Ok, tell me what you think of my new site!

[sunfunbill]

Well I don't have it even 1/4 done yet. But since it's a big-ass site it still has a lot. This is my very first adult project of any kind. I've never even made one gallery, free site or anything.

I am basically using WP to make a full, complete community site. The pages I still need to add are:
Forum
chat room
movie theater
many more site reviews
many more member picture galleries

A "free porn" page with lots of galleries, pics of the day and so on.

poll page
game page
more store pages

I have some very cool ideas as to what I am going to add in the picture galleries pages.

So, I have a folder all ready for all your input and suggestions. Look it all over and let me know what I need to change. I hate how the pages and categories take so much space, but what can I do?

Let me know what you think of the reviews, got many more to do. Yes, the banner sucks I know. I can't make any graphics worth a damn. I'll get to it sometime.

SO here it is, great name I think!

crossdresserplayground

[Ledrak]

Finally, I get to take a peak at what all the commotion has been about.

Let me first say that I do like the blog. I think you've done a great job; especially for a 1st time out the box. BUT, I just wish it was more organized. I found it a hard to navigate, and as you read and go down the front page everything just seems kind of jumbled together. I think having both the pages and category navbars just confused me even more.

I think the review write-ups were good, but I would’ve liked to see pics and better graphics to accompany the reviews. For example, you talk about the layout in the reviews, so why not give a screenshot of the actual layout so we can get a better feel of what you’re talking about, etc? Giving a panty rating is fine, but the graphics you chose for the panties I think are not good. It looks like a banner and not icons that you would use as rating symbols, plus it makes you have to really look for the rating cause it doesn’t jump out at you like it should, IMO.

And perhaps you should think about doing a breakdown score to show why you gave a 5 panty rating… for example: design, content, ease of navigation, etc. That way every site doesn’t have a 5 rating and appear equal in everything, cause that’s how it looks right now.

Also, I didn’t realize the reviews were separated into categories until I clicked the CD & transvestite review (which I originally thought was the site you were reviewing) for the 2nd time, and ended up with 4 more choices. This is an example of what I was talking about earlier with the difficulty of navigation. Now it seems like the blog is about a number of niches (TV, ladyboys, CD’s, etc.) all rolled into 1. Again, I’m just confused. But I do like the blog. Hopefully you can make it easier for me to understand and find my way around.

[sunfunbill]

Thanks for the input Ledrak. Yes, when you start adding so damn many pages it's hard to keep it clean. I don't really know how to make it any better.

I mean, I have a list of pages, how can I get it any more organized? The catagories add to the mess, maybe I should divide the pages and catagories with a small banner?

As to the reviews, I guess I should put something like "click here to see all the crossdresser site reviews" and so on over each button. I agree, the panty graphic sucks, I'll change it.

Thanks for looking at it, I'll tweak it!!

[Ledrak]

I think a different setup would help. It may even be the blogging program you're using that's the issue. Maybe if you could do some more graphic work and make things look more like tables, especially the navigation sections, I think that would help a lot.

I'd try to get things more separated and sectioned off from one another. Use additional background colors and bold headers for the nav sections. And I'd re-define the titles in both the pages and post sections. For ex: you have CD beauty tips and CD makeup tips, which to me is just confusing. Honestly, if it was me I'd probably scrap the blog post nav section all together and find another way to do that where it's not so confusing with the main navigation.

[Ledrak]

Also, that warning/disclaimer box on the top left side of the page just seems out of place. I'd find a better place for it or just scrap it all together.

[sunfunbill]

For ex: you have CD beauty tips and CD makeup tips, which to me is just confusing.

That's weird, I changed those a long time ago to crossdresser, not cd. Sounds like somehow your seeing an old version of it?

I will try to get the navigation to look better. I want to keep the blog categories cause that is how they can find the shemale porn post, ladyboy post and so on.

I would put them on the right, but on pages the right bar is gone. I will see what I can do. Thanks!

[Hammer]

I don't have time to give it a thorough look right now but I agree with everything Ledrak said. For the panty score just make a graphic of a pair of panties and repeat it instead of using several different pics. You want it to have the appearance of a star rating.

The navigation part is simple and I do agree that right now it just looks like a blog and not a large community site. I suggest a main page that looks nothing like a blog page with graphics and links to all of the sections of the site. Then, on every page of the site, just put a horizontal navigation bar just below the header with links to the main sections of the site. On the main page you could have a featured article of the day, maybe an RSS news feed if you can find one with appropriate content, etc.

This isn't a perfect example but you might get some ideas from this community site with many sections. http://www.collegehumor.com/

[sunfunbill]

Thanks for taking a quick look at it Hammer. Yes a horizontal navigation is going to have to be what I need. Hell I still have 6 to 8 more pages to add, with sub pages under those!

The static front page sounds good too. Then I'll have a warning at the top and none on the other pages.

Damn, work work! But, I got another sale today too!!!!

Thanks, everyone keep telling me what you think!

[Cozy Monica]

Hey Bill, that's a HUGE site you have there!

I have a few suggestions. First, the items that you list in your menu, you should capitalize the main words.

For instance, the page titled "Crossdresser makeup tips" should be "Crossdresser Makeup Tips".

That's just nitpicky, but it will make things look cleaner.

Under "Blog Post", I would try to title things in a way that makes them look tidier. Perhaps instead of the word "crossdresser" you could use "CD" a few times?

I know you are trying to get keywords, but I think it's more important to have a legible site with a clean design first.

I like the menu system you are using under "Pages", how clicking on one gives you a little list below it. It looks really good.

[odysseus]

Hey Bill, congrats on the new sale! I think that says something for the work you've put into the site.

Everyone else has already covered most of the input I'd have to offer, and provided good solutions. I do think that while it appears a bit cluttered in the sidebars, it's not as busy as your non-adult blog. I like how you made your banners so that the pics stand out, but they don't look like banners necessarily. Having a ton of animated banners in your sidebars could have made it look really cluttered.

One thing I don't quite understand is in your friends section, you have anchor text saying "shopping mall" and it links to yahoo. It's probably left over from a test you were doing at some point, and forgot to correct, I figure.

As for cleaning up the look of the sidebars, there are a few things I could recommend.

One, if you decided you only wanted to show your warning in the sidebar on a specific page, like the home page, then you can probably achieve that with a couple lines of PHP.

Two, to clean up the clutter and section things off a little like Ledrak mentioned, you could adjust the css so that your sidebar headings stand out a little more. Or, with your pages section for instance, you could put a thin, light border around it with CSS. Doing the same for the posts section, friends section, etc. may be an option. Or you may want to change the categories (I think that's your posts section) to a drop down list. If you do this, it may look nice to have it in a different sidebar than the pages list. Doing it that way may also get another ad in your left sidebar to show above the fold, especially on pages that don't show your warning message (should you choose to remove it in places). I think that one of the strong points in your non adult blog is how you have the different types of navigation split between the two sidebars.

I really have to second what Monica said about the capital letters. I think that would look nicer. You may even want to consider tweaking your theme so that it doesn't show the post count within each category. For instance, your crossdresser humor link looks like this:

crossdresser humor
(3)

Since the (3) doesn't even fit on the same line as the text, it looks less tidy than it could. Capitalize it like Monica said, and you'll probably look much better. Now, if you really wanted to be anal about that kind of thing, you could read up and obsess over things like widow words.

Anyway, nice to see you've got that thing up and getting a litte traffic.

[sunfunbill]

Thank you both Monica and odysseus! Yes I guess I will go and clean up my words in the menu, shorten stuff and capitalize things.

But, I think I need to do what Hammer said, and use a top nav menu. I will have about 10 more pages, the sidebar will look like crap then.

I will have to use a several tier tab thing, because even the top menu will be full.

As for the yahoo thing, I just threw that in there to make some links in it. I intend to fill that link list up fast with quality trades.

In fact if you have a good match and a good blog or site let me know. I have no traffic now but long term I expect to be huge. Yes I'm that sure of this site!

Thanks again all, back to work now!

[odysseus]

Originally posted by sunfunbill
Thank you both Monica and odysseus! Yes I guess I will go and clean up my words in the menu, shorten stuff and capitalize things.

I don't want to over complicate things, but if you are worried about SEO, then be aware that you can modify the category slug and such. Example, your text could say CD Porn, but your category slug could say "crossdresser-transvestite-porn", "cross-dresser-porn" or whatever you want to use for your URL structure and the slug is what the permalink uses in the URLs depending on how you have permalinks set up.

[sunfunbill]

Point taken, thanks!

[Badabing]

Dang...you've got everything but the kitchen sink on that site Bill.

[Hammer]

You have a lot in that site Bill but one thing you have way too much of is banner ads. Yikes! Scrolling down the page to read your posts make me feel like I'm running through an advertising gauntlet.

[sunfunbill]

Yeah, I made the classic newbie mistake of joining too many sponsors. Now I feel like I have to plaster all their banners everywhere.

What I will do is get a banner rotator script. That way I can use the same spots for different sponsors. Then I will put more fun stuff in the sidebars. Once I get a top navigation system in I'll have more room too.

Once I add more sections I think the blog post should be it's own page. That is, the blogs are it's own section so they don't even have to look at them, make the post just another page.

Damn, lots of work ahead. I found this really cool virtual navigation that works even with java turned off, even with the FF noscript running!

http://www.opencube.com/

[razor]

Originally posted by Hammer
You have a lot in that site Bill but one thing you have way too much of is banner ads. Yikes! Scrolling down the page to read your posts make me feel like I'm running through an advertising gauntlet.

How much is too much?

[phuckbunny]

What Bill has is too much.

Bill, sorry for not responding sooner, I was a bit in the dumps past few days so I haven't had a full chance to give your new site the attention I wanted to.

I agree with Hammer, it does look a bit spammy wiht all the banners there. You could try spacing them out for now, then tweak it some more.

I also wholeheartedly agree that with the amount of content you have and plan on adding, it needs better navigation. A top navigation bar as was suggested will do the trick but why shell out $150 for the opencube thing when you can just find a pre made theme that has tabbed pages on the top. If you don't want that click to just go to a blog page you can install a redirect plugin which will send that click anywhere you like.

My first thought when looking at it was that it looked almost identical to Bilinda's blog; that's not only b/c of the same theme (Andreas?) and colours but because the first thing that I saw was a beauty tip. I'm thinking this intself is not a bad idea because you can peddle porn but get the SE traffic for nonporn; this has worked for me in the past; it also makes you more 'legit' supposedly in accordance with google's "good faith" bullshit for sites that make money from sources other than adsense.

I would work on the header image some more.

How committed are you to this theme?

[sunfunbill]

Thanks for taking a look at it phucky!! Yes I know, I should look around for a theme that has a top nav. I used that same one because I am so use to it.

Each different theme comes with a bunch of new quirks you have to figure out. So that's why I used that one.

But now that I know I need top tabs I will see how much of a pain it would be to get one. Even then I will have to do some customizing. You really don't know how big this baby is going to be. Think of amazon as far as pages go!

I have a test blog I use for everything, so I will use that with the new theme. I like the colors I made this one, so I'll have to change all that.

Yes the banners need to be cut back and rotated. Thanks for the input, at least I know what I have to change!

[phuckbunny]

I've been told that some themes are better for SEs than others. Whether that's true or not, I have no idea, but Andreas' themes seem to do well;; I've used that one before. But I think he has some new ones. There are plenty of others that have navigation tabs though, just spend a couple of hours searching and downloading and testing them out.

Anyway the nice thing about the redirection plugin is that you can send it to any URL; since I'm working on a similar concept (it's taking a long time), for the moment while I'm still taking my sweet ass time with it, I set the pages to redirect to sponsor sites front page without having to do any of my own customizing at the moment since that will take time; e.g. cam & chat goes to the cam sponsor, movies goes to the category page for a VOD sponsor, dating, etc etc