Please critique my site

[visualskirmish]

Hello all,
Please critique my site - www.visualskirmish.com

Our site is fairly new and we're working on SEO and marketing.
Let me know what you think about our entry fees, design, voting system, etc.
We haven't seen any interest in video contests yet, any ideas on how to get that going?

Our voting system differs from most photo/video contest sites.
Basically once all entries are received is when voting starts and there is a period of 10 days usually. Most sites start voting before all entries are received which may give an unfair advantage.

Thanks,
James

[JEccles]

The concept is good and the overall look is not bad. But, I do have a couple of suggestions. The header you have one image of a camera and film - you also have text on the right side of it. It is nearly impossible to read the text when it crosses the film image. Another image you have for the "Sweetest Kiss" is not good - it is distorted and pixelated. You need some keyword rich text (for SEO) on the front page at least. I would suggest putting it on the left side, over the contests so that it pushes that column down a bit and balances it out a bit with the right.

You have a great start though.

[visualskirmish]

Thanks for the critique, very valid points. I was planning on fixing those issues you mention. I appreciate your feedback.

[roban]

Along with Janet's very lucid points I would strongly suggest getting rid of the Google ads. They add nothing to your site and do you really want your visitors leaving your site to go somewhere else?

Your main page is not as balanced as your other pages such as the Contests page. Your log in boxes can be smaller or stacked to create more space for your central column and again lose the Google Ads on your Home page. I think you could sacrifice the Polls and Suggestion Boxes to make your central column full size. This is what your site is all about so don't dilute it.

Develop your About us page with more content. Right now it's almost as if you thought you have to have a page like that but couldn't come up with any useful content. Add a phone number there as well to give your site more credibility.

A Privacy and Terms of Use page are a good idea but make them easy for us to read. Make the font color #000000 so I don't have to strain these tired old eyes.

[Turnkeye]

I like the design of your site.

If you don't mind, i would recommend you to focus on the performance of your site because it is a key factor in such kind of service (serving images/videos). I would recommend you to optimize the content of your site (you can use Speed Test / YSlow tools for this), it will decrease the loading of our server. Also you might try to use Nginx instead of apache because it is faster, and as I said speed is a key factor for your site.

[visualskirmish]

Updates:
Fixed the Sweetest Kiss ad, not so pixelated.
Developed About us page
Changed font color on Privacy page
Google Ads, I may consider turning off

@Turnkeye - Do you know if Godaddy supports this? My programmer did all the site installation so I'm not sure about this.

Thanks all for the suggestions again.
-James

[Turnkeye]

@Turnkeye - Do you know if Godaddy supports this? My programmer did all the site installation so I'm not sure about this.

No, godaddy use only apache and do not offer nginx as far as I know. there is no shared hosting based on Nginx yet.

For such kind of service (if there will be many customers in future) you will need a dedicated server with Nginx.

Try to optimize the content of your site, it can save your server resources drastically.

[Turnkeye]

try at least compress CSS, minify JS/CSS and enable caching of all static resources (images, css, js etc.)

[fairymichelle]

Very nice i will be returning to have a look.

[Microdocman]

Hi VS,

I spent approximately five minutes reviewing your site. Here are some comments which maybe of use.

Overall impression
I always start with an overall impression, the look and feel of the site. Here are my observations:

• The sites theme is very blue (light that is)
• Protection from narrow competition. FBook votes (raids) may put people off
• Images are good idea, but main image real estate poor quality (pixel prob)
• Contact and company details are available enhancing credibility
• Unsure of logo, again needs to be more professional, design for easy recognition
• Google ads knock your credibility, looks like google may form part of the prize
• Italian profile on map with New York address and Uk profile on map with US address? Credibility issue here

Functionality
The site functions reseanably well:

• Menus work
• Easy to navigate hotspots
• Three tier menu, too much? Unsure why membership menu shows when logged out.
• Catagorising search in useful

Content
User profile details and locations inaccurate, possibly registration errors
The content giving site instructions difficult to read
Had difficulties finding people with addresses outside US

Recommendations
I've a few suggestions:

• Sharpen you flash images
• Build better credibility: i.e. use your face on profile pictures
• Devise a marketing plan to get your customers
• Use competitive intelligence, check your rivals and improve

Concluding remarks
I wish i had more time reviewing your site. I was reading your 'about us' page and got the impression your either want people to share photos or build a photo competition site? The main page says comp, but you open with sharing photos in 'about us'

Skirmish indicates 'small battles' why isn't the site building big reputations between cameramen, getting big names would be on my list of priorities. Perhaps camera club verses camera club at some stage. Perhaps have feature spots from web photographer who submit to stock photo sites.

I guess I'm unsure the type of beast this site is? funky and fun or professional with experts. Looking at the quality of pix so far and profiles, funky and fun.

Good luck with your site.