http://www.woodencrates.org

My site is a one-stop location for the entire packing and crating industry. Currently it's both an advertising source and an information resource for P&C companies.

I would love some general advice, but most important may be the home page. I used to post articles on the home page which worked out better for SEO, but the content rarely changed so the actual value to visitors was low. Now I'm thinking about reducing the number of records shown on the home page, adding some javaScript that drops-down the first sentence or so from each article, and then adding the most recent article to the bottom (or something like that.)

Another big issue though is getting paid advertisers pages to come up in the top 5 or so organically (example: http://www.woodencrates.org/fed-pack-international-C202939 ). I think I just need customer's to add more content but they simply don't do it leaving my site looking less valuable to them.

People in the industry are very close lipped. The sites all login and self-post but still nobody will create articles, post in the forums, etc. Also, this site is the only resource for the entire industry - no trade orgs, magazines, etc.)

THANKS MUCH for any help. I think this post is a great opportunity for me and I definitely appreciate the feedback.

Hi,

I'm sure there's a wealth of information on your site related to your industry, but my first impression when looking at your site is yuk, I don't want to be here, its an advertising billboard!

IMO you have completely over done it on the advertising front and need to think more carefully about the layout. The actual template looks quite professional and there are some other things I like for instance the navigation drill-down but I think that you have got a bit carried away and have crammed in too much information on one page.

The site looks too confused and there's no clear indication of where the 'call to action' is. You need to work more on the layout by giving the site a greater sense of balance in terms of the right proportion of white space, text line up with the images and a greater sense of colour harmony for example.

Try an experiment. Cut down on the number of adverts and ban flashing adverts for a while then look at your stats to see if if your visitors on average are spending more time on your pages. If they are then they might be more prepared to add some fresh content.

I think that you have most of the components in place in terms of content but you will have to work a lot harder on your presentation.

Good luck - MD

first thing I noticed immediately,
there too much crowdy content at the top middle section but u have kept empty space at the bottom, see if u could arrnage things equally. so that there is white space.
nothing more to write

I don't have much time right now, I will try to look around more later.
One thing right off the bat... pay what you must within reason... but buy that .com domain. It does not appear to be in use. Otherwise you WILL loose traffic to it.

Crowded, flashy, little content for seo.

A site review consists of a little more than this. Please, in the future spend a little more time reviewing a site. Unfortunately this does not help a terrible lot.

Links directly to the page will do more good than adding more content. (course "why would someone links to these pages relies on the right content type".


What reasons do they have to add these?

Does anyone know they can add anything?

It's easy enough to gather info with local search... start with a helping hand - provide a basic listing for free (Name, address, phone number)... then call to verify correctness and ask for email, website url, etc... once you have email they have given you permission to send a newsletter to them... and that can be full of stuff competitors are doing that they aren't... and thing magically "pick up".

I can't post directly to this forum because of a little glitch so I won't post any new thanks, but THANKS TO ALL for the advice. I definitely agree with all of it and changes will start today.

FATHOM - your advice and questions are most helpful.

To your questions "What reasons do they have to add these?" and "Does anyone know they can add anything?"; this is my first website - the idea behind the members personal pages is to provide them with large ad space for visitors searching the site for a service provider but what I'm finding is that members expect to see these pages ranking high. We're stepping up our communications to let people know they can create longer pages.

One, possibly important thing that I didn't mention is that this site is the only resource for our entire industry globally. There are no magazines or trade organizations, etc. so I'm trying to build this into a trade org in the long term. I'm flopping around on what's best to get people involved. Personally, I'm not an expert on the subject matter so I need to get people involved and try to cover my costs while doing so but I'm not having much luck so far.

Thanks again - Any more advice is greatly appreciated.

Taken care of, and don't worry about it. It is a little round about but if you need to post there again just post here and let me know and I will move it for you. If I had the ability I would just give you the power to post there but as a mod that is not possible... so we have to use this method

Well, you got a nice logo at the top. But can you make the animation a bit better? Good idea with the animation though. All the rest, a nice job!

Your page titles could use a good bit of work. Leave off "industry" - packing and crating or transport packaging are better keywords.

Instead of: design & construction - woodenCrates.org Forums
How about: Wooden Crate Design and Construction | Forum

Instead of: Wood Crate and Box Styles
How about: Wooden Crate and Box Styles
or Wooden Transport Container Styles

Get more keywords in the titles and content. Use industry lingo/jargon for keywords, that's what your target audience will search on.

Your page seems too crowded. You have white space at the bottom that would be better utilized to space out the top. Your on page density for crating is very low 1.4%.
For packing it is 0.8%. Needs work.