Hearts4Horses.Com
 

Not sure I'm ready and able to handle the opinions...but here goes:

http://forums.hearts4horses.com

It is no doubt that you and your members all share a strong passion - but my first and most important suggestion to you is that you get a design that compliments that passion the way it should ;) The logo isn't bad, but that background image needs to go, the header and main width also doesn't match.

I would also work on cleaning things up just a tad as it can appear to be cluttered at a first glance.

Any ideas on a design suggestion? I looked in several places but didn't find anything that I felt suited us. Places to look for designs or skins?? I agree and would love to find a suitable design...

Your logo's way too big, and combined with the appearing/disappearing banner adverts and welcome message your actual content is way off screen. The background image needs to repeat horizontally too, as on larger screens there's a fair amount of empty white space on the right hand side. Overall I agree that it looks too cluttered and a bit confusing for visitors, especially someone who's new to forums

If you can't find any premade ones (or any that you like at least), you should definitely try requesting a custom one to be made and tailored to your needs ;)

Thanks for the look and suggestions. I corrected the repeat-x on the background (I think).

You guys are exactly right in noting that the forums are busy and confusing to people not familiar with forums. We have a lot more 'other' traffic on the static side vs. the forums. The "logo" picture is large on purpose...it is the same uniformly throughout the static site http://hearts4horses.com and the online store https://hearts4horses.net/onlinestore as well as the forums. My goal is to make sure people know they are still "with us" when they navigate from outside the forums to inside the forums. Actually the static site came first and I suspect much of our 'unregistered' traffic is people who are not active in the forums but still keeping up with things.

Are there many of the forums on vbulletin.org that have static sides to websites? Is this a common thing to do? Is it a waste of time? It is difficult to gauge because people rarely fill out any 'Contact Us' emails...we just have to go by page views.

Similarly, what about online stores? Are most, some, or very few of the admins here running onlinestores as part of the same url? Why or why not? Necessary? Burden??

Don't you hate questions?

Your background still isn't tiling properly..
Replace your current background css....
with this...
I would always recommend having a static site along with a forum, even if most of your visitors bypass it. They come in handy as somewhere to put content that doesn't really belong on a forum and helps to keep things less cluttered. Plus it shows you have more commitment to your site, where you've taken the time to create an actual 'site' for it as opposed to just uploading a bunch of files and changing the style a little. You're on the right track for it, it just needs a bit of help in the design, which if I'm honest, looks very dated :)

Thanks for the hint...changed. ";" Go Figure!