[gonzogone]

even when solicited, user feedback is pretty rare unless somebody gets pissed off...

[VoyGeorge]

Originally Posted by Tigger

agree, its a good way of keep the flow between blog & static site as personally I think it looks pretty naff when the designs don't flow

I've done it when I've had a "personal" blog attached to a corporate site. In those cases, I've tried to pick a theme that looks more casual. A lot of corporate sites are pretty stiff-looking, and a blog that has the same look seems to me cold and indifferent, and not as inticing.

In all cases, though, I've always made sure the blog opened in a new window.

[VoyGeorge]

Originally Posted by student4ever

even when solicited, user feedback is pretty rare unless somebody gets pissed off...

Rare to non-existent. No one bothers to write, "I would have signed up but your site didn't turn me on so I didn't bother."

The back button is sooooo much easier to use.

[Tigger]

agree with you guys, hence the reason I asked what feedback he was expecting. I've been running sites for longer than I care to think about and during that time feedback has been nil despite some of them being story related and directly asking surfers for reviews - people don't bother

[VoyGeorge]

Originally Posted by Tigger

feedback has been nil despite some of them being story related and directly asking surfers for reviews - people don't bother

This must mean that all those letters in Penthouse Forum were NOT written by readers! I'm shocked!

If the OP had a free forum and directly asked for opinions, then maybe he'd get some feedback. Then the trick becomes getting members to the forum and giving them enough to write about. That's a whole 'nother thread.

[Tigger]

This must mean that all those letters in Penthouse Forum were NOT written by readers! I'm shocked!

If the OP had a free forum and directly asked for opinions, then maybe he'd get some feedback

I've been involved with a complete back end re-design with my main sponsor (swingers site) and they have thousands of members if not tens of thousands. Once the beta design was in place we posted within the members section asking members if they would like to test it out to get some feed back, after all these people were paying to use the site so wanted to keep them happy

No response

So we then sent an internal mail to members asking for beta testers, which generate a poor response and not forgetting these are people are PAYING to use the site so do have some interest in making sure they are happy with it

The end result out thousands of members we got maybe handful to try the beta site out which they liked so it went live 2 months ago

Bottom line people will use a site and either stay or go they won't tell you whats wrong until they have paid you and even then if it doesn't work in most cases just cancel and leave

[gonzogone]

Originally Posted by Tigger

Bottom line people will use a site and either stay or go they won't tell you whats wrong until they have paid you and even then if it doesn't work in most cases just cancel and leave

unfortunately, that pretty much sums it up...

[Tigger]

something you learn very quickly in this game, surfers don't give a fuck about webmasters or their sites as theirs a million one other sites to use

[adultdatingguy]

Why the adult dating link in the nav which takes user to a different site? Surely you want visitors to stay on yours? Am I missing something?

[Tigger]

they are both owned by the same person, although its not clever to have site wide links as I spotted it straight away and so will G

[chaos]

For the moment I will stick with it in this format, and see the user feedback. After that I will consider what you said. Thanks for the feedback.

Having, like Tigger, many years in this specific niche, I'll tell you now that you won't get direct user feedback, the only feedback you're likly to get is from your stats package when you're wondering why none of the traffic is converting, make sure you look at the exit links and the pages people disappear from your site on as that will tell you a lot.

One thing that jumps out straight away is the use of an outbound link in your main navigation (adult dating site), that makes no sense at all, it was the first link i hit when i went to the site, why on earth would you have a link that takes away from your site so prominently placed?

As Tigger said, the template isn't very captivating and overall i don't think it really does what it needs to do which is grab the attention of the people visiting. You can get away with a slightly less polished site and presentation when you're going for a very very specific niche, but when you're targeting such a broad keyterm as adult dating you need to provide a lot more to compete.