SITE REVIEW: OpenPost.NET

I'm looking for helpful reviews and suggestions for improving my entertainment and discussion community. It's a fairly new site that's been open for about 4 months or so now. Specificly, how can I improve on what I already have? What are some ways I can make it easier to navigate and more user friendly? Site content or board topic ideas? Other feature ideas?

Please help me with ideas for the site's direction too
I'm not sure how to get the community really moving and would love to hear a visitor's view of things. Like, what would make you want to join the community?

Thanks in advance

http://www.openpost.net/

It's a cool name for a site! When I go to the page, I can't tell what it's about. There should be a short description of what your site is right on the main page. The FAQ would also be a good spot, but when I go there, there's nothing like "what's this site about?"

The colour scheme is quite good... but there are a lot of affiliate/links/small banners. ...probably about 25 small banners. That's quite a few... they detract from your page with there being so many of them... ...

As for 'what would make you want to join the community', you should ask yourself that, and then tell us WHY we'd want to join your site as opposed to the thousands of other community sites out there.

Nice job with the domain; two-word phrases are becoming increasingly common. Like the layout and attach files features; noticeable improvements over a standard phpBB board. Interested to know, did you code yourself or buy a lisence because its well done, indeed. Good idea to put large top links to popular categories, making it much easier to find them. My only suggestion is to limit the number of buttons in the Vote for Us section as it clutters that space. Good job and good luck!

the site is very easy to understand, well done

Brilliant site, probably one of the best up for review, i like it alot, its pretty clear and esy to read and understand, good job!!!

Looks good.

I'd look into speeding it up however. I noticed quite a slow load.

Little things like this jpg;

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v102/ ... button.jpg

is around 20K. just for that small pic.

Total page loads for 56K 49.35 seconds and the goal should be subeight unless you're strictly catering to broadband customers.

If you want to speed it up here's a wonderful tool;

http://websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

Like the site.

All coded and designed by myself, starting with a blank copy of phpBB :)

I fixed the Vote For Us so that you open a new window to view all of them. I also tried to minimize all of the image sizes and the page seems to be a bit faster now. That's a very helpful tool misterbling :)

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

More reviews?

I like the overall design, especially your color scheme. As far as making the site better, my first thought when I landed on your page was: Why should I post here? I've got any number of other places to post... I'd be sure to let people know what kinds of people use your site, what kind of community it is, what you like to discuss, and so on.

Bob
bob@kindakarma.com
http://www.kindakarma.com

Thanks for the feed back. Keep it coming!

It's an excellent site. Since it has a lot of features already, I don't know of what else to add to your site without making it appear too busy. At this point, all you need is for more people to visit.

Thanks, any more suggestions?

first, you have a cool domain name

as I visited your site, it load quite slow, font quite small for a community, and hardly to recognize different areas because they have same background and border color

Great site.

Very easy on the eyes, nice layout. Nice original buttons as well.

Great domain, very memorable.

It did take a second or two to load with dial-up. Perhaps reduce the image sizes?

Nice site. Great icons at the top right corner!

I almost forgot. Very nice domain name!

Great domain name! Memorable.

The color scheme is great. The logo is bright and looks good. One thing I was thinking is a possible slogan. But first like you were saying, you want to tighten up the overall concept.

In my opinion, when I think of and hear the name open post, it definitely doesn't make me think of entertainment. Open Post to me implies a place where people gather and post their thoughts and opinions about anything. It's open to everyone.

Who knows. I'm just rambling. Anyway, it does look great. All the best.