Need Opinions Guys!

[Rude Awakening]

Hey all, I've opened up forums for Loan Officers and Realtors about 3 weeks ago. The Realtor section has just gone public and I will be advertising it soon on the web. However I need to know if it's presentable enough and I will definately be willing to take any suggestions.

Thanks all!

www.lodatabase.com

P.S. Check out the flash intro :)

P.S.S. I will have the banner changed as soon as I find something decent to replace it with.

[FLMom]

Love the flash intro, great job! I like your colors too :D

[Rude Awakening]

Thanks!

I'm still learning alot of various things. Fortunately I've been able to utilize alot of the hacks here to my benefit.
I've been learning quite a bit about creating traffic to the site. Although suggestions regarding that would be nice as well.

[Rude Awakening]

Need a few more opinions guys!

[smacklan]

Looks good...nice intro :) One thing I've learned, in regards to traffic, is as cool as they are alot of people are turned off by flash intro's and the search engines don't like them much as well. Good luck with your site! :)

[Roms]

I like the site. I agree with smacklan, get rid ot the flash into... I used a splash page with flash for years too but you will only end up losing your dialup/slower traffic. Plus it's better to have an index with more key words ect... Perhaps make the header of the forum flash instead... ;)

[Freesteyelz]

Actually, there is a link to play the intro and another link which allow users to go straight to the forum. I haven't checked the script but if the Splash Screen stops at load if the user does not click "Play Intro" I don't see a problem even for 56Kers. There are also 4 forum links at the bottom for non-Flash users.

Like the others, kudos on the Flash and clean design. My only suggestion, which is small, is to close the gap between the navbar links. Only one row is needed and since you're using a fluid layout having the links closer to one another makes for an easier navigation. Again, good job. :)

[Rude Awakening]

Thanks for the input guys.
As mentioned by Freesteyelz, I did in fact add links at the bottom for users who are waiting for flash to load, to skip right into the forums. This also serves as an entry point for spiders and such as well.
The group of people I aim at are business people. Some into the new technology and some not. The Vbulletin boards are pretty self explanatory and easy to use on the user side of things which makes it perfect for what I need.
The flash is somewhat important at round start. Reason being is to show that we are in this for professional use and not some teenager trying to fill up his boards to rack in adsense money.

As for the navbars, I'll have to find a way to close the gaps between them. I'm not much of a guru but I can figure things out when needed. I'll definitely look into that.

The header will go away for sure. I dont like the design and I'll be talking to my flash guy to come up with something better.

Thanks again guys!

[Freesteyelz]

You're clientele seems more business related than multimedia so you may re-consider about creating a Flash Header, if that's what you're planning to do. Unless of course you can keep the file size small. The idea is to create something simple that sends a clear message to your audience what you're all about.

[Rude Awakening]

You have a point.

All I know is that I need something more attractive there. A real nice 3d looking image would be more then fantastic. Maybe I should throw up something in the paid section and see who can come up with something...

[Freesteyelz]

Or possibly an eye-catching logo that people will easily identify your site with. A good starting point would be your Flash Splash Screen. I think a static version would make a perfect Header. Having a matching Splash Screen and Header you'll have continuity. :)

[Rude Awakening]

Thanks again!

[MrDiaz]

very nice indeed, I have a suggestion though. Why don't you use a flash preloader for the swf file? It loads much faster, and ppl with slow connection speed won't have problems ;)

[Tony G]

The splash page seems a bit useless to me - makes users load some flash image just to enter the forum...

And when you get to the forum, you expect some cool images but that's just not there. You need to match your site and forum presentation or users will just get disappointed.

[Freesteyelz]

Umm, Tony? While the person in your avatar may be cute it scares me. LOL. :laugh: