Spirited-Away

Forum URL:

Spirited-Away - Your Multi Faith Community

Forum Name:

Spirited-Away

Launch Date:

December 2009

Posts/Threads/Members:

199 Threads 657 Posts 34 members 29 of those are active.

Forum Software:

vBulletin 4

Description:

A multi faith community for the discussion of all things spiritual, spiritual development and the discussion of all things paranormal and supernatural.

Other Info/Points of Interest:

I didn't base the name off of the film I only became aware of the film Spirited Away once I had chose the domain name and started the site.

Not sure what I am looking for in a review as I am not to good with design in fact my design skill are none existent however I am open to any suggestions you may have for improving my website.

Thanks for all reviews and feedback in advance.

Rick

 

I think it looks brilliant. Must have taken you ages to add all those categories. If I owned it, I'd get rid of that useless entrance page which can/will have adverse effect in search engines.

And although it's not the feedback you wanted; I don't like the topic at all. It'll only convince more sane people to become nutters IMO. Aliens?, Spiritual Healing? o...m...g. lol

No offence intended, I'm sure it'll get nutt... I mean members register.

Tut, and you're from Manchester. I'd have expected this from a guy living near Area 51, though not from a guy living near the MOSI.

As above though, brilliant design, layout, love the new VB4, I'd get rid of the entrance page and I'd sort out that whitespace at the top of the forum above the adsense which appears to be sitewide so I'm guessing a design issue.

And I'm browsing in Google Chrome and am having problems with the submenu, as in the quick links drop down menu doesn't open, it just seems to flash for a split second and do nothing, so it's trying, but isn't working.

I wish you all the best with it. It's just not a topic I'd go for at all. But each to their own fella.

 

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the feedback my friend.

I will take the vast majority of what you said into consideration and try and implement them changes and fix the issues you told me about.

As for the topic the site originally started out as just a paranormal, conspiracy website but was later widened to a multi faith community.

I think as much as religion causes trouble we will never be able to escape it, it's apart of everyday life and our history and future.

So it's mainly a discussion ground for faith and spirituality the aliens, ghosts UFO's etc etc is actually a rather small part of our website.

But once again thank you

Rick

 

A sound reply. I thought I could have offended there.

p.s.

In the forumhome template find your title and edit it to say "Spirited Away | Spiritual Forums | A spiritual forum to discuss spiritually related topics" or something along those lines. That with removing the entrance page, and then tweaking the meta description and link building a bit should help you gain a stance on your competitor.

Other SEO bods here may be able to add more from that point of view too.

 

Hi Dan,

I have made all the changes as suggested hopefully I will see the site start to grow after awhile thanks to these changes it's hard to get rankings in Google due to the film Spirited Away, {I wasn't aware there was a film called that when I created the community guess I should have done more research}.

And no, not at all you didn't offend me I'm hard to offend in all honesty I respect everyones opinion religion isn't everyones cup of coffee

I really do appreciate all the advice and feedback though I think they were some good quality suggestions

Rick

 

If it wasn't a religious site, I'd link to you heavily. I have a bunch of websites that use unique IP addresses (which helps, or it used to and I don't think things have changed since) and I use them to rank mine very quickly. Though I couldn't be sending my traffic to a religious site as they're mainly working class tradesmen who don't have a religion.

Perhaps on another project though I might be able to help.

Here's a tip though: [ame=http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1C1GGLS_en-GBGB334GB334&q=site:ning.com&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=]site:ning.com - Google Search[/ame]

Register on those ning networks and add a link to your profile, those higher ranking ones have the most PR and google stance (my own terminoligy there lol) and if you just post a 'hello' in their forum, or create a blog or something, you'll gain quite a few backlinks.

There is one religion related ning network that is popular that you might want to be an active member on as you will probably be able to really get loads of backlinks from them by being active.

All the best.

 

wooooooooo, last time I did that ning wasn't so popular in spain or whatever that language is lol. Search for the english language ones (there are loads) and just use those.

 

Wow, that's a lot of forums for a new site! For stuff like the "Entertainment", maybe it'd be better to have one or two generic forums and then split out the topics more granular as the site evolves?

On a slightly different note, the name "Spirited Away" did not make me think of a spirituality site, but rather of a certain Hayao Miyazaki film. (But that's just me, I'm a fan of anime films.)

 

Thanks for the review KW802 I appreciate your feedback however I'm not going to remove some of the forums for personal reasons but thanks for taking the time to give some feedback I really do appreciate it.

And like I said I wasn't aware of the film when creating the forum I only found out around a week after launch lol like I said I should have done more research.

And Dan thanks for that mate

 

mcrickeo,

Congrats on your new site. I have to say it is one of the more pleasant looking vb4 ones that I have seen. I actually don't have any issue with your topic or layout of the categories and forums. That make perfect sense to me.

TBH, I wasn't aware of this movie. I can't make it to movies that often as I'd like.

The name initially gave me the picture of a bird flying off or being out in a field, like wilderness or something. Yeah, kinda vague, I know. But that is what I kinda thought...and when I read this....it made total sense to me.

Well done.


Too bad Dan can't link to your site. I applaud you Dan for knowing that all your community is non-spiritual or non-religious. Nice to have someone step up for others.

 

Hey,

I thought I would toss my opinion into the ring.

I will try to cover anything, but if I miss anything, feel free to point it out and I will get right on it.

First, I will start with the domain name. It is a great name! It is direct and about your forum. What I am not a fan of and this is personal opinion of course, is that your domain name has a dash in the middle and is a .co.uk. By doing this, you may lose out on some traffic as when you first hear a name, you don't think about the dash. I did this on my first forum and it cause some problems. Also, by having a .co.uk, you are limiting to more of the UK region. I don't expect forums to have .co.uk. What you can do is also buy the .com and redirect it. Simple as that. The internet is does not have national boundaries, nor should your site.

I first opened your site and thought it dealt with astrology and maybe galactic things. The background suggests it is this as it looks like stars. Also, your theme is dark which also brings to mind this idea. When I think religion and spiritual beings, I think more of light colors as it is calm and smooth. Maybe try some light blues or such. If you want to use pictures, maybe a field because it doesn't suggest you are partial to one religion over another.

Your logo, while it is neat as it is animated, seems bland as it isn't unique. I do like how the site has a motto. That is a good to have. It really gives me a great description of what your site is about in a few words. Having that, you will have a few more members as they get a taste of your forum just by that.

As for the icons and such, they are the original vBulletin ones. What makes it original? There are so many choices out there that are available for free. I believe there are many icons provided by from members here or even vbulletin.org If you have any skill in Photoshop, Illustrator, GIMP, or Paint, you can create some. Maybe take up a new skill and learn how to do so? These are just a few ideas. You want to make your skin unique as possible and these are ways to do it without dishing out $500. It's not that hard. Also, there is no favicon or at least it doesn't pop-up on my computer. Small stuff like that makes a difference such as if someone bookmarks it. They aren't hard to make and there are generators available on google to transfer it.

The components of the site are nice. I like how you are using vBulletin 4 despite all the craziness about it. Blogs on the sidebar is a great feature. They are really hard to get going because it is out of the way and there is no notice on the forum, but that idea is a great touch. Not much to really say about this, but vBulletin 4 looks great on your forum.

After further use of your forum, I haven't found any errors what-so-ever which is always good. It is important to keep on top of that and it seems like you have. All the features look like they are out of the box, so there is no issue with them not working incorrectly. It does look like you are taking advantage of vBulletin 4's SEO options with the URL's, but I see you still have an archive. From what I read, that is like duplicate content. I don't have it for that reason.

Now, with all the good things, I am unfortunately going to say this part will get UGLY. When creating a forum its easy to go overboard with forums and I must say, you did just that. While you organized it great, it just is way too much. You have a small forum and small amount of members, so having all of these is just beyond needed. You need to condense it by quite a lot! I will give you examples, but since I am not familiar this subject, I can't do them all. Lets use the office as my example. You have:

1. News & Information
2. . Ideas & Feedback
3. . Important Information
4. . Bug Reports
5. . Newbies Café
6. . Arrivals & Departures

Look at this. News and Information and Important Information can be merged. Bug Reports and Ideas & Feedback can be merged. Newbies Cafe and Arrivals & Departures can be merged, although I would never have departures as they can cause controversy. You don't want that. I have been there and it destroyed a forum. You can do that with the rest of the forum.

Your site is new, so it doesn't look active. Also, there are a lot of sections, but the sections I looked at had one thread with no replies. That is not good. You don't want that. You also need to get yourself and your staff to post a lot. This will start discussion. The more discussion the better. I would say test people's thresholds with threads to get them posting more, but religion is a really touchy subject, so I don't suggest that.

The community seems very nice. I didn't see any flaming or trolling at all which is great for a community. That can really be a good thing. I liked that a lot. You have a great community. Allow it to grow and such! I can't say much about that.

There are a few advertisements. Advertisements for me are a bit iffy on a new forum such as this. One one hand, I know why you are doing this because you want to make some money to pay for the forum, but it looks bad on a small forum. Try offering paid subscriptions/donations. They are great and you can customize it with the features and all for members like bigger avatars or something like that. The feel I get with this forum is great, but the issues I have are what I state.

There is one thing that I dislike about this forum. There is nothing that makes it unique. What makes me want to go on your forum? There is really nothing that attracts new members. It doesn't seem like you have features other forums of your niche don't have or anything. Try offering a contest for items maybe? Something to bring off new forums. It is just so plain and such. Change it up. Have fun with it.

I hope you like my review. It should be my first of many, but its so hard to get the time to write these long reviews.