Just thought I'd share this. Had a Google training last week and in their presentation they actually use Summitpost as an example of how NOT to do it. Maybe if Matt has some time in the future... .

Hmmm ... THIS smacks of something only an esteemed English teacher could comprehend. Do we have one here on SP ???

Is there a TEACHER in the house ???



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DjDqblPUgM

Anybody can buy a new web design with a more attractive presentation. All you have to do is hire a designer, and pay him for the programming and implementation. It helps if your designer is able to work with the vision of the site's owner, although the pre-planning will cost more.

Your designer must able to set objectives for the upgrade, and include a way to measure the improved user experience.

My own feeling is that anybody who uses the word "opportunity" when they mean "presentation" is selling glitter, and hoping that the site owner doesn't know the difference. Also I get worried when sound-bites become the standard for organizing the web pages.

The "missed opportunity" slide has a similar color scheme to SP, but it doesn't look like SP to me. Since when does SP have a sidebar titled "most popular tours" [of the Grand Canyon]?

As an example of a commerce site, I mostly agree with Wouter's presenter. [Does "Google training" mean that the presenter was a Google employee, or that the training is about "Google" (i.e., SEO)?] You want your potential customers to be able to find the Make Reservation button, or the Schedule of Helicopter Rides, or whatever will convert them from a visitor to a customer, at a glance.

As an example of a website I'd actually want to spend time on, I totally agree with Knoback.

Actually a good commerice site will do a bit of both. Textual content is good for your Google rankings. Sadly the result looks a little like Cosmo or GQ: tons of pictures, lots of short vapid factoids, and a lonely piece of writing in a corner or some hard-to-find inside page.

The "Realized Opportunity" example sucks! "Helicopter Tours", "Airplane Tours", "Bus Tours"?! "Special Promotions"!? Its a friggin advertisement. We don't need anything like that. I hope Matt or whoever never spends a minute making SP look like that. If we ever end up like that, I'm out of here.

mrh wrote:The "Realized Opportunity" example sucks! "Helicopter Tours", "Airplane Tours", "Bus Tours"?! "Special Promotions"!? Its a friggin advertisement. We don't need anything like that. I hope Matt or whoever never spends a minute making SP look like that. If we ever end up like that, I'm out of here.

I don't think the criticism has anything to do with the content itself, but rather how clearly the content is presented and the ease of navigation.

We need more flash graphics -- film clips of people hiking and hanging off cliffs and stuff-- when you open the front page. They shouldn't take more than 30 seconds to load; if they do, you should move to another city with better broadband. Plus, there should be pop-ups for really popular activities that take the focus away when you are trying to type.

"Missed oportunity" is nothing but a snapshot of Phoenix Tours website:
http://www.phoenixtours.us/

with company logo ™ cropped off
company info blurred
and company copyright info cropped off again.

"Presentation" smells like posh expression for what appears to be
the unauthorised use of otherwise copyrighted material.

Taco wrote:The 'good one' looks like it's dumbed down for fifth graders.

SP fo lyfe.

One could argue that summitpost is like a Porsche; very difficult to understand unless you are an elite class regular who already knows his/her way around a fine piece of machinery.

Missed Opportunity

Text-heavy

As been stated SP's objective is not a limited set of products or services; SP's content is of verbose nature - much like wikipedia and if you look at their index pages, they are even more brief and visually less appealing than SP's.

Important links hidden in text

That would be a valid point; I'm guessing they are mostly referring to the links in the headings of the featured pages - looking at the page's source code you'll notice there is not a single html heading tag (h1, h2 etc.) which indeed is bad from a search engine perspective. The same goes for all other sections on the index page.


Realized Opportunity

Text broken into (...) graphics

Now I am not sure what they mean with this; If they are saying that each section is visually separated from others with borders and other styles, then I suppose it's somewhat of a constructive criticism but those are not the only options to visually separate sections of content.

Important information highlighted

Goes hand in hand with "Important links hidden in text". Usage of proper html tags will organize and prioritize pieces of information and make them visually stand out even without stylesheets (CSS) applied.

BTW where does that crappy slide come from? Who gave the training?

Am I the only one here that has noticed that WouterB 'Bad Example' slide isn't a picture of SummitPost at all?

Sure some of the colors are the same, but that's it. His presentation shows a graphic of a Grand Cayon tour company website, the exact text appears on over a dozen websites across the internet, and none of them are SummitPost. The menu bar of the left side contains links to the 'Most Popular Tours", not parents and children of a SP object.

Nice try WouterB, but most of us aren't falling for this one.

mrchad9 wrote:Am I the only one here that has noticed that WouterB 'Bad Example' slide isn't a picture of SummitPost at all?

No. It was mentioned twice on page 1.

Also bears repeating that their criticism is aimed at sales sites, not informational ones. IOW they are helping sites sell crap. Summitpost has nothing to sell.

BeDrinkable wrote:Summitpost has nothing to sell.

It has ads. The ads are selling something.

Chad - Server space for things such as photos is not free. The ads help pay for that, but that is a basic necessity for sustaining the site. Selling has not been nor is it a major part of the purpose of SP.

In SP's earlier days there were no ads, but it has become large enough that it needs some form of income to be sustainable. Now if you could find a wealthy philanthropist who wants to pay for the site, maybe we could get rid of the ads . . .