Complete redesign... let me know your thoughts!
 

Hey all, I just finished working on a brand new layout for my Mommy site. I made A LOT of template edits, but the biggest changes are I added a left side navigation on every page and enabled the social groups feature. I added some more functionality to groups as well, which you can't fully use unless you're a member. Thoughts, comments, suggestions?

http://www.momtalkonline.com

The colors are great for the topic of the site.

Do you have a problem getting people to stay on the site or do they stay online participating? The reason I ask is because there aren't interactive features to keep me on there (as a visitor) and I can see the bounce rate being a bit high.

Also noticed that the messages are a little tight within the style. Not a lot of space for avatars/signature fields, etc. But, I'm used to bigger areas in both. If your folks are used to smaller spaces, then it should be no issue.

The messages are not centered as the left sidebar is bigger than the right. But, the right sidebar (if removed for members) should fix that though :D

I like the site overall. Good job! :up:

how did you get the forum categories to appear like a list on the left?
btw it it's still the same color but the design overall is better imo

New members usually stay on for a bit and post a few times, but I do have a hard time getting them to come back to the site. What interactive features did you have in mind that would increase stickiness?

In regards to the tight message space, I think it's a bit tight too but I tried to waste as little space as possible. It was a little wider in the previous version, but not by much.

Regarding the centering of the site, I did that on purpose actually, to fit in the 180x150 ad sizes. I suppose I could make the left navigation 180 width as well, but I think it would make it look funny.

Thanks again for the feedback!

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I created a product/plugin to get the left navigation.

Thanks for the feedback!

What has worked for me is adding the Video-Directory Remixed add-on. It keeps the members online longer as they view several different videos and video categories.

Another thing that has worked for me is games such as Tic-Tac-Toe or Sudoku.

By the way, wonderful register page. Any tips that you can give to us on how you did that (design-wise)?

Great site overall....continued success to you on it! :up:

Awesome job, loving the site. Do you have any problems with not having recaptcha on your register page? I think alot of people that visit my register page have issues with it. I get a number of hits to the register page on a regular basis but only a small percentage actually finish the registration. I got emails from a number of people with problems. I think it has to do with recaptcha.

Thanks! I actually noticed my registration conversion rate go up after I took the recaptcha off. I have other spam filters in place (the most effective one being vbStopForumSpam - I highly recommend it!), so I don't really need the recaptcha anymore.

Great, I will try that.

Also, one more suggestion. Maybe you should make the register button at the top of your page a different color? With it being next to the login form and same color as the login button it's a bit hard to find (atleast for me).