please review my new wordpress sites

[itsblitz]

hi, would you lovely people take a few minutes out and have a look at my 2 new sites, i would love some feedback, criticism and a point in the right direction if you would. To give you some background, im a novice in website design, ftp and building, i started a site on a free weebly account in january and then about 2 weeks ago signed up to a free hosting account and installed wordpress.org and put up 2 sites, i have been working hard on design, layout, seo plugins and php file to hide my links, the content is thin at the moment but it will get there, please let me know your thoughts
The sites are
http://www.newcasinobonuses.co.uk/
http://www.slotcheatsguide.com/ (alot of you will not agree with the content on this site)

[tommydanger]

Hi Itsblitz,

I took a quick peek at your bonus page, this are some of my remarks:
- first impression is that site has nice amount of content, very good
- for me white text on black background doesn't work to well
- good use of h1 and h2 tags
- maybe you can optimize internal linking a bit more
- overall text is a bit small and there is not always great focus of the website, different tables and banners draw attention, I prefer to focus user attention a bit more but it's up to you of course.
- because your site focuses on "newest bonuses" I would include dates more into the page, just in march 16 2011, new bonus... etc.

Good job and good luck!

[davenewgates]

I suggest you do redisigning of both sites, it is packed with the contents which is good but wouldn't it be better to see impressive design as well?

[Gabriel_LCP]

Hey Itsblitz!

I have to agree with tommydanger there about the content, it does seem you have good amount of info! I like also that you separate your Casinos by software which is good because a lot of people like sticking to their favorite type of software, so they'll be able to find what they want quickly! You offer Live Dealer Casinos which in my obvious opinion is a great way to go and broaden your viewers options!

About the white font mixed in with the black background(site#1), I don't think it should be a problem, it looks pretty good in my taste!

Overall I think your site looks awesome! You are doing a great job!

[itsblitz]

thank you for your comments so far.
#the background - iv grown so fond of the light text on dark background because im looking at it for so many hours but i see what your saying tommy, im not fond of sites with black as the background colour, i may change this..
#Dates - absoloutly - this is a wordpress theme that comes with date stamps, i turned them off to make it feel less bloggy but your totally right, im turning them back on, cheers tommy.
thank you for your kind words gabriel
Dave what is it about the design you dont like? specifics would be a great help, different theme, style, nav layout, header images?
thank you all so far

[davemerry]

Hi itsblitz!

Congrats on relaunching both the sites, your going through the process that I went through about 2 years ago - trust me, it is all worth it! Some feedback below:

1. You are targeting casino players, are you sure that the majority of these are really sure who Microgaming, RTG etc. are?

Some people include them in their websites and have the option to view just their casinos, which is fine, but I think you are putting way to much emphasis on them by including the categories in the main navigation. I think the average casino player may get a little bit confused. I would section it of into things like 'no deposit bonuses', 'reload bonuses' - you know the rest

Maybe this wouldn't apply to slot cheats guide, as it makes sense this is broken up into casino groups.

2. You need to ensure the call to action buttons stand out, for example the play now links in the table. This is one of the main goals for your site, so why are they less visible than the other columns? These need to be prominent and invite the user to click on them.

3. This is more targeted at slots cheat guide, rather than new casino bonuses. There is way to much white on the page and the break lines are not clear enough, consequently I think that the user will struggle to work out what is where and not be able to clearly navigate around the site.

Add some colour in, remember visitors are looking forward to playing some casino games - your site should be hyping them up and getting them in the mood to deposit some serious money

Without a doubt though, the blog post on the Castle bonus is the best (joke ).

Speak soon, feel free to shoot me an email if you need any help - you are on the right track!

Cheers,
Dave

[itsblitz]

thanks dave, im gonna stick with software categorys i think, for me its one of the main things i do when im looking for new casinos or bonuses to narrow down my search. Definately need a little button graphic of somekind for the 'PLAY NOW' 'GO' to catch the players eye. I need to tweak my colours on both sites as a few of you have pointed out and im glad you liked the castle review, im trying to catch searchs for "sexy live dealers" and so on lol, what software does castle run on dave, i had a look on site but couldnt see or i didnt look hard enough?

[davemerry]

thanks dave, im gonna stick with software categorys i think, for me its one of the main things i do when im looking for new casinos or bonuses to narrow down my search. Definately need a little button graphic of somekind for the 'PLAY NOW' 'GO' to catch the players eye. I need to tweak my colours on both sites as a few of you have pointed out and im glad you liked the castle review, im trying to catch searchs for "sexy live dealers" and so on lol, what software does castle run on dave, i had a look on site but couldnt see or i didnt look hard enough?

Good stuff, always happy to help!

We run on Visionary iGaming software, who specialise in live games - the same guys who power Celtic and Fairway Casino.

Haha, we run a few affilaite sites in the live casino niche and you would be suprised how much traffic is available for queries like 'sexy live dealers', although not sure how well it converts I have hundreds of images from a photo shoot when we started up, if you ever need any for promotional materials don't hesitate to shoot me a PM/email.

Best,
Dave

[wagerjunction]

Hi itsblitz!

For obvious reason I will be restricting my comments to your New Casino Bonuses site

I have noted that you are mainly focusing on No deposit bonuses and Welcome Bonuses. Have you though of adding information about other bonuses that the casinos offer?

What I mean to say is that casinos do not stop at welcome bonuses but continue rewarding players with weekly/montly bonuses etc. I do believe players need to know what they can expect to get in the long run if they choose to set up an account at a particular casino. This would be a good thing to you too if you are on a lifetime revenue comm basis.

Second thing: I can see that you have not really provided much info about the various casinos you feature - except for the bonus part. I don't know if its part of your future projects but a little review of the various casinos would not hurt.

Last suggestion though is that maybe you could think of displaying the banners a little here and there. All of them flashing various messages right on top of each other in a secluded corner looks disorienting to me.

Other than that I think the site looks good. I personally appreciate the light font on a dark background, but that's just me

[itsblitz]

good advice, thank you amy..the banners are to close togeather, i will either use static non flash banners if they are available or spread them out. longer more detailed reviews are on the way, i am focusing at the moment on getting the bonus info up to get people to the casino, the ongoing promotion details are a very good idea , thank you, and im now really in two minds wether to change the colour scheme as half of you like it and the other half are not keen...hmm decisions
thanks again, keep um comin, its all helping

[itsblitz]

hbi again, i have taking the above advice you good people have given me and i have implemented changes to newcasinobonus.co.uk
i have changed the nav layout, pages, category and post info on the left and banner and tables on the right, content in the middle
I have stuck with the dark background, i just like it.
I have added call to action buttons on the tables
let me know what you think please
http://www.newcasinobonuses.co.uk/

cheers

[davemerry]

Defo an improvement! I would say though that the buttons still don't seem clear enough - they need to boom out at the user, whereas at the moment they are still less prominent than the software category to the left of it.

Just my personal opinion though, I like to make my call to actions strong, although not obtrusive - If a user is looking to click through to a casino they certainly will know where to click through without thinking twice on my sites then again, a lot of really successful affiliates don't have them, test it out

[wagerjunction]

Looking very good indeed. Navigation on the left hand side is a nice touch.

And I appreciate the fact that you decided to stick to the dark background since I liked it from the start

[Luly]

I am also a novice in web design so I was curious to check out your sites. I think you've done a great job.

I have only one thing to suggest: the dark red color used in combination with black for "New Casino Bonuses" makes the text really difficult to read so I would change that red with a brighter color to accentuate the contrast.

The rest looks great so keep up the good work!

Luly

[itsblitz]

yep the dark head text is hard to read, i can see that now, thank you. Its hard to customise the head text with this wordpress theme, i think i will have to set it as a head image with alt text, for now i have set the head text to a light grey and i think it stands out better..these comments are really helpfull, when your looking at a site for hours upon hours you dont pick up these little things that are actually really important things, soo thank you for your comments its all really helpful to me..luly what are binary options trading platforms??? pm me..

[jeanchase69]

I like the content of both of those sites, I think they're pretty slick in design.

[casinochipsj]

When clicking on a tab like Playtech you should see something about Playtech show up. Instead it is always further down and it is tough to tell if the page updated or not. The h2 text appears to be the same for all pages as well.

[girlpoker]

wow cool.
The designs of both sites are knowledgeable.

[Niti Nielsen]

Hi itsblitz!

The sites are looking great! A few suggestions/comments;


1) Since you have RTG, Microgaming and Playtech both at the top navigation and on the left hand side, I would suggest keeping it in the left handside and replacing the top with the following categories Top 10 Casinos, Deposit Casinos, No deposit Casinos.

2) The content is great and informative on both sites.

3) Really like the colours of both the sites.

[itsblitz]

Hi itsblitz!



Since you have RTG, Microgaming and Playtech both at the top navigation and on the left hand side, I would suggest keeping it in the left handside and replacing the top with the following categories Top 10 Casinos, Deposit Casinos, No deposit Casinos.

thats a really good point, thank you, will do