New Improved LetsRun.com: Share Your Feedback

erik wrote:

bluemt95 wrote:

Didn't see any replies these questions. I like the cleaner front page look. And I like the fact that your are tagging and categories tons of content. But there is not way to search for those tags, or categories, except to the very top level through the "NEWS" menu. I think being able to drill down to several more sub levels would be useful.

And there is no drill down menu to athlete pages that you mention. There is no way to search for "Category: Geoffrey Mutai", except by going to your article and clicking on the link you provide.

This organization is useless unless you can search it via text field or drill down further in the menus to find what you want.

We are working on improving the search to be smarter about using tags and categories (right now it searches the title and content of articles/links, and prioritizes title matches). There are cheap and easy ways to do search tags and categories but I'm hesitant to implement them without a lot of testing. We have over 1200 original articles and thousands upon thousands upon thousands of links, each with numerous tags and categories (we actually have over 69,000 separate links stored in our database we hope to get indexed, rojo is motivated to do that). Indexing a database that large for search through WordPress requires some care. For the time we're being cautious to make sure things are stable.

The special content pages now are limited to events. We'll be adding a lot of other types later.

The menu is also a work in progress -- we want it to help people around the site so they spend time there so your feedback will be helpful.

I increased the font size on articles by a couple pixels and jumped up the front page font size another pixel. That should help allay some people's concerns over the font.

The good news is a lot of people's requests are on our to do list. Keep 'em coming.

wtfunny wrote:

Hey LRC

I agree pretty much with everything here. The new page is 'nicer' .. but it's not really anything worth the effort, imo. It's like you tried to rebuild it without actually changing it around much. Why not take the opportunity to, if you're gunna rebuild it, rebuild it? Rather than edit and tweak it, rebuild it. Make some real changes, and pick it up. I think it's

a) easier

b) a better use of your time

c) much more worthwhile then promoting the 'new site';

If you're going to put a shout out around the internet about your new site, and you're crazy not to, then make it worth the effort, and actually drum up some more readers. Instead, folks will drop by and hardly see the difference. And then you lose them.

Other points

* Really "Doping news" gets its own category in the drop down menu? how about letting that go? At least not make it a priority on the navigation, to makes you appear a little obsessed with it. It's not really a category or topic of running, is it?

* Same goes for "bizarre". Hardly something worth sticking in the primary navigation. Why not better use your primary available navigation space for more compartmentalized sections: "distance" could be anything from an 800 to a marathon or beyond. Or "professional" is a huge category; how about men's or women's, or any number of other sub-categories that would seem more pertinent than 'bizarre' or 'doping news'.

* Bizarre doesn't tell me anything at all. Make it clear where I'm going; that's why it's called a navigation bar.

* the best looking part of the entire new front page is the footer .. it's new, it's fresh, it's well designed and appealing as well as functional. use that for your building block for the entire feel of the page, imo.

* I do think the font on the main text sections should be larger. I'm not a big fan of either of the directed fonts, but if that's what you want to go with, make them bigger .. at least 2px larger (reading on a 21" screen)

* You have no tag? A home page with no tag is odd. Images should have alt tags. A lot of the scripts should go in the footer, not the header.

* I think meta description tags should still be used, not just a title tag.

* The Quote of the Day, is cool, but it probably doesn't need to be the single leading feature on a home page. IMO, ymmv.

* Why not put a link to your Facebook page on the site? That seems beyond a no-brainer to me. Or your twitter feed. And an RSS link?

* Personalize your site. Improve the 'About' page, and update, or sharpen, your images there. Let your visitors know who you are; otherwise the entire thing is just zeros and ones.

The main task ahead of you, imo, is the boards. Good luck with that; they have some great conversation, and some great info, and some complete a-holes who make the place a complete waste of time. And the design of the boards facilitates, even fosters, that.

Cheers

Salt Lake City man wrote:

I've had a day with the "new" site to gather pros and cons:

Pros

- Now responsive. Critical for ANY site. My sites are no longer "also good on mobile" but are instead mobile-first. Our sites officially passed the 50% mobile/desktop threshold a few months and that ratio will continue to grow.

- CMS. Looks like you're powered by Wordpress now, and that's a no-brainer. Benefits of a CMS with the best open source community around.

Cons

- You did nothing to attract new users. You may have appeased the existing community, but the site homepage is still a jumbled mess of words with weak categorization . Categories should be visually linked in a way newish running fans can comprehend: Pro racing news, College racing news, Training Info, Off-LR News, etc.

- Zero dynamic added to the homepage. Do you not seeing scrolling dynamic leads, carousels and sliders across every other content site on the web? Do you think we run those just for kicks? Reconstructing the homepage exactly as it was is one of the poorest decisions I can think of. At least enlarge your lead story thumbnails for some visual interest.

- Zero brand improvement. In the hands of a capable designer, you could have delivered a refashioned logo that kept the feel of your silly nostalgic joke of a logo in place (reminds me of Mountain Bike Action) but brought it to a place of quality. But you instructed your guy to just reset it, and it shows. Amateur typographic work and poor branding vision that will continue to turn younger users away.

- Almost zero ad revenue improvement. You're in this to make money right? Or at least have it not be a labor of love? Why do you continue to use the third rail for content and not for widgets and ads? Where is the leaderboard? The page-bottom leaderboard? Advertorial spots in the content well? Mind you I'm not even suggesting interstitials, video interstitals and other intrusive ad spots that annoy users, but simply monetizing the page that people are on. Pay an ad sales consultant $400 for a report on what your audience analytics can generate.

I hope you're just getting started here, because the changes are so under-the-hood that it seems silly to market it a "new and improved LR." I know I had the opportunity to help and passed on it, but I also know you can do more. Good luck, guys.