SITE REVIEW: Raz-Sports.com Website

Please review my sports related website, http://www.raz-sports.com/ .
All feedback is welcomed. Thank you.

Regards,
RazSports

yeah not bad, you have spaced everyting out nicely so that it all fits, cant really say much about the colors but i mean they will do because, your site isnt about presenting is basicaly about giving information.

while the forum on the other hand looks alot better graphics wise, and is set out very nicey. when you get some users it will be a good site.

-sycofi5h

Raz, I noticed a couple things immediately upon visiting. First off, you only have part of your content span the width of the visitor's screen. You should add in a table of a fixed width if you don't want the introduction and header to span across. I recommend using a 750px wide table that is centered.

Second, I didn't really get what the site was about. I know this is a big jump, but look at the msn.com sport section. Try to learn from the format they have used there to target sports fans. It is much more organized and the titles and headings are much more prominant. A visitor knows what the page is about immediately upon viewing it.

Third, upon glimpsing at your code, I noticed you have this: Now, I will admit I have no clue WTF TTTTFF is supposed to be, but I would assume it is either older than me, or something very browser specific. You should always define colors with hexdecimal or RGB. Also, you don't need the font tag anyways, just use CSS. You can learn CSS here: W3Schools.com.

Another interesting code tweak you have is this: I don't know what the degrees symbol is for, but I do know that you shouldn't be setting the size of an element to -1! You should really read up on CSS and learn how to do this without ugly HTML like that!

Not a bad site at all. But I have to say, with all the links and random placement of things, its hard to navigate through the index. There's a lot you can improve. Lets start with that little blurb at the top, did you know this? and did you know that? Dont question the users intelligence, re-word your sentences into statements, not questions. "Finding unusual info about sports is hard. Here at Raz-Sports, we carry unique content etc etc...". I found it almost offensive the way you phrased those questions. like you were questioning my intelligence! In the same part, you have a link to your search engine, when I click on it, your sports navigation menu disappears, include it on all pages.

Below that, in the coming soon section. Do those links have a general topic? You just throw those links out there and expect us to know what we're in for. Clicking on them, I'm guessing the links are about Rumors. Put that in there!! You just have a link to Sports Rumors, is that supposed to be the title? Make sure each section of links is defined, so I know what I'm looking at and why. You also have a link to review more pages on raz-sports.com, which is YOUR OWN site, which takes you to the homepage, which takes you to exactly where you are, which means its a redundant link.

Btw, clicking on links, the font turns white and makes the links disappear. You may want to fix that.

In the spot below rumors, that little sports website directory blurb, get rid of that "human editor" thing. I know what you're trying to show, try saying instead that "Our editorial staff manually adds these links" instead, human editor sounds like the rest of your site is robotic. Same thing goes for the sports site reviews, you say human site reviews. We get it, there's humans working for the website.

You have 2 search features, one at the top and now one with mamma.com. Why 2 search features?

Same thing about section titles goes for the links on the right side. Your made Our Sports Blogs a link, or is it the title for all of the links below it? Make a defining title for all your links, so we know what those links are about. Dont make the title a link, because then it gets confusing.

The rest of the site is pretty generic with the phpbb forums. Despite my rant, you have a pretty good, authentic site. Just work on that index page, its the first thing your viewers see, and if you confuse them from the start, you'll lose some.

Nice banner. Maybe you should try working off of the colors you've already got from your banner and incorporate them into the rest of the site? It's nice and everything, but if it doesn't fit into your basic structure it's not a good choice. I use http://wellstyled.com/tools/ to decide what colors I want, and many colorpickers can tell what the exact color names.

To one of the posters above me: Since when has it been bad to define colors using the letter equivalents? There's absolutely nothing wrong with using FFFFFF to define white. In fact, I prefer it to anything else.

The vBulletin bar at the top is of variable width. Specifically, it's at 100% width. The rest of your site is fixed width. It looks good (the fixed width) but the expanding bar at the top is very out of place. Fix it?

Your HTML organizing is horrendous. I mean, I can barely even read the code. You have a table or two opening and closing rows and columns on the same line, with no visible content within it. I understand you may be just trying to create space between the other tables, but you could make it more legible. That goes for all the other tags in your source.

Some of your sports blog links on the right popup a new window. Some others use the same window to go to the link. I urge consistency in this.

Having a white background is great for a site where the read must do a lot of reading. Thanks for that.

Your site definitely has potential. It's just a matter of improving on content and layout.

Your logo isn't bad, but I noticed that both right and left sides have been chopped off. I realize that you may have done this on purpose, but the right hand side looks like it shouldn't be cut off. The corner of the background of the baseball player. Maybe I'm just being picky, I don't know. But I think you should include the corners so it won't look like it got chopped off somehow.

There is a heck of alot of white space, too much if you ask me. Add some more colours, some more life to your site. Right now I'm not getting a very sporty feel to your site.

You also don't really have a central focal point. Your intro paragraph needs to be moved someplace else. It's great that you included one but it gets lost with all the other content on the page. I'm not saying to get rid of all that content, just re arrange things around to follow suit. In other words, when a user visits your site for first time, the first thing they should see is the intro paragraph and then focus on everything else in a specific order. There is a way to achieve this you just have to sit down and asks yourself "what is the order of importance for my content?"

I wouldn't put the "coming soon" info on the front page. Actually I wouldn't mention it the way you did at all. It gives the impression of an uncomplete site. You definitely don't want to give off that message! If you must include info on things that are to come in the near future to your website, include it as content, as maybe part of a news section.

You really should work a bit harder on your navigational bar. It has potential, but right now you've got the top menu and then the main menu which is in a simple navbar, you should include the top most navbar in some sort of navbar. right now it just looks like 3 links floating next to your logo.

Why do you have two completely different search boxes on your website? I understand that one is to search within your site and the other outside but it's confusing for the user (including me). The site feature to search within your site needs to be improved and made more user friendly. It also states "web search" you should clarify that because to me that means you're searching the entire world wide web rather than just within the your site.

Your sports forums & sports blogs look too similar. Actually they look identical at first glance. You need to make them completely different some ppl may get confused. If you want to keep the same format then at least change the colours. I thought we were on the forums again at first glance.

On your "contact us" page, the very last paragraph

the link connects you to AIM. I don't think that's a wise idea, mostly because

1- barely anyone outside the USA uses AIM, therefore, when they click the link, nothing will happen and they will think it's a broken link.

2- it's not clear anywhere in the paragraph that you will be linking to AIM, at first glance it looks like it will open outlook. So if you want them to connect to AIM you must state that right off the bat.

3- I would suggest to use an email form rather than a link that goes to outlook, simply because there are still ppl who DON'T use outlook but web based browsers and the link won't work for them.

Use an external linking CSS to declare your fonts, it will be much easier and cleaner for your code.

Try to align all your TD to top.

Alt tags on images are missing

How come your TD tags aren't closed?

Just remember, your website has to be user friendly and straight to the point otherwise ppl will leave your site very quickly and that's exactly what you're trying to avoid. Good luck!

Ok, all the posters above me have already picked up on many (and much more besides) of the points I would make, so I won't re-iterate them. When I enetered the site I felt it looked like a yahoo portal site or something, that was my first impression anyway.. not sports!

As to using html for the styling like fonts.. well you should use CSS.

To answer truce, I believe setting font size="-1" is actually making the font 1 size smaller to the browser default.. not a negative amount. Normal default is 3, so if that's the case it goes to 2 etc.. at least that's what I can recall.. anyone feel free to correct me!

Hi,

Everyone thanks for your input. I am working on making some changes to the site. As for site not feeling like sports? That being said, I will add small graphics to the right of the page where it shows the sports blogs.

I maybe posting a few links soon to look at with new designs. I shall return

I don't think I've received one postive thing about my site from the users of ozzu.com

Regarding the comments of adding images? I am not going to add all these graphics just to make it all sports. If I did that, then I'd hear how loading time is pathetic. This is tough.

you asked for it to be reviewed

sycofi5h,

Yes, I did ask for a review. I thank everyone for their input. I also agree with several points.. That being said, I do not agree with the site not having a sports feel. My site is a sports portal that offers a directory, search engine, forums and blogs. Show me one sports portal type site or any kind of portal that has all these graphics. Look at google, overture, http://www.aardvarksport.net, and baseball-links.com, they all don't have a site filled with all these graphics. Also, if you check Google, no where on their home page say it 's a search engine type of portal. If you did not know about google, would you have know they are a searhc engine portal?

Now, if I was designing a sports site that was offering just stats, scores and news, I 'd build a site that looks like ESPN.com.


After all this I again do agree with everyone here about designing a nice easy layout that . I am trying to design a home page that makes its point

Regards,
RazSports

Your not exactly google, which is more branding anyway... they have a unique look which they've kept, and that's also the reason it loads normally in about 0.1 seconds.

If you cleaned up your HTML, you can reduce the file size, and add graphics till you get to the 35-50KB mark, at which point the site will then become to 'heavy'. Even if it's just some gif with 3 colors in it, it all helps.

And also, people have said nice things about your site, and they're sure to remark on any changes you implement. Best keep them on your side

ausmeister,

No, I am not google! Neither is baseball-links.com, http://www.aardvarksport.net/ or http://www.fanbay.net/.

Again, when you build a search/information type of website you don't built it with all these graphics..

BTW, everyone keeps saying clean up your HTML a little. If that is the case, then what good is http://www.w3.org ? I did a check five(5) times and they confirm that my HTML is just fine.

I keep getting told to check my HTML with http://www.w3.org . I do so and it confirms my coding is just fine. That is what has me questioning all the remarks from this site regarding fixing up the HTML.

Regards,
RazSports

Hi razsports,

Don't take it personal when you have people review your website. If you want someone to give you their advice on your site you have to be ready to receive both positive and negative feedback.

On another note, in regards to those other sites you listed that don't have a "sport feel to them", don't ever compare your site to the worst. You shoudl always compare yourself to the best!! If they are your competition, LEARN from them but try to top what they already have. If those sites are lacking (and in my opinion they are, as I just had a look at them) then you can implement what they are missing into your site.

Checking your HTML and making sure it fits the standards is great but I think people here meant to say that it's messy. You can have perfect code that can fit W3C standards but that is all over the place. W3C isn't going to tell you that using inline <font> tags is wrong but we suggest to use CSS to clean up your code. That's just an example.

Hope this clears up some confusion?

Hi 613flavah,

Yes, I agree you want to add features/layout that the other competitors don't offer. If you look at my layout and what I offer, it is twice as good as my competitors which include those links I had posted.

As for messing html, I basically do use CSS, except for a few places. I did this on purpose. Now if my html was all messed up as it not working with other browsers, then I'd be very worried. I suppose I could make those other places into CSS. However, at this time that is not as important as the layout and design of my site.

Answer this question: How many people actually go to a site and spend hours looking at the coding; that being non-web designers?

Those people are looking for the professional design, layout and features a site has to offer. Your HTML could meet all standards, the layout and design very professional looking and well put together, but
your HTML all messed up.The average Internet user could careless about your HTML being all messed up.

Does my site look professional and free of errors? Yes.

However, I do agree about trying to bring a sports feel and layout to the site. I am trying to do both in my designing/layout. However, when your site offers a lot of features, it is not easy trying to develop a design/layout, cause you want to make each page within your site a point about such page.

Example: If you check out my page, http://www.raz-sports.com/baseball-directory.html , you can tell what the point is and the layout looks good.

Again, thanks