see is that we have job reviews. This is why I have the top and bottom five companies listed on the main page along with recent reviews.

The problem is that if I don't have reviews to show if I don't also encourage people to give reviews.

I thought about making the center column larger, and placing the search box in the center of the page. At this point I would do away with the headings Rate My Job and Find Job Reviews and have one that respresented both. I am not sure if that wouild be better from a user standpoint and get me more conversions.

It seems like you gave yourself your own review. There seems to be ALOT of info on the main page, but of course I'm not a very good critic yet. Overall it doesn't look too bad.

Hi,

Site is looking fine and as i noticed that in starting a popup open with message that we will give you $200.00, according to me its good way to attract visitors attention.

By me you site is good one by designing and contents arrangement too.

Thanks

Here is one which does the similar job's scope, i.e. to target on customers' services on Jobs. You may want to take a look here. Their color is quite good. Maybe, yours could be customized with brighter colors like 'White, Yellow' etc.?

That site really isn't similar to mine in scope. It is related more to an Angie's list type of site. Mine is for people to rate their employer.




The colors on the site you showed me are bright, but seem to be overbearing. Do you think that brighter colors would make a huge difference? Originally I went with the colors because I was going more for the grass roots look.

Originally, you have chosen the better colors I think. When it comes to Jobs - rating, We want to feel optimistic. People usually want to stick around with optimists, theoretically. Besides, your current colors are not bad, I am just pointing out that it could be better when it is brighter. Maybe you should stick with your initial intuition? (grass roots sound nice to me)..Maybe Green and White?..

Did you know at first I saw your domain name, I thought you were from India. Because 'Bala' is a common Indian name.

I like your idea of a 3 column but I think it would help guide the eye better if you made 1 column the main column and the other 2 sub columns. So put everything that is most important in that main column and then everything else make it feel less important.

Check out the latest that I've done on this testing page http://jobbala.com/index2.py I think that it accomplishes the two issues That were talked about here.

1. Having a main point of focus for the visitor.
2. Making the page brighter and more optimistic.

There are some issues that I still need to work on with the wall of fame & shame.

Let me know what you think.




That is interesting. I never thought of that. I hope that does not have a negative impact on my site.

Thanks for all of your help.

The def focus is the "Rate My Job / Find Job Reviews" Box. Could you make the sub groups under the search bar into links? Also does the search look at both the jobs and the job reviews?

I thought about making the groups underneath into links afterword and I am going to do that.

The search bar does do both reviews and ratings. There is an option one someone searches for something. On the initial page if they do not choose one, it defaults to the rate page. Part of encouraging job ratings.

I am thinking that it may need some color around the search box. I may also bring the logo down so that it is just above the search box. I will play with it and see how it looks.

Thanks for the input.

Font to big

Too Many Google ads

Pick one Google ads to have then have ads from other
Ad networks like CJ or Linkshare.


The alignment on FireFox is not equal. Left side is to far to the right. Right side is pushed to the very edge. Need to move it over to the left a little bit.





Might need a more Professional Work type template

Try

http://www.freecsstemplates.org/

or do a web search for

"Free CSS Website Templates"



I see you have 371 Inlinks thats very good

http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/se ... =sfp&bwm=i


The Header needs to be more Professional.

The writing underneath the site title is hard to read.


Like the font and size of

http://jobbala.com/about.py

Make all your pages that font and size.

Concept is very good. I like your plans for your website.

I am sending you an email with the snap shot that I see on my end.

Hope this helps

When the site opens I can't see the structure or hirarchy, what is the main content area? Where can I dig deeper/navigate.

There are too many signals, too many different sized fonts for example. I would make it more uniform and try to create more structure. Show what is the focus on front page, what are the invitations to stuff deeper, etc.

Otherwise I have a feeling there is a lot of interesting information on the site (and front page), only try to add some structure to it and make it more uniform / serrious looking.

I have made a couple more changes to the my development page which can be found at http://jobbala.com/index2.py

If you would like to compare to my main page, you can find that at http://jobbala.com

The key changes are:
1. I moved the logo from the header to above the search box (similar to a google's main page). It will only be this way for the main landing page. Subsequent pages will keep the other format, except the logo.

2. The new logo is a draft I just had done. When finalized, this will go on all pages. Let me know your thoughts.

3. Changed some of the fonts in the main section, but not all.

4. The groups underneath the search are now linked to their respective pages.

Overall I believe this gives more focus to the main function of the site which is to find and give job reviews. One question I have is should I tell people they can start giving a job review by searching or do you think it is implied enough when they start using the site?



I believe that much of this is addressed in the new page layout. Please take a look at it and see what you think. You can find it at http://jobbala.com/index2.py



Overall I would say that it is not my intent to go with a completely polished site if that is what you mean by more serious looking. I intend to make it somewhat light and the text conversational. As far as uniformity, I believe the groupings using the boxes provide this. Please let me know if there is something else you meant by this.



This is addressed with the new layout. See http://jobbala.com/index2.py



I somewhat agree. At this point I am focusing on driving more traffic to the site. At the point that there is more traffic I will focus more on the advertising. Are you saying that the Google ads detract for the site or just that I should diversify my advertising? If you could explain your reasons this would help.


This is fixed now. I think you will like it better. Any screen resolution less than 1024 may have the same problem though.



Not sure I agree here. The design was intended to be lighter and not so polished like a professional business site might be. I agree about the header. The logo was something I created and I am not the best at logo design. I think this is the biggest contributor to the unprofessional look. Take a look at the new logo and let me know what you think.



Thank you for the email.

I think the new layout and logo address most of this. As far as the definition in the logo which was hard to read, I think that I am either going to do away with this or add it somewhere else in the site like the FAQ.


Many thanks to all of you for the great input.