By walker2238 on
Well it's official, I have completed my very fist website. I learned so much just by reading these forums as I knew nothing about php, html or css. Thanks to alot of you for helping me out. Anyways here if the site: www.freedomspress.com feel free to give me any suggestions. Negative feedback is most welcome.
Comments
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not bad, not bad at all.
Awesome job for a first
Awesome job for a first website! I'm especially impressed that you styled the user login block. That's one of my pet peeves with drupal sites... the user login always looks suspiciously similar, but your login block is unique. Congrats!
www.drupalmuseum.com
www.organicsitedesign.com
Thanks...
Yeah the login blocks are hard to custom. basically all I did was insert some html into a new block then disable the other login block.
I like the background you have for www.organicsitedesign.com. One thing I'm having trouble with is how to promote your website. I know this isn't directly related to drupal but does anyone have any tips for a new guy?
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Content Content Content.
Really? Seems simple enough.
Really? Seems simple enough. But what if you sites content is driven by it's users. How do I get users? I tried the whole link exchange thing but no luck yet. I tried posting in forums related to my site but was banned from them all.
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the first user is you.
Some of the best restaurants in the world aren't the most advertised. They are packed every night because of the food. Patrons tell other patrons and they tell other patrons and before you know it you have reservations booked months out and in some cases years.
nothing beats word of mouth.
Users generate content on a site that has content.
Pull in feeds to help you
continue to invest in your site and generate content yourself.
publish your better works to other social networking sites.
I believe that a great way to create a community, especially early on, is to be part of it. The "if you build it people will find it" business model does have a nice ring to it. However, if people find it they want something that is going to keep their attention. If you continue to keep their attention you'll be rewarded first with registered users. Then you work on maintaining those relationships with your audience. Some of those relationships may turn out to be contributors and not just users. They earn their following and the site grows. This process hopefully continues and you need an entire data center to handle the traffic : )
Keep your expectations small, don't throw your site link around in forums and such. That only makes you look like a spammer. If you must and if it is allowed by any of the sites you are an active member of investigate using a signature with a link.
There is no sure fire way to gain users beyond content.Sometimes it can be a slow and tedious process and like every other type of business there are failures every day.
VeryMisunderstood thanks,
VeryMisunderstood thanks, thats the best advice I have received to date.
One last question..
Does it really matter much if you don't support IE6? I mean is it really worth the time.
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That is up to you. The browser is still in use by many machines. I don't know what the current stats are but to ignore IE6 could be detrimental to your site.
Depends on your audience. I
Depends on your audience. I think IE users now account for a little less than half of all internet users. In my case about 2% of my visitors are on IE, but on a general non-tech site, I would definitely support IE.
www.drupalmuseum.com
www.organicsitedesign.com
Yea I look at my Awstats on
Yea I look at my Awstats on Cpanel and although I know it's not 100% accurate IE6 was less then one percent. What about putting a script to detect a browser and display or redirect the IE6 users to a upgrade page?
It's obvious that the both of you are no beginners so care to share anything that I should be aware of. Like certain tasks and such that maybe you were not aware of when you first started. So far all I do as far as site maintenance goes is make a backup of my database every week. well thats what I'll plan on doing. And back up the site whenever I make any changes to it. It appears to me that just maintaining the website is a whole art of it's own. I have to admit I was one of those people who thought that once the site is build you just site back and relax. I also found that besides drupal w3schools was a great starting point.
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redirecting to an upgrade page is tacky. Some can't because their machines are too old to run IE7. That said, when IE8 is released I believe IE6 will be sunset and maybe then you can ignore in total IE6.
You can ignore it now too if you choose. especially if your traffic isn't enough to worry about.
Well like I said before when
Well like I said before when I asked about site promotion. My site users consist of me myself and I at the moment so I guess IE6 can be put on the back burner... Well I guess that's all I have to ask thank you both for your time.
I definitely wouldn't
I definitely wouldn't redirect to an upgrade page for the same reasons Very Misunderstood gave. You've got to really have some valuable content for a visitor to justify a major upgrade. You want to encourage traffic... not drive it away. IMO the best way to support IE is to use conditional comments to load IE specific styles and/or scripts.
www.drupalmuseum.com
www.organicsitedesign.com
I concur
I skimmed a book about Google in a bookstore one day. It said that the best thing to do to improve your ranking is to produce a page every day. For a competent, professional writer, this would equal a half-hour of time.
Well, I'm a competent but non-professional writer. I haven't been producing a page a day, and my pagerank is zero. Well, I suppose it could be negative, right! But seriously, folks, if something's happening, someone will eventually notice it. If you do some type of cross-promotion, you can attract attention sooner. But if there's nothing there, then your site will become one of many forgettable experiences in the lives of those who visit it once.
Speaking of which. Is there
Speaking of which. Is there any resources in drupal that out people in my position? The one thing I read about was link exchanging which seemed to be the most important thing to do besides having content. Maybe theres a place in drupal where people can post their site along with a description about their site so other drupal users can inquire with eachother about possible link exchange? Or would this even matter?
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Link exchanges are not the golden goose they promote themselves to be. Have you used the webmasters tools from Google ?
other people linking to your site = benefit
drupal is not unique in this type of situation. I suggest reading more non bias material about how to draw attention to your site. Though again. Content is and always will be the king.
I dont' know how it affects SEO...
...but I only do link exchanges with relevant sites that I'm not ashamed to be associated with.
Quality content
I believe that in some cases link exchanges solely for the sake of link exchange can actually hurt your ranking. I don't know Google's top secret algorithms but I think swapping links with a notorious link farm detracts from your search engine credibility. In the end there's no substitute for good content. If you have that, other sites will link to you, and that's what really enhances your ranking. That's not to say you shouldn't put any effort into marketing your site, but I think quality content is a fundamental necessity.
www.drupalmuseum.com
www.organicsitedesign.com
Yea I briefly checked out
Yea I briefly checked out the webmasters tools when I registered my url with google. I guess I should backtrack. eorr you make a good point, and thats probably the biggest mistake I made as a newbie. I contact alot of sites regarding link exchange when I had not content. And I bet alot of people have made that same mistake. Or I atleast hope others have.
So basically just from the forum posts in this thread I've compiled a list of things to do.
- Write add a page of content minumum once a day. (quality that is. Although my site is a writing site I figure the worst that could happen is someone will read my articles and think to themselves that "hey, I can write better then that guy" thus they might join.)
- Considering I have a writing community I figure not to worry about linking with other sites until I have a solid amount of content comming in daily. As a result the only linking I will make is via adding my articles to those social bookmarking sites as it will also introduce new readers to my site. (Well even if it's only one hit a day).
- And finally I'm not a preying man but I'm not a writer either so for every article I write I'll say a preyer along with it.
Well atleast I have some direction now. I'll probably learn as I go. Does anyone have any suggestions I might have overlooked? This seems to be a topic of interest where everyone has their own way of doing it... Besides the fundamentals (content content conter).
So thanks again guys for taking the time to reply to all my novice questions. Who knows maybe one day I can help you out. Although I have alot of catching up to do. Cheers...
My personal goal...
... is to either create content, refine (edit) content, or tackle a technical issue every day. Although I have been spending too much time with the forums.
Whats everyones take on
Whats everyones take on putting widgets into your new website?
Some good research exists on color and how it effects
viewers and content. I'd look into that. Also I'd look into the effects of symbols or images that convey or look like unintended symbols
neocary I'm not sure what
neocary I'm not sure what you mean. Care to expand on that thought?
I had the same impression
Red & black is very attention-getting, so much that it makes it difficult to focus on the text. The F's are easily interpreted as swastikas, which have gotten a bad rap since the 1930's. The site just has a generally harsh appearance.
As someone suggested, I
As someone suggested, I would indeed change the title logo and get rid of the almost-swastika-like letters.
The marquee on top is not a good idea - but that's probably me. I abhor anything which moves on a website. It's like reading a page from a book which someone just threw in the air. Why not simply put these things in an unmoving block?
As far as colours are concerned, well, it's again a matter of taste, I guess, but the brownish-red doesn't look very nice to my eyes.
But the overall concept of the site looks quite all right to me!
davidlark I do appreciate
davidlark I do appreciate your honest opinion. I'm sitting here now looking at the logo and if I tilt my head a little I can see your point. And my colors of choice didn't help that matter one bit. However my graphic design skills are limited and I was going for the comic book slash newspaper feel. You remember those old school comic books where everything had a "in your face color" outlined in black? So the harsh colors were intended, but not to sure how smart it might be for displaying a web site. With that being said I do see your point. Kinda like how doctors offices are painted those light pastel colors. Maybe my mistake was trying to be unique and stand out.
Well I have something to think about. This might be a major problem. And as for modul's comment about the marquee, I figured it would be a nice touch considering the topic of my site. But I do see your point as I've been to many sites with them and the majority did seem to being distracting to say the least.
Thanks again guys. I'm a slow learner. And stubborn when I get a idea in my head.
Think a bit...
... about what you want your image to be, and how to best project it.
Those colors/symbol issues may effect whose even going to the
forums. Research suggests most go (my eyes! and whats that-is that-is that-ohhhh not a place I should be at) and click gone..Prob should fix them, Alot of research out there on the subject. Look at your google analytics page and see the average amount of time on the site.It may be higher now because other drupal members are trying to take a look and give you advice-but those colors and symbols yell out 'danger will robinson!' and I click out without even considering what I am missing-
You can be 'youthful and 'different' while not crossing into
harsh and in your face-(unless of course you wanted to be harsh and in your face) its just a matter of picking the color balance..
On the positive side----at least its not another blue---which is safe and easy and men can see-generally men have a hard time with color-so blue is easy on the eyes, men can see it and its safe-its why the web is filled with it.
Well I was going for that
Well I was going for that harsh in your face comic book style. But it won't do me any good if know one else likes it. I thought about it for awhile and decided that the basic logo concept will be kept. I will look into perhaps changing it a little. but I'll have to make some drawing as I want to keep the layout I currently have. Also thanks for the suggestion on researching colors. This is something that I will have to change. Although the typical blue won't look good for my site. I guess what you guys are trying to say is to make some changes to best suit the user while keep my main idea intact. So I'll do some reading and post my proposed changes I shall make. You know I have gained a new respect for anyone who designs web sites, as it is a lot more challenging then I thought.
New logo
Ok, I added a new logo. At first I wasn't real big on the idea of making a new logo (Not a fan of creating vector images). I feel the Nazis connection is no longer there. But the problem I have is the color scheme. I took the advice of researching colors and their meaning towards consumers. I opted to not use the red (#800000) color but since I am color blind (literally) This has been a challenge. I want to keep a clean look so I choose black for the logo. Currently I'm using a gray color for my secondary. But even to my eyes it has a nasty effect. Obviosuly this has to go. So far I've tried various shades of blue, green and brown/red, all with negative effects. From my knowledge I've read that you pick your colors based on the colors of your logo. What happens if you logo has no colors? The whole different shades of gray didn't work as you can see. I'm starting to think I could start my own blog about the pit falls of a novice web designer/wannabe.
here a website for color
colourlovers.com
but i love your website, its absolutely striking! congrats!
Hey socialtalker, thanks for
Hey socialtalker, thanks for the link and the compliment. Although the site has been changed a lot in design with suggestions provided by others in this thread. it's amazing what some fresh eyes can do.
Hey Walker, since we're all
Hey Walker, since we're all offering our deeper insights into the world of colours here, here's my 2 cts. First of all, the body of your home page is very much black-and-white, which is OK, except when there are better possibilities. The pitchblack title line and the line below every article are, well, not too pretty. Why don't you try a smoother, softer colour combination? Try some kind of grey letters on white, for instance, to mark the difference with the actual text, or some small unobtrusive "marker" graphic at the beginnning of the title?
Second, the logo is different now, not nazi-like anymore, which is good too. But why don't you simply chop off the FP-PF part? It makes the logo very "heavy" and wide, for no apparent reason. Just the name of the site, maybe even a bit smaller, would do perfectly.
The worst thing, I felt, is the top right block ("Start your (whatever) today"). It may be due to the settings of my monitor, but I really had to study the letters to find out what they said. The very slim "legs" of the letters drown in the background. Why not keep it simple? Simple is Always better...
The marquee, hmm, well, I would never use it, because I dislike anything moving on a page, and more importantly because it's very tiring for ones eyes, but I suppose I'm oversensitive to that. Anyway, if at all you use it, I would limit it to the front page and disable it on all other pages. I feel a marquee could be useful for really Really important and Very New stuff, say for instance that you captured Osama B.L. in your basement just 5 minutes ago, but not for messages from Aug. 17, more than a week ago.
Modul how did you know Osoma
Modul how did you know Osoma was in my basement? As for the logo part. My reasoning is that it's for the purpose of branding. Imagine Nike without the swoosh. Yeah I know this is different but I feel it's a important part of marketing my site and having a unique look. However I know what you mean, as wide borders arn't to pretty. But with the insertion of the new logo I managed to widen the contents of the page my just under 100px. I guess the logo to me is like the kid know one seems to like but yet you have to because he's your son.
I agree the sign up image has to change as the text it hard to read. I think someone else stated their dislike for the marquee, or maybe it was you. Like everything in life its a work in progress. I actually like it for my theme. It's a writing/news community and those tickers are found every where you look... CNN, FoxNews to name a few. although thats TV and this is the internet. I just felt it was a nice touch.
As for the colors. I agree with you. I actually looking into it now. I tried a few combos but haven't gotten the "thats it" feeling yet. I was leaning towards a blue and green mixture. Or keep the black and white and just add some color here and there. The main thing I'm having troubles with, as you pointed out was the teasers are ugly to say the least. And the same goes for the title lines of the page.
I can't say enough about how supportive this forum has been in helping me get my feet wet with web design. Nothing like a good challenge. I think the best thing to do considering my color disabilities, is to try out a few different combinations and read the feedback.
With regard to the colours,
With regard to the colours, I'd suggest you use Firefox and the indispensable Firebug plugin. You can change your css in realtime, without having to upload anything, which is makes working on things like colours ever so comfortable.
I'd have to agree with some
I'd have to agree with some of the other posters that the sites look is a tad on the harsh side, I want to be relaxed when reading the news and sites like latimes.com neutral grays and blues do it for me.
Not supporting IE6 is poor business decision, given the effort required to support IE6 would be minimal. If I were using IE6 and I visited your site I would be out of there, which is probably why your IE6 traffic is so low.
News is hellishly competitive market my friend, I manage two very active news sites and we publish around 150 stories a day between them. Both sites are aggregated by Google News so that's my big tip of the day, if you can get into Google news, traffic will go through the roof...
You are also promoting a sort of citizen journalism thing, well, that's hard graft (been there, done that), frankly we pay writers to produce most of the content, we've found it very hard to compete with Now Public and the like due to not being able (due to budget constraints) to give authors the cool user tools those sites can offer. Its costly to pay writers but we have an ROI so as a business model it works.
Pimp your Drupal 8 Toolbar - make it badass.
Adaptivetheme - theming system for people who don't code.
Hey jmburnz, Thanks for the
Hey jmburnz, Thanks for the tips. Although my site isn't really about news. But I guess the theme is. I''t more of a writers community aimed at people who don't really want to have their own blog. But I guess in a way that can be seen as a watered down generalized news site. It's not aimed at professional type writers specifically because of the reasons you already stated. But with that being said I am the type of person with thinks, "Hey if you can do it, why can't I." And in all honesty with the proper plan almost anything can work. And your right about the IE6 thing. I'm afraid I've put it on the back burner as I have other issues to deal with as you can see about the generalized look and feel of the site.
Great job
I like it, much better than my first attempt.
keep up the great work,
Karl
Training in Leicestershire and throughout the East Midlands, UK
Spread Betting Community
New color scheme added
First off thanks Karlcw. I changed the layout and colors of the teasers. I put it up to see what people think. I do think it's a vast improvement from before I started this thread. However I'm still open to suggestions if anyone has them. I do realize the page titles are still ugly, but I'm working on it. I feel the users profile has by far been the greatest improvement. If know one can point out any major errors I have made with choosing these colors I'll go ahead and finish the CSS.
done?
Well I think I'm done... But who knows. I thought I was done last time and allot of people pointed out major newbie mistakes I made. Anyways I'd like to thank all of you who helped me out with your suggestions as I feel it made the site 100% better. Thanks again.
Difference Between Wordpress & Drupal
I created a wordpress site called Donate Real Estate What's the difference between wordpress and drupal. I'm concerned that I can't do php with wordpress. Is this a valid worry?
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Wordpress was born a blogging tool Drupal was born a framework with which you can build a blogging tool. As well as most other tools you want to build.
I don't understand what you mean by "can't do php in wordpress" though. Wordpress is a php script itself.
using the search produces similar discussions = http://drupal.org/search/node/wordpress+drupal
If you mean, "can you paste
If you mean, "can you paste PHP code into a WP post or sidebar widget"? By default you can't - you need a plugin - Google it, there's a few around.
Need help with IE?
Learn basic XHTML and CSS first.
Get smart with web specs.
Pimp your Drupal 8 Toolbar - make it badass.
Adaptivetheme - theming system for people who don't code.
If your concerned about the
If your concerned about the flexibility of wordpress, should you not ask this question in the wordpress forums?
site2 - October 9, 2008 - 17:35-reply
Wordpress is NOT a full blown .CMS .Drupal is. Period-Wanna just 'blog' go wordpress