New Top100 Portal for traffic exchange!!!

Megan's picture

She has: 11,421 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

I agree with Justin and Bryan - way too many colours. It seems that a lot of people don't really think about colour schemes when they start designing a site. Pick two or three colours (plus white) and stick to them.

You've also got a problem with too many font styles. Lose the bolded text links under the headings, and as Justin said just list a few of the most popular categories under those headings (a la yahoo). Also get rid of the selective bolding on the left side menu - either make all of them bold or none of them bold.

Reducing the number of listings under the headings would also shorten up your page a lot. I think that a directory like this needs a nice short front page (look at all the major portals)

The logo in text only would be alright if it was in a unique font. Browse font sites (just do a search, there are tons) and find something original that suits your site. It's also a good idea to play with kerning/leading and horizontal/vertical scale to get a unique look.

Overall it looks like you didn't really think about the design very much. It's not really "designed".

The sub-pages look a lot better - there is actually a colour scheme there, but you need some sort of design elements on the top of every page. Your logo should definitely be there, and probably a banner ad. You should also have your basic navigation menu on every page.

They have: 5,633 posts

Joined: Jan 1970

Please visit my site http://www.hottop100.com
and give me critiques.

And if you have good idea to improve its
visitors. Please inform me.

Brian Farkas's picture

They have: 1,015 posts

Joined: Apr 1999

I don't like it very much.. The colors don't go together well and the menu's look very unorganized. The logo also needs to stand out more.... in fact the whole site needs to be spiced up.

Sorry, and good luck with your site

Brian

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Justin S's picture

They have: 2,076 posts

Joined: Jun 1999

Yeah, I don't like it much either.

1) You need a real logo, not just text. Adding a mascot or something would be cool also.

2) The colors are aweful! You really need to think what to do with the colors. You have purple, red, blue, yellow, and poop-yellow. Yuck! I think you should use the colors that are used for the "Proper Netiquette" image. I think you should experiment with those.

3) You need to organize the main page a little better. Don't list every category under each main category, just list two or three.

4) You don't need every link to pop-up in a new window. Gets annoying after awhile.

5) So, you're the fastest growing ranking site with only a few links in the database. That doesn't sound right. If you want more people to visit your site than get rid of all that white text and the bottom of the page, 'cause search engines will think it's spam.

6) The menu is unorganized. First, un-center the text, and add some type of bullet next to each link. Second, get rid of that nasty mouse-over color, or at least change it.

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  • They have: 324 posts

    Joined: Dec 1999

    hmmm....how should I put this?
    I don't like it! The colors don't go together, the logo is text, to much white space at the bottom, the categories aren't organized at all, you have different fonts too. You need to re-think your design and colors a lot, good luck with the site though!

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