WEB REVIEWERS

11 Mar

Fantasy Football Blog - Okay, could be better!

By Web-Reviews.com @ 11:25 am
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Design

Fantasy football has gripped the nation.  It is a fun way for football fans to sit at home, watch the games and still feel involved.  Many fantasy football leagues exist online and off, and some of them have become quite competitive with rather large prizes.  So what do you do if you want to have some good information for fantasy football?  Find a website that is often updated with fantasy football related information, like FFGeekBlog.com.
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FFGeekBlog.com is updated frequently with information that is helpful to those involved with fantasy football.  Even now (March 11th) 178 days before the fist kick off of the season this site is continually offering information.  I would like to see more in-depth reports on the stories they are providing.  The recently posted an article about Julius Jones joining the Seahawks.  I would have liked to see predictions on how that is going to affect his total yards and touchdowns as well as Shaun Alexander (they are now on the same team and play the same position).  
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FFGeekBlog.com has a fun look.  The cartoon logo is fun and interesting.  Overall the site has a simple and constant look and feel, but this site falls into a few of the traps that I find often on blogs.The sites navigation is difficult to find. It is located bellow the cartoon logo and then the “about us” content (”about us” content should always have its own page) causing the visitor to have to scroll to find navigation.  

I am also not a fan of how they have implemented Google Adsense.  They use the banner type ads that are bellow the first two blog entries.  I don’t think this is very creative, and I also don’t think it adds any value to the site. 

Move the navigation up so that scrolling is not required and this site would get 4 stars for design.  
Conclusion
FFGeekBlog.com provides good information about fantasy football.  I would like to see a more personal opinion about how stories affect fantasy standings or prospects and would also like to see a little more care put into the design.I will be visiting this site again to keep up on fantasy information, but this will not be my main source.  I think this site has great potential and I hope it is met soon!
Pros: Frequently updated information
Cons: Lack of analysis, design flaws.
The Fantasy Football Geek Blog

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09 Mar

Blog Design Advise

By Web-Reviews.com @ 4:42 pm
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Top 5 Blog Design Mistakes
1 Ad Placement 

The most frequent and most troubling design mistake I come across when reviewing blogs is ad placement.  While I understand that everybody wants to monetize their website, I will never understand possibly chasing away viewers due to poor design.I often come across ads that are placed above the navigation links.  This may increase the CTR of these ads, but it also causes a high bounce rate and decreases reader loyalty.  

The example to the right shows the most common mistake I find.  The ads caused the user to have to scroll an entire page to find the first navigation link.  The first link is not until 600 pixels down.

My advice for site that have this issue would be to ad another column that you place the ads on or place the ads bellow the navigation links.
2. Cluttered Navigation

It is very important to have a clear and simple navigation structure on a blog.  Placing links to the most recent posts, categories, and even archives helps visitors find what they are looking for. There are times, however, when to many navigation options are presented and it becomes overwhelming.  It is important to have a simple and clear navigation structure. The example to the right shows an example of cluttered navigation.  The webmaster included links to just about everything on the site and that makes it hard to find anything.

I would advise webmasters to sit down and plan out navigation before implementing the changes.  Make sure that it is simple and easy to navigate and is not cluttered.  You do not have to include a link to everything on the front page.
3 Unique Design

With the many customization options that most blog management programs offer there is no reason to not customize your blog design.  There are many blogs that I have read that have nothing more than a standard Word Press Theme.The example to the right is typical of this.  You can see the title and then the tagline in the header and nothing more.  It is next to impossible to brand a site that is unique in no way.

Spend some time and maybe even some money modifying the theme of your blog and come up with a graphics package that is unique to your site!
4 Website Width
A large portion of computer users still use a monitor resolution of 800×600.  Creating a website with a fixed width of more than 800 pixels causes anybody who is viewing the site to use the side scroll function of their browser.Most users do not mind using the vertical scroll function to continue reading content but most users get annoyed quickly if they have to use the horizontal scroll feature.

I always try to use a design that is 800 pixels wide and is centered on the screen.  This design prevents side scrolling and draws the readers eye to the content if the user has a monitor with a resolution greater than 800 horizontal pixels.
5 Image Size
It is becoming more and more common for blogs to use a 3 column design.  The 3 column design limits the width of the content you can put in the main column of the blog.It is no uncommon to come across a blog that has images in the main column that are wider than the column.  The result of this error is what ever is in the other columns gets pushed to the bottom of the website.  Most times the content in the other columns are navigation and advertisements.

To avoid this make sure the images you want to place in the main column fit in the space provided.  If they do not, either resize the image using image editing software, or change the width and height attributes in the image tags.

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09 Mar

Web Hosting - A Great Value

By Web-Reviews.com @ 3:14 pm
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If you are planning on setting up a website or a blog one of the biggest decisions to make is what hosting service to use.  I have found many, many options that range from free to affordable to ultra expensive.  The best bet when setting up a new website is to go with a host that is reliable and affordable, and AmpedHosts.com meets both these requirements.
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AmpedHosts.com offers 3 basic plans, Bronze, Silver, and Gold.  We reviewed the Bronze plan that cost $3.95/month.  For that $3.95 a month you get 150 GB of storage space, 3,000 GB of bandwidth, the latest Cpanel, and much more.  This plan offers more than any new website would ever need, and in all of our tests it seemed to be reliable and fast.
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The design of AmpedHosts.com is exactly what it needs to be; simple and easy to navigate.  It is easy to compare the hosting plans and pretty easy to find any information you need.  Signing up for a hosting plan is quick and easy and contact information is prominently displayed.
Conclusion
Overall I found AmpedHosts.com to be quite a value.  $3.95/month gets you more than any small website would ever need, and in all of our tests the host appeared to be quite reliable and fast.
Pros: Great value, solid platform
Cons: Expensive domain names
Professional, Fast, Cheap and Safe Hosting

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08 Mar

Free Legal Music For All

By Web-Reviews.com @ 9:49 pm
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When searching for music on the internet you are often forced to make the decision of either buying MP3 format music, listening to an internet radio station that you have limited control over content or illegally download the music.  There is a website that allows you to make a play list that contains music of your choice and listen to it free; PlayLilst.com
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PlayList.com is a unique service that allows you to listen to music of your choice for free, and completely legal.  All you have to do is sign up (a quick and easy process), search for the music you would like to add to your play list, then sit back and enjoy.  Members can create play lists with up to 100 songs in them and can create multiple play lists.  These play lists can be shared with friends and can be posted on MySpace.com.  The only 2 drawbacks I have found is this site is a little bit slow to find new music.  A few of the new bands I enjoy are not available yet, and some of the songs that are listed are only partial songs.  If not for these 2 issues this would have been a 5 star site.
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PlayList.com is well designed.  It is fairly easy to navigate and the ads that support the free service are not obtrusive.  All of the main functions of the website can be accessed from any part of the site.  I find it simple to get around and accomplish what I like to when I want to.  So why not 5 stars?  There is nothing about the site design that makes me say wow!  It is just a simple design.  Not to flashy, not to boring, just good!
Conclusion
PlayList.com offers a great free service for anybody looking to find music online.  I thoroughly enjoy this site and recommend it to anybody looking for music online!
Pros: Great free service
Cons: Slow to add new music
Project Play List  -  Web-Reviewers.com Hard Rock Playlist

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07 Mar

File Upload Service

By Web-Reviews.com @ 11:07 pm
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Design

Have you ever tried to email a friend or relative a file that is to large to send over email?  I know that I have run into this issue many times.  So what is the solution other than burning the file to a disk and mailing it to them?  Upload the file to a website and allow them to download it from that site.  An easy to use site for this service is UploadXS.com
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UploadXS.com allows anybody to upload files up to 500mb (for non-registered free users) that can be downloaded by anybody using a simple link provied by UpLoadXS.com.  The files will stay on the site until manually deleted or 30 days have passed with out a download.  I have found this service rather useful.  I took a vacation recently with 2 friends of mine.  I was designated the official photographer of the trip so I took nearly 300 good pictures over the 2 weeks.  I made a zip file of the pictures and uploaded them to UploadXS.com and had my friends download from there.  It was quick and easy.
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UploadXS.com offers a free service, and a free upgraded service, but I am sure the bulk of their income is based on ads.  The ads on this site a quite obtrusive, but I am willing to accept that for the great service they provide.  I would rather see the ads placed on a side bar so that I wouldn’t have to scroll past them to accomplish an upload (I know they want me to do that so I see, and possibly click on, the ads).The site is not very visually stimulated, but this site does not provide content so there is not much that can be done with it.  I always find it hard to review the design of a site like this.  It is functional, just not visually appealing.I also found errors on the site.  The Services Page lists odd numbers for cost of paid service as well as max upload size (when compaired to the upload form itself).  These errors are nothing major.
Conclusion
UploadXS.com provides a useful service at no charge.  The site is very useful.  I did not deduct a star from the overall rating based on design because this site does exactly what it is intended to do.  I would highly recommend this site and will be using the service myself.
Pros: Very useful site.
Cons: Design, inconstant information.
XS You Uploads From Anywhere

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