Two Steps Behind

[Gene Steinberg]

When that happens, I'll dump the other stuff and move over. Right now it's not compatible with the Ragtek add-ons. Meantime, I've reduced the size of the text in the Notices block and made the logo a bit tinier, so the content comes up with less scrolling. And remember, Notices are restricted to the home page regardless. In the vB forum, however, we had a large Recent Posts block below the nav bar, so it was a longer scroll.

 

[Kim]

Some of these ad placements ae contracted for. The previous forum also had that layout. As for some of the sidebar stuff, I await better options. But the developer of some of that stuff appears to be AWOL.

I'd prefer text to icons too.

I Understand about the ads, but perhaps even though the layout might be similar, you are encountering some dislike of it as it displays on Xenforo... if you can change a few things without it being a major issue to you.. it might help.

Do you really need that logo to be so tall for example? can it be redesigned to be horizontal rather than vertical?

The notice.. if you have to have it, try reducing the size of it by reducing some padding, and making the font smaller, try to consolidate the message into fewer lines.

Shame about the sidebar mods.

It's your site obviously Gene, but I wouldn't keep anything that you don't really need on the index and top of the page in particular.



Edit.. I stepped away before posting this lol and now see that you have made some of those changes... which is a step in the right direction. I know you are saying that it was the same or worse on vB but perhaps on top of the Change (which most people hate anyway) things that were tolerable no longer are.. removing anything that might be annoying is going to be a positive regardless

 

[Gene Steinberg]

I thought of trying the larger banners there too, for better balance. Maybe.

Logo is the same one we use on our home page and iTunes (they mandate square). I reduced it to the same 200x200 size. I also went to a smaller font on Notices. So we have a little less wasted space. And remember, it's only on the index page of the forum, nowhere else. But if we make it too small, it can't be read. I've already upped the size of the buttons in various parts of the forum to accommodate older readers.

On the other hand, that's not what our members complained about. I do want to fix Recent Posts, which they did have problems with, and await the development of a proper birthday widget to move from what I have.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

I also wonder why I'm not getting emails on some of these posts.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

By the way, is that your own forum theme? I like it. We need to talk.

 

[Kim]

By the way, is that your own forum theme? I like it. We need to talk.

Not sure if this is addressed to me.. but if so, I think the current default theme on Xenique is Forsaken's new one Xenbook, which is not yet released, but should be within a day or two I understand.

There are two designers on Xenique, myself and David (Forsaken).

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Thanks. Meantime I'll try the widget framework when it does birthdays.

 

[Deepmartini]

Looks like you're making progress Gene. I will have another go at helping you, as it looks like you're willing to change and have accepted the reality of the situation.

Check your bounce rate on Google analytics for your home page and how long people are staying for once they hit the site. If the forum home page bounce rate is high then it means people aren't finding anything appealing or or getting overwhelmed and confused. All the good stuff is buried "below the fold" and getting hit with too many ads at the top gives it a spammy feel.

If you are locked into ad contracts for that then there isn't much you can do there. The long google ad you can certainly exclude from the top and include that inside the site on threads/posts. The notice board should be moved over to the side as a widget, moving your forum content up to eye level for guests to dig into.

You may also want to look at Xenporta as a widget framework as it will give you more flexibility to adjust things and create the homepage you want.

The most appealing page I see is the "popular content" for new guests. I suspect you'd have higher engagement even just using something like that as a home page as it's very enticing.

The theme should be changed to a darker color, maybe black/grey/purple/dark blue, something which connotes paranormal.

The email button should be an actual email opt in form. That saves guests a click and gets them to opt-in sooner. So even if your bounce rate is high you have a chance of later converting your traffic.

The navigation needs to be simplified and I would check your referrer logs to see how much traffic you are losing to your other sites and cannibalizing yourself. I suspect curiousity of visitors is to click on "our strange planet" or "rockoids" to see what the heck those are, then you've lost them.

Your number one goal is to entice guests to become members. Too many choices, too much to read, not enough meat upfront...creates indecision and people leave. Simplify things and you'll start seeing the results you want.

People here on Xenforo have years of community management experience but the advice only works if you are willing to take a leap of faith and give it a fair go and test things.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

OK, these are good points. The actual email opt-in, unfortunately, consumes much more vertical space, which is why I went with the banner. It doesn't seem to make a difference in our signups.

As to the navigation: You suggesting, then, that we not link to our other sites? Our Strange Planet is run by my co-host and he deserves that link. Rockoids and The Tech Night Owl are our other sites. If we lose traffic to them, we are only losing traffic to ourselves, and each has a link back to The Paracast.

Remember, we already have a home page, at www.theparacast.com. Replacing that home page and doing a different sort of site/forum integration is a job and a half and I'd have to get some outside volunteers to help me work on that. There's a complicated custom PHP method designed by a former colleague for WordPress involved in the way we upload shows and have them auto link with the episode description. It's way, way above my pay grade. But I really do want to rethink that and the corresponding site for the tech radio show too.

In the end, I also need to fix the banner structure to allow for more (no choice) and make them less invasive and still visible to members so they can check out the offers. Google ads give us revenue too. I cannot close off legitimate money sources; this isn't a hobby. And the advertisers push us to take them above the fold, by the way.

Of course, this doesn't necessarily deal with the concerns voiced by the members who said they were less apt to participate than they used to be. All the elements here were on the previous version of the forum.

As to the News area, it would be longer on the sidebar, and we still need a home for the Recent Threads section, which would make for an endless depth for that thing. The vB version had a similar feature below the News block, and I think members preferred that, but I see no XF equivalent, so we do with what we have.

As you see, I'm not averse to change. But I have to deal with the possible and otherwise too.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

And one more thing (it never ends -- I have a second theme that the logo designer partly completed, called Paracast Dark. The look is implicit in the title, but I need to make it a child of Paracast Prime (our current theme), to inherit style changes, and then find a volunteer to complete the job. That way, we offer members a choice of which they prefer.

So that's another sticking point.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

I figured, there'd be no more ideas after I got this far. Hope I'm wrong.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

As of six days after my last message, here's a progress report:

1. No member has expressed any interest in the forums or otherwise in possibly changing logos or themes. Not a one. Remember the forum style has a "family" resemblance to our other forums, and is color coordinated with the logo. At this point, since these issues don't seem to concern our members, they won't get priority.

2. The thread from members who hadn't participated much lately hasn't grown; we had another member posting a comment after a long absence that his interest in the subjects waned, but he was getting back in action.

3. I reduced the size of the logo and the size of the "News" text to reduce the scroll to the main content. I also swapped out a Latest Posts sidebar widget and replaced it with a Latest Threads widget that provides a better range of recent content for visitors to check. I made some minor technical revisions to the forum's meta tags, based on some recommendations from an SEO guru. We also added an event calendar, and a separate forum for new members to introduce themselves to the group.

As of today, traffic has improved somewhat. For a few days, posts even began to approach the previous levels. But we're definitely not there yet, and I welcome further suggestions.