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3 June 2010, 1:32 am
WildmanSC

Take a look

Hi, im mainly known as WildmanSC and im from South Carolina. I have had my site up for almost a year now and would like to know if anyone has any suggestions or would just like to pick it apart? I am by no means a professional at this but a friend kinda showed me a path to take with this. So if ya don't mind, here it is http://www.wildmanspoker.com I plan to become an active member here and hope to get a seal of approval in due time.
3 June 2010, 10:13 am
JuliaS

Hi Wildman,

Welcome to GPWA. Overall I would say your site is off to a good start. :)

Positives:

-you add a fair bit of personal information and opinion, which in the long run will help you to foster loyalty with your site visitors. I think it's great and would keep it up, adding personality to your site reviews and such.

-the general layout and color scheme is clean and easy to read

-you do a good job of incorporating social media (Twitter, YouTube) onto the site, but I would set those pages to open in new tabs

Recommendations:

-I'd work on adding more content. At the moment the home page seems a little banner-heavy. Things like industry news stories, more site reviews, upcoming events, etc.

-I would personally change the layout to have the content in the center column, makes it easier to focus upon, but that's just my personal opinion

Cheers,
3 June 2010, 11:21 am
WildmanSC

Thanks for your input Julia. Doin articles on upcoming promotions has been an idea that I have had but have not took it on because of forgetfulness. Will try to make it better from your thoughts on it.

Thanks again!
3 June 2010, 3:27 pm
Steve9

Hi Wildman,

Overall, I like your site. It's clean and visually it's easy to read.

One small thing that confused me was the link to the forum at the top to MyPokerBlues.com? Is that your site as well?

My question is what is the main thing you want people to do when they get to your site? Do you want them to subscribe? Click on the ads? Follow your blog?

Personally, I'm always turned off when I see a lot of ads. I don't mind a few, but whenever a start seeing a lot of ads it makes me trust the author less. It's a balance between making money and trust. I think you might do better to have less graphic ads on your site but to incorporate the affiliate links into your content more. Just my thoughts.

Steve
3 June 2010, 4:07 pm
WildmanSC

Thanks for the input steve. The forum link is to a forum of a associate of mine. That is where I have my most active parts in forums and to help him out with traffic. I do agree with you about the ads. Will be taking all of this information in from everyone that responds. I will be making changes over time after this thread becomes dead.
3 June 2010, 8:06 pm
nico84

I think its a solid site. Something is wrong with the banner on the right side. I really like it but there is something that I dont like to much, but I dont know what... berhaps is too much banners.... In any case you are working good, contrats!
6 June 2010, 6:13 pm
clearlyportals

Hi WildmanSC,

Just a couple of suggestions if I may?

1) I would suggest having a top 10 list perhaps? Couldn't see one.

2) I would also suggest opening twitter etc. in a new window (external sites), I would however open the forum in the same site, or try and have your main menu on the forum page, so it feels like they are still on the same site?

3) Also I think you could work on the call to actions for your reviews. Have a 'Play Now' button/link. There doesn't seem to be any link to the site, other than the actual image, which doesn't say click here/play now.

4) Link structure. Your reviews seem to be blog posts with dates in the urls: 2010/01/pokerstars-review.html. for Googles sake, i'd make these pages with a url such as:

review/pokerstars.html

or even have it top level:

pokerstars.html

Having the dates in it would suggest its not a timeless article, not sure this is the right URL structure here. It wouldn't be too hard to change, and you could setup a .htaccess redirect in case those pages are already indexed (this will redirect search engines and visitors to the new page and pass on page rank)

Cheers
15 June 2010, 2:40 pm
WildmanSC

Thank you everyone on the comments. Hopefully I will be able to do some of the things that have been suggested soon. I did get the blank spot corrected on my site. Again, Thank You!
17 June 2010, 4:48 pm
WorldRefer

Wildman's poker site

Hey Damien

I like you site, you are really off to a great start. What I think you might want too add is some content on the home page. Something that defines what makes "Wildman's Poker" unique or a positioning paragraph. Seems that too many affiliates just start selling the poker rooms with reviews etc right away. I think you need to add something about yourself or your site. For example, a "Welcome to Wildman's poker room where we play poker, love poker and want to bring poker player to the best rooms on the internet. We are wild about poker!" etc. Something like that, you're creative.

Then add some colorful copy about yourself, who you are, places you play. Why you like poker. That is so any viewer that comes to you site gets an idea of who you are. You say it in the about us section, but I think you should give the viewer a taste of why they are spending time on your site.

I also think your logo needs some work. You have a cool name but your typesetting and logo design does not say "Wildman's poker." I think you could give it some color and personality like for example, showing a Wildman character holding cards. Not just blue, but a variety of color or theme. Doesn't have to be too overdone but maybe just something that says more Wildman! Give it some sizzle.

Even affiliates can build unique "brands" that makes them stand out from the rest.

Hope this helps.

Robert at WorldRefer.com

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17 June 2010, 5:08 pm
WildmanSC

Thanks Robert. That idea's of yours are great. The work on the website has been slow and painful. I hope I can incorperate some, if not all of your ideas into my site. I can see it in my head the way I want it to look, but getting it to look like that is the hard part. So hopefully I will be able to do this at some point in the near future.

Thanks,

Damien
18 June 2010, 10:08 am
Anthony

Welcome to GPWA!
18 June 2010, 11:04 am
WorldRefer

Robert at World Refer

Anthony,

Thanks for the warm welcome to GPWA!

I hope I can keep helping more affiliates improve their sites with advice and will enjoy working with everyone at GPWA. Steven at GPWA has been a big help getting us going and we really appreciate that!

I've got lots of branding and marketing experience in this industry and I hope I can use that to help all the affiliates/members build their sites into great brands.

If anyone needs anything, please do not hesitate to ask

Cheers,
Robert

WorldRefer