SITE REVIEW: What Console

I designed whatconsole.co.uk last year for my brother who is a console geek, but am looking for fresh ideas on how to make it better:

1. Did you find the site easy to navigate?
2. Did you find the content interesting?
3. Is there too many banner adverts?
4. Am I missing any vintage consoles from the site?
5. Is it fast too load for any 56k? (I use broadband)
6. Is it worth building a PHP forum for it?
7. Is it worth doing a animated Flash logo?

I think the best section is theVintage games console section but I am unsure if people understand how to navigate it?

I found the inner content of the site good with the graphics of each console type and specification very useful but the design of the site is very flat and uninteresting. The grey background with white text is very bland.

I think if you spent some time giving the site more vibrance you can pull through the content so it should not be too much effort.

Have a look at http://www.gamespy.com/ for ideas in this arena.

Good luck

1. Most of it.
2. Not really, but I'm not a big gamer these days
3. What banner adverts?
4. Yup, and given that it's a UK based site, I'm surprised you'd miss the Amstrad GX4000
5. don't know, I'm on cable.
6. Yeah, I'm with Jasper. I'd wait'll your hits get up there (like say, at least 500 unique page views per day), then start off a small forum, and let it expand as the users demand.
7. Flash LOGO, maybe, Flash Splash Screen, no way.

1. Did you find the site easy to navigate?
very easy to.

2. Did you find the content interesting?
very very intersting

3. Is there too many banner adverts?
Not really.

4. Am I missing any vintage consoles from the site?
I don't see one.

5. Is it fast too load for any 56k? (I use broadband)
Not really, compared to other sites.

6. Is it worth building a PHP forum for it?
I think this is a good target,

7. Is it worth doing a animated Flash logo?
I would, if I could

How good is the traffic?
Mm, probably you could
add in adwords if you
have a good page hits.
Extra $$.

About 100 visitors a day but I must check the logs again this year.

1. Did you find the site easy to navigate? almost too easy

2. Did you find the content interesting? I never knew a gameboy had a faster processor than super nintendo

3. Is there too many banner adverts? no

4. Am I missing any vintage consoles from the site? Not that I ever played

5. Is it fast too load for any 56k? (I use broadband) 3-5 secs MAX

6. Is it worth building a PHP forum for it? Depends on topics

7. Is it worth doing a animated Flash logo? Everything deserves a flashy logo

I personally like the site... good information, nice clean design etc.

I like the navigation, the tabs on the top are pretty original, atleast I have never seen them before so they get good words from me.

I think a database system so users could post reviews would be pretty cool if you could manage it.

Thanks guys this is what I will be doing on the website now:

Doing:
Add database system so users could post reviews
Add Amstrad GX4000

NOT doing:
No re-design
No Forum (too many ou there)
No Flash Logo

Yeah, there are a lot of forums out there, but don't discount it completely.

If you've got a strong userbase and people want to talk about these systems (and they often do), it can only help you really.

If you get a good forum setup, optimized for search-engine-compatibility, each of those extra pages linking to your home page, or other pages on your site is helping you out.

Ok, so one internal link isn't going to boost you to a PR10/10, but having a 2,000 page forum, all of them linking to your homepage can be the difference between getting on the first page of results for a given search (or even the top spot), and not appearing at all on the first 50 pages...

If you are getting the visitors each day, I would at least get a "General" forum setup so users can communicate with each other - some of the older console games can be very hard to get, so this would allow people to talk to each other, trade/sell games & systems, etc - or maybe hook up for some multiplayer hookup games (a few of those listed on your site allow you to connect multiple systems together for multiplay).

So yeah, if it were my site, I'd probably setup at least just a "General Chat" where users can get to know each other, chat, ask questions, offer suggestions, etc.

Yeah I think there would be potential in a forum for older games systems selling and trading. Think a skinned PHP forum from http://www.phpbb.com should do the job