Today we'll be reviewing
Estrangel.
All right. Today we're looking at Estrangel. I have to say, this is another one without much to be salvaged. But then, there isn't much there to begin with. Lets dig in and I'll explain.
ABOVE THE FOLD - 3/5
Another decent score due purely to lack of content. Not much to comment on here.
USE OF COLOUR - 1/5
Buh. Black and a purplish blue. There isn't much to say here. This isn't really a colour scheme. Once again, I recommend playing with actual themes and finding something that works. There's a great tool for finding colour schemes called Kuler.
I'll just leave this here. . .
http://kuler.adobe.com/BANNER - 1/5
There isn't one. You're using Header text, and you clearly have your logo much lower down the page. No. Stop that. If you have a logo, it needs to be the first thing on the page. Google will still grab your name and tagline so long as you've configured wordpress correctly. It grabs the Title and Description of the page, as defined in the html file. This is not the same as your header and tagline, as described in wordpress (Though it can be).
In the forum you told me that it's too late to change this because your logo is in your comic, and you don't want double logos, and there are too many comics now to edit it out. This too is wrong. You have 44 comics at the time of this writing. Thats two hours of work at best. And I'm being generous, assuming you aren't well versed in photoshop. If you know your way around it this could be cut down to 20 minutes of work. If you're seriously too unmotivated to edit 44 image files for your comic, then you won't have a very successful future in this game. You get out what you put in.
NAVIGATION & LAYOUT - 3/5
What can I say here? It's another example of mediocrity. It's a generic virtually unaltered comic press set up. So it does nothing to stand out, but it doesn't really look awful. It works for what it is. On the list of things to fix, this should be nearer the bottom.
The only thing I advise fixing ASAP is the size of your navigation links. They are huge and waste a ton of space.
SOCIAL TOOLS - 1/5
The like it share it button. Boy oh boy oh boy. What a bloody mess. Five clicks on a three step process to send a generic bloody E-mail. No. Just No. Dump this thing now. I can send an E mail to my friends MUCH faster, and your readers can too.
And, I repeat, for the love of all that is sacred to you, get the sociable plug in, or some competitor. Social Networks, Good Business, yadda yadda, you know the drill by now. I really shouldn't have two explain why a two step process to let your readers digg/reddit/tweet (etc) your comic is a good thing. The important thing is that it should be no more then two steps. Click the Button, Enter your info (And click submit).
You may not like social networks (I know I don't), but your readers statistically will. The easier you make it for them, the more they'll help you out.
SECONDARY CONTENT - 3/5
Well, You have a good cast page, a nice biography page (even if it's erroneously called a Contact Page), and a decent link page. I can't say much here good or bad really. For a generic comic press page, it passes.
TOTAL - 2 out of 5
Well, in summary your biggest problems are as fallows.
A: No Real colour scheme
B: Poor Banner location
C: Lack of Social Tools
Beyond that it's a passably average generic comic press site. That may sound bad, but at this point, it's not. Focus on getting the above stuff up to par before trying to be above average. Walk before you run. Just fixing the above issues could do wonders for everything else too. Remember a website is a unified entity, not a modular construct. If one part looks bad, it can make good parts look bad as well.
NEXT WEEK: We review
The Tempest Legacy!