Pimp Your Design
Posted 01-18-2010 at 03:10 AM by PTC
... it's for your own good. I think this aspect of website building is often underestimated in the online poker industry. This isn't just an effective tool when it comes to keeping players on your website, it is huge when it comes to forming partnerships (especially with the big dogs). If your site looks like an authority site, you already have your foot in the door.
As far as effectiveness, I look to other industries for ideas. Huge calls to action are always important on the homepage especially... I don't know anyone who claims to have the perfect call to action yet... and I've seen most of your websites already... so I look around.
I'm also becoming a proponent of only promoting 2-3 poker rooms... so I can live without a huge list on my homepage; 1 big call to action is usually effective and covers 50% of the rooms I promote. Hence, lodging and travel websites are often a good place for inspiration. Here is a few of my favorite designs..
Great Dog Site
Liftopia
Snow.com
Colorado Ski Authority
Karmojo - This is here mostly because I like the use of icons and I think this is something that can be used in the poker industry very effectively. This also belongs to a PAL member I believe.
Chris Pirillo - Heavily optimized for adsense... good example for learning about placement- mostly right hand side and dead center. Also big bold icons on top right, im a big fan of this no matter what type of icon.
Bombay - Simple, Big Bold design elements. Can't miss the calls to action.. maybe go without the pink.
As far as effectiveness, I look to other industries for ideas. Huge calls to action are always important on the homepage especially... I don't know anyone who claims to have the perfect call to action yet... and I've seen most of your websites already... so I look around.
I'm also becoming a proponent of only promoting 2-3 poker rooms... so I can live without a huge list on my homepage; 1 big call to action is usually effective and covers 50% of the rooms I promote. Hence, lodging and travel websites are often a good place for inspiration. Here is a few of my favorite designs..
Great Dog Site
Liftopia
Snow.com
Colorado Ski Authority
Karmojo - This is here mostly because I like the use of icons and I think this is something that can be used in the poker industry very effectively. This also belongs to a PAL member I believe.
Chris Pirillo - Heavily optimized for adsense... good example for learning about placement- mostly right hand side and dead center. Also big bold icons on top right, im a big fan of this no matter what type of icon.
Bombay - Simple, Big Bold design elements. Can't miss the calls to action.. maybe go without the pink.
Total Comments 6
Comments
-
I like what you're getting at but I don't like the design of any of those sites much.Posted 01-18-2010 at 08:24 AM by Hazo
-
The designs for those sites are very effective and well presented. I am a fan of professionally designed websites with good calls to action.Posted 01-18-2010 at 09:04 AM by Tom
-
Agreed. They look like standard designs. Like the free templates you can get. I think maybe for the type of service they offer its ok, but I dont think the page setups would work very well in our niche.Originally Posted by Hazo I like what you're getting at but I don't like the design of any of those sites much. Posted 01-18-2010 at 12:10 PM by Kaus
-
I hear ya, I still think these are good sites to learn from. I do disagree with the free templates comment a little bit though, greatdogsite.com snow.com and chris pirillo's website are all dominant authority websites and they are on templates which have been tweaked and tested for years - in the case of Chris's site and snow.com I know this to be true, greatdogsite is owned by the guy who made shootpaul.com and the site appears to do pretty well so I assume this site has been tweaked and tested heavily... He ranks page 1 for "dogs". There is some simplicity to a few sites listed above I guess, I think this is part of their effectiveness. Thanks for the comments everyone.
Edit: I guess the dog site isn't so dominant, I hadn't really looked at the site in-depth a while.Posted 01-18-2010 at 12:58 PM by PTC 
-
I agree that good design is key to good flow of traffic. I like some of your suggestions but I think others might bea tad outdated or too "free templates" as cheryle says. When it comes to gabling design you wasnt a clear organization of content where everything the client or viewer is after is easy and direct. You want to show him as many options to stay in your site in a descrete non agressive way and at the same time not being so simple that you just focus on 1 simple topic or section of your whole site.
When it comes to gambling carriers a good exaple of the high importance call to action is the download now button as you want the viewer to do exactly that and start spending some cashola! on the affiliate perspective you want to offer value to your client and attract his attention by creating a comfortable environment that will become his preferred place for inside info and the most up to date news on where on how to spend his money. He wins and you win too.
I've been doing gambling design for lil under two years now and the more you design the clearer it is how important some elements are. If you want to disus a bit about specific sites I would love to provide my personal feedback. Also if anyone's interested please feel free to ask for a free design quote for your site's design
Posted 01-31-2010 at 10:59 PM by eyenod
-
Thanks for chiming in Eyenod. I would encourage anyone reading this to hit up eyenod for design work, he has done great work for me.Posted 02-01-2010 at 10:59 AM by PTC
Total Trackbacks 0
