Review: TheAmericanVoters.com

[The American Voters]

Hello everyone! I have started a new website and would like to invite everyone here to check it out

http://www.TheAmericanVoters.com/

The American Voters was created to be THE place to discuss US Politics, upcoming elections, and issues of the day. (Members from other countries are also welcome and as the site grows additional sub forums for other countries will be added.)

The Choice Is Yours!

We live in a country (the USA) where you have the right to vote for what you believe in. By simply checking a little box or pulling a lever you can directly influence the outcome of how the leaders of our country are chosen. Either step up and get involved, or sit on the sidelines and let your life be dictated for you.

You are all invited to check out The American Voters at TheAmericanVoters.com/forums and the portal/homepage at TheAmericanVoters.com

Candidate Profiles

Each profile contains the candidates opinions on important topics:

• War
• Abortion
• Budget & Economy
• And many more!

To view a list of all candidates:

theamericanvoters.com/candidates.php

Regardless of the candidate, you will always see the list of candidates on the left. All candidates are equipped with a Digg feature (more social bookmarking links coming). Each candidate has a photo, link to their official campaign site, and a link to the discussion post in the forum.

*note - content is being added to give more complete platforms and profiles.

Articles

Also we have added an Articles section where members will be able to contribute and add relevant articles . Most recent article is posted at theamericanvoters.com/articles.php

We are currently looking to add writers and people that want to post articles on their views. Each article will have a corresponding discussion thread for posting of comments.

President Bio

Finally, we have added additional pages with info on all past Presidents, making the site a full and complete resource, on top of just being a basic "message board"

theamericanvoters.com/presidents.php

Thanks for checking out The American Voters at TheAmericanVoters.com/forums

[navyfalcon]

The American Voters
I think you have an outstanding site
great work
I believe you have or will achieve what you expect
hope this helps
falcon

[The American Voters]

Originally Posted by navyfalcon

The American Voters
I think you have an outstanding site
great work
I believe you have or will achieve what you expect
hope this helps
falcon

Thank you very much! We worked extremely hard and fast in getting this up very quickly, 3 days to complete (not bad IMO)

[kimberlybarryd]

If you want people to come to the site and stay a better design is needed. Tables yuk. 11 errors on html and 8 css.

[mariuskl]

Looks nice. Based on american colours only,a clean design. Just one thing, that google commercial is a little bit strage put there. Put on the bottom of the site or on sides..

[The American Voters]

Originally Posted by kimberlybarryd

If you want people to come to the site and stay a better design is needed. Tables yuk. 11 errors on html and 8 css.

I understand about the errors and have been working to get that fixed, the problem is the default software has more errors in it than my custom design for it.

And how many people do you know who just go to a website look up the errors on a page? Maybe some people here but the average user is not going to go that site to check for errors.

Thank you for your review.

[Musica]

The empty space between the header and the rest of the content looks out of place

[The American Voters]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean? Move the google ad so it's touching the top? I had it like that way and thought it looked worse.

[navyfalcon]

You have ads both top and bottom of the page, but they don't seem obtrusive, and if changed they probably won't have the effect you desire (you have to pay for the web page somehow). My advice, don't change them, or if you do, check to see if they get better results.
My two cents
falcon

[navyfalcon]

If you want people to come to the site and stay a better design is needed. Tables yuk. 11 errors on html and 8 css.
-
lines 529 - 532 - you close elements that are not open
529 </td>
530 </tr>
531 </table>
532 </div>
-
used firefox firebug to validate (it gives line numbers and suggested correction - and it is free)
- to use css tabless layout does not give better design - only makes it easier to maintain with external style sheets.
-

hope this helps
falcon

[cmswebsiteservices]

You are losing a lot of real estate space at the top. Nothing really grabs my attention and then I see the Google Adsense which displays an ad for investing in China. I understand that you need to monetize the site, but I'd try to put more content, before the Google adsense. Or at least try to get the China ad to stop displaying as a lot of people will instantly hit the back button if they see your site and then see that type of ad.

Also I have to scroll down before I can read what your site is about, many people will click back just because of this.

[John Scott]

I like it. Basic, clean design. Quality of discussion seems very good.

[The American Voters]

Originally Posted by navyfalcon

If you want people to come to the site and stay a better design is needed. Tables yuk. 11 errors on html and 8 css.
-
lines 529 - 532 - you close elements that are not open
529 </td>
530 </tr>
531 </table>
532 </div>
-
used firefox firebug to validate (it gives line numbers and suggested correction - and it is free)
- to use css tabless layout does not give better design - only makes it easier to maintain with external style sheets.
-

hope this helps
falcon

I will work on that and get it fixed.

Originally Posted by cmswebsiteservices

You are losing a lot of real estate space at the top. Nothing really grabs my attention and then I see the Google Adsense which displays an ad for investing in China. I understand that you need to monetize the site, but I'd try to put more content, before the Google adsense. Or at least try to get the China ad to stop displaying as a lot of people will instantly hit the back button if they see your site and then see that type of ad.

Also I have to scroll down before I can read what your site is about, many people will click back just because of this.

I will target my areas a little better to prevent ads like that from showing up.

Originally Posted by John Scott

I like it. Basic, clean design. Quality of discussion seems very good.

Thanks for the kind words.

[The American Voters]

We have added a few modifications.

First - Guest see a custom "guest message" that is an attractive image, allowing for search engines to spider and access the key words on the page and raise ranking of the site. The site has only been officially live for a few weeks and already almost 30% of our members are finding us via search engines. Guest Image looks like this.



We have also set it up so certain user groups user names will have different colors as you can see in the image below:



Next, we have completely optimized the site with a combination of Openads, google ads, etc. Additionaly we have created different views for registered members vs. guests. Unregistered Guests see additional ads that they can eliminate by simply registering for the forums.



Finally, as also shown above we have added quick links to all social networking sites like Digg, Slashdot, etc for every thread, article, candidate profile, and past president profile.

[navyfalcon]

Suggestion:
under candidate profiles, what about voting record on the issues and financial investments (polaticians do not vote against their money)
when running for office they have to make a financial statement or disclosure
hope this helps
falcon

[8everything]

The colorscheme works with your site's topic. I like how you incorporated the adsense ad into your site, they didn't look like ads at first

[The American Voters]

Originally Posted by navyfalcon

Suggestion:
under candidate profiles, what about voting record on the issues and financial investments (polaticians do not vote against their money)
when running for office they have to make a financial statement or disclosure
hope this helps
falcon

That is something we are going to be adding. It took a lot of research and time to get just general information up but I fully agree, the more information the better.

Originally Posted by 8everything

The colorscheme works with your site's topic. I like how you incorporated the adsense ad into your site, they didn't look like ads at first

LOL... thanks for the kind words.

[conqb]

Your site is clean and good designed but logo.gif size is very big (<65 Bb). I think this file size should be less than 20 Kb.