Please rate my site, comments, concerns

[Briz]

Briz.com - www.briz.com

A brief background of the site:

Briz.com is about empowering friendly businesses.
Small businesses can communicate, market, and network to their local area completely for FREE. Consumers can then view news, coupons, events that businesses upload.

Anyways, check it out: www.briz.com

Feedback would be greatly apprieciated in these fields:
Layout, logos, text, easiness to login, navigation

Thanks,
The Briz Team

[JPnyc]

my first impression is, it looks like an ad farm.

[JEccles]

my first impression is, it looks like an ad farm.

Ooh a little harsh JPnyc, but you have a point. Those ads that appear on the home page should be gone - put them somewhere else. Your front page should be talking about Briz itself. Who are you? What are you trying to accomplish? How does someone become a member and what are the benefits? Save the ads for after you have captured the readers attention.

[Briz]

JPnyc and JEccles, thanks for your response but those "ads" that you saw on the homepage werent ad's. They were in fact news, coupons and events posted from small businesses who signed up and created profiles.

Imagine digg - twitter - facebook and local search for small business all on the same site.

Now that you may better understand the site, any suggestions? should we make a home splash page and maybe have a page called "Marketplace" where all the news, coupons and events can be posted...

[JPnyc]

I get what they are, but that's my impression. Calling them coupons is fine, but it still gives the impression of a classifieds page, a place to put ads, even if they are discounting coupons. I'm just trying to be honest about what I think a user will feel the first time they view the page.

Maybe if you dressed the site up a little more, something other than text links in the default blue, a background for them, a hover state, this might help.

[marc77]

Your site bases up on an interesting idea, but you should point out at the very beginning that it comes with added value. Otherwise I agree to JPnyc, it more is a collection of advertisements, people may quickly leave your site.

Also you should work on your text links "About" and "Video" - make two buttons fitting to the layout of your site (currently they look a bit like Google Ads ;-)

[apolie]

hi there, im new in here just want to ask for vote in my site..i like your stuff too..im so glad if you check my site too..thank you