Lotus Essence website review
Posted by Lindsayanng on February 23rd, 2009
The overall theme of your site is nice and consistent. It matches with your content and can be easily recognized in advertisements and such. The design is nice and calming, and has good graphic quality.
The header is a very pretty image, but you should make it link to the home page. It is a habit for almost everyone to click a website’s banner to go back to the home page. I know I did it!! You do have a HOME link, but it’s not very obvious.
Which leads me to my next point. Those links in the widget in the right box for your pages:
Home
Forums
About
Contact
Would be better seen on the top bar right under the header. Unless you can think of a more creative way to show them. As of now, they blend in to your other sidebar content, and you kind of want your pages to look separate from your posts. Especially if you are trying to start a new community with a forum. If you can create a navigation bar under the header, that would be PERFECT. If you do not want to do that, maybe you can use some image or CSS buttons to make those links stand out more in that little side box that they are in now. BUT, people always look towards the top for pages, and to the right for categories.
Speaking of Categories. YOU DON’T HAVE ANY! You should consider a way to separate your posts into categories because this will make sure that your visitors only see what they are interested in, and don’t get a list of 10 posts that are unrelated to what they want, and one that is related, when in fact you have another 5 posts that they might like, but they are just pushed to page 6.
So when you add your categories, you should move them to the top. Or if you do not move your pages links, you can put the categories directly under the pages links.
I would maybe move the archives down and into your footer if you can. Or atleast you can move it further down the sidebar, but I would find it better in a footer because people don’t usually search your archives, they just search your categories.
Your links are kind of all over the place and you are using valuable sidebar space to post links to websites that are NOT yours. Unless they are making you money from clicks, or they are a website that you have traded links with, you might want to consolidate. For instance, your links to another blog that is very similar to yours. Why would you send people there? People are likely to go there and see all the activity on that well established blog, or yours that is new with a little activity. They might just choose to stay there. I would take out that link in particular.
I like your little welcome section on the top with your picture in it, however it looks like that is a larger picture crammed into a smaller space. Is it? See how it’s kind of not super clear, unless the picture looks that way full size, you should open the picture in a photo editor and resize it to be 125px x 125px. This way it will be a really nice picture of you.
Now I would also move your Subscription up a little. I think it’s important for people to see that, and it seems that it is kind of lost in the mix down there. Then again, you may not have to if you make the other changes. My subscription box on this website is kind of low on the list.
And you also have a LOAD of “friends” things and addons. I always think that when you have a lot of those, you are just desperate to show how popular you are. I think you are best off just adding the one that you use the most and get the most viewers from, and create a new web page called “My Friends/Visitors” and put the widgets that you remove on that page. This way people can see see them, but they are not taking up valuable space.
I would just keep the “recent viewers” and put everything else on the other page.
This way you also don;t have to confusion that is going on over the facebook widget. You have a heading that says COMMUNITY, then you see “already a member login” But i don’t know what I am logging in to because the facebook thing is right below it. I would create a little login to Lotus Essence graphic that makes it clear that they are logging is as a member of your website.
So I hope this helps. Again, these are my opinions, and you do NEED to do anything. They are just things that I find when I am personally surfing the net, and when i read feedback from other users on blogs and websites!!
Want to know who is offering this awesome content? Here it is! Someone who is relatively new to web design. I am new enough to still remember how absolutely frustrating it was to try and get anything done in this field, but have also been around long enough to be able to help those that are where I was a year ago.
Aside from web design, I run the office of my dad's engineering business, and do book keeping by trade.
I love my pets.. All 6 cats, 1 peg legged dogs, and 1 hedgehog. LOVE THEM!!
Oh yea, and my husband. He lets me chase my dreams and I let him do the same. We are happy people because of it. Read more from this author
