Please comment on my new Drupal project WWW.DFWNORTHWEST.COM
Drupal Version = 6.x
URL = http://www.dfwnorthwest.com/
Theme = Aquia Marina
Overall purpose of website = Business directory for northwest region of the Dallas / Fort Worth metroplex
The idea behind the website is to give local businesses a way to have a place on the web. Sometimes the local "Joes Sandwhich Shop" doesnt show up in the major online business directories, or the listed phone number is out of date. Business users, once registered, can create content - business pages, coupons and sales flyers. The coupons will be displayed in a view that lets visitors select an individual coupon and print it out for use. Drupal allows me to build on a good code base that already includes role-based user management, themes and content management. In the past, I have spent days and weeks just on user management. The most time consuming part of this project was determining what features to provide. Some of these features Im still working on.
I originally started this as a D5.x project, but moved it to D6 to take advantage of the new View features.
Planned features include:
- Youtube videos for howto/faq area, welcome message, and intro for business uers
- Blog contributors that are local to the area
- Expanded coupon area
- Newsletter option for visitors that will include coupons from local business users.
Your comments welcome.
looks nice and clean
Well it looks nice and clean, loads relatively fast.
I was going to say that you needed something to engage your visitors, make them look around. I did however see your "comming soon" notice , so once that stuff is up I think it will be much better.
I ran y-slow on it and its pretty good there , but you would probable benefit from the "CSS Gzip" module , I've been trying to optimize mysite and it helped me so I thought I'd mention it.
Anyway good luck.
Good start
You're off to a good start. You might want to consider customizing your theme to match your logo, though. Acquia Marina is pretty but isn't what comes to mind when I think of Texas. (Though I'm from Wisconsin, so what do I know? ;)
Good luck with getting businesses to add listings. My area directory has been around for two years and I have only had a handful add their own. Once my rebuild is complete, I plan to do some massive data entry to get listings in. I hate to be a downer, but be prepared for the possibility that free isn't good enough and you actually need to do it for them.
Michelle
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I'm looking for folks to help me out by posting in my Coulee Region forums. You don't need to live in the area; there's plenty of general forums. But please, no Drupal support questions. :)
Have since changed the theme
Have since changed the theme to using a modified version of the PlainGrail theme
http://drupal.org/project/plaingrail
Please check out www.dfwnorthwest.com again and let me know what you think.
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Michelle is right about local businesses. I also offer free business listings to the local crowd on buckeyelake.org. They just don't see any value in the internet. Many people have a cell phone or blackberry and they think they are using all that technology has to offer. Many of them still don't use a computer or have the old antique dial up connections, but at the same time they spend huge money on cable tv. The local businesses do spend $money weekly to be in the freely distributed local ad paper, which is a rag in terms of a newspaper(maybe 4 pages at best). The people that are listed on the website have befitted from additional customers.
I have been adding a handful of businesses every month to keep the directory growing.
I have to say that my small business website has brought lots of work in from people that would never have found my shop. It only took 2 weeks for my canvas shop website to bring in a 1600 dollar job.
There are small businesses in my area that still think they don't need a website, but when they finally have me put one up for them, you can't take it way because they have made money from it. I guess you just have to drag them kicking and screaming to the bank to receive some found money. Makes no sense to me.
I started my community site a year ago, still thinking that America is just not using the internet at even half it's capacity or usefulness. I was and still am wondering if I am just wasting my time. But the way I see it, if the community receives some benefit, then that's ok. The other 80% of Americans might wake up to the internet some day. I hope....(wishful thinking)
@bitshift, I enjoyed the website, good job.