Website Advice on new multimedia site

MrVestek

Hey i recently purchased myself some webspace and set up a website there. I have an interest in movie making and have made alot of videos and stuff over the past year or so with Adobe Premier, Adobe Photoshop and PartileIllusion. Basically my site at the moment just hosts these videos for download and has a phpbb forum.

What i'm wondering is, how would I go about getting the word out about my website? I wanna get the forums really buzzing with people asking questions about how to do certain things with a website, to post their own video wares and that kinda thing. Any advice on how to get it really buzzing? Where would I post links? Could I get my site reviewed on a website or whatever or could I get it printed in a magazine (Like PCFormat) and the likes? I was also thinking of adding sections like video tutorials to show people how I made my Star Trek beam in effects and that kinda thing.

The site is at http://www.stevetrek.com

It's very much in it's infancy at the moment as it's only been online for about two days but i'd really like to get it hopping with a good forum pretty much like this sites one. Any advice? Also if you guys have any sugestions on what to change etc on the site please feel free to reply here or catch me at the forums on the website.

ChicoMendez

Achilles wrote:

Any advice? Also if you guys have any sugestions on what to change etc on the site please feel free to reply here or catch me at the forums on the website.

How about changing the site completely
If you take it off line i will click your paypal button and donate some cash

MrVestek

Gee wow that's helpful *sigh*

ChicoMendez

Achilles wrote:

Gee wow that's helpful *sigh*

- just the dark blue text on black background is ver hard to read -
thats a start.

If you want to build up a community i would suggest the site at least look nice.

ConsultClifford

Steve,

Id suggest going with Mambo - its an open source php CMS. It has 3rd party forums, image galleries etc etc all you need to run an online community like yours.
In addition there are lots of free professional templates that will give you a more professional look straight away.
Try www.mamboportal.com

MrVestek

Erm... i have an open source php forum in place... i'd prefer just a forum and not a CMS system. Do you work for these people or something? heh.

ConsultClifford

Achilles wrote:

Erm... i have an open source php forum in place... i'd prefer just a forum and not a CMS system. Do you work for these people or something? heh.

just trying to give a bit of friendly advice.

No i dont work for them - Ive used mambo a few times and its quite powerful.
And more importantly there are lots of free professional templates that will give you a more professional look straight away!!
Because as Chico said - tis pretty basic.

here one example of them using it - http://vietnam-tourism-news.com/

cgarvey

Achilles wrote:

how would I go about getting the word out about my website?

With difficulty!! Usually it starts off by a group of friends posting, who in turn bring in friends of friends... until you build up a bit of activity, then Google ratings will help a whole lot more.

What you're unlikely to be able to do is get a generic forum (say, like boards.ie) going easily.. but if you have a specialised area/topic, then it'd be easier.

Either way word of mouth and Google page ranks are what'll bring in the new visitors. Active forums, and a nice site are what'll keep them there.

Harsh and all as ChicoMendez was, he does have a point, the site is very hard to read.

Mambo would allow you to build up a community (say, allow others to write/edit FAQs/Tips, and share video clips under different categories, etc.) so don't shoot down helpful replies like that, unless you don't want much more help!!

.cg

MrVestek

Cheers man i'll look into putting mambo on the site. What's so hard to read on the site tho? I've visited it on multipal computers and it looks fine. What should i change? Is it just colours or content or what?

mneylon

The colours. Change them. They do not lend themselves to legibility.
If I wander onto a site and I can't read the content I am not going to strain my eyes. I'll simply go elsewhere.

MrVestek

Ok so, colours for the links is it? Or the titles? Please tell me which colours and which ones to change, and sugested colours as I can't tell.

sickle

yeah,ya gotta make your logo bigger and brighter!!,gotta agree that the colour scheme aint right,too dark on dark.(the headings and links are too dark)

mneylon

You might want to have a look for one of those colour guides you can find online which would give you the possible colour combinations ie. which colours can go together without making your users blind

You could also look at:
http://www.webstyleguide.com/

sickle

oh and you might wanna put some sort of animation on the front page,maybe the logo,since it is a multimedia site! you have to impress people with the front page,we are fickle creatures!!

MrVestek

Ok i've edited the logo and the links colours etc, should make them more readable now. I've got to go out now but having a flash animation for the logo is a good idea, i'll get working on one tomorrow night. Tell me what you think of the improved logo/colours now as it is. Cheers.

Cheers lads.

sickle

yeah the colours are better,the logo still doesnt seem right...you have so much space up the top of the page going to waste there really!

MrVestek

Hrm i dunno might put a site wide flash animation up there or something. Not sure what else to put up there really, i have the navigation bar so there's no point in putting in another one at the top. Any ideas?

MrVestek

Ok the site's banner has been animated. Tell me what you think :-)

evilhomer

the banner is 750k thats way too big for someone on dialup.
for a nice layout try bluerobot

mneylon

If I said the site was slow to load I would be lying. It's not slow. It is painfully slow:
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/wso.php?url=http://www.stevetrek.com/

Unless you are offering something that nobody can live without nobody is going to bother waiting for your animated logo thing to load.

JustHalf

That page Blacknight links to show that your page will take two and a half minutes to load on a 56k connection. That's crazy.

seamus

Yeah, as others say.
Background image: 23k - You could easily use 1.4 of the image and not notice the difference
Top banner: 750k - This isn't big, it's unreasonable. Even with DSL or Cable, it's going to take > 10 seconds to load your site. If you intend on a popular site, it also won't help your pocket in terms of bandwidth usage.

If you *must * have this banner, do a search around for ways of coding the site so that the banner is the last thing to load (and doesn't hold up the whole show). That way, new visitors will still be able to browse about and click links instead of having to wait for the banner to load.

MrVestek

Hrm i knew it'd take long but didn't think it was that unreasonable. Ok i'll change it back to the jpg for now. And nice heads up on the background. Thanks for all the advice people. Gonna make the changes now so check back in about 10 minutes and tell me if it's any better.

seamus

Achilles wrote:

Hrm i knew it'd take long but didn't think it was that unreasonable. Ok i'll change it back to the jpg for now.

An animated gif could easily give you the same effect as the flash banner. It'll still be quite big, but probably much smaller than the swf.

MrVestek

.....that site banner was a gif.

seamus

Lol

MrVestek

:-P I tried optimising it the best I could get it down too. Shame really cus i loved that little animation.