Motorcycle Clothing.com is online!

[Kyle]

Last night I officially launched Motorcycle Clothing.com (http://www.motorcycleclothing.com). It's an affiliate site focused on archiving original consumer opinions of products. I'm very happy with this site. It took me quite a bit of time to plan for and develop, and I still have more tweaks to add as well as some content/products.

Any constructive criticism is very much appreciated.

Also if anyone has any motorcycle sites of their own, I am only exchanging links or partnering with topic-related sites. MotorcycleClothing.com will have a visible pagerank of 5 or 6 by the next two toolbar updates.

Thanks!

[MarkB]

Icebane - *nice* design!!

My initial thought was that you should carry the logo colours over to the colour of the links (so a nice dark orange link colour).

Also, making the menu a little clearer - to me (and this IS just personal taste), the bulleted list seems a little cluttered.

Best of luck with it! :)

[paul]

I'm confused. I see a content free site that wants to sell me motorcycle stuff. I clicked into a few pages and saw lots of things I could buy, but no place that solicited my opinion.

I'm sure some of this is because it is new and not completed. I assume the PR and traffic will result from links from more active sites that have attracted the right kind of visitors, but I didn't see any of those in your sig (I may have missed something). Or is this the kind of site you drive traffic to via AdWords?

I ask because my ideas for new sites tend to start with "What's a subject I can write 10-15 pages of solid content for that will do well when the Googlebot arrives." My personal best to date for the least content, fewest links, and best results is www.treenware.com. I have ordered a few books (mostly old and out of print) on treenware and plan to add some book reviews and other articles. I think that will get it to the number one spot at Google. Word tracker says there are 28 searches per day for "treenware" so this is a tiny niche. My plan is to add links to Amazon books and Ebay auctions and see if anything happens. It makes a sandbox to test templates and maybe someday I can use it to send some PR to another site.

Is this a total waste of time?

Would someone be willing to compare and contrast my approach with the approach taken at www.motorcycleclothing.com

[Kyle]

Thanks, Mark very good idea to incorporate orange into the links.

paul - The content is the user review system. It will grow in time...Did you miss seeing that?

[paul]

Is that function of the site active now? If it is, I can't see it.

I still wonder how you get traffic to the site.

[Kyle]

You don't see on the front page, the 10 latest user reviews?
Or when you go to a specific brand name of helmet or boot, the option to submit reviews?

[paul]

No. I checked just before I posted and again just now. I click on the link in your sig and see five reviews on the home page and no place to write a review on the product page.

[paul]

Correction. I had not clicked on specific products, Just the more general links. I do see the review form on the specific products page. But only five reviews on the home page.

[Kyle]

That's right. It's a new site. As weird as it may sound, I haven't obtained reviews/opinions on every single brand name of product. I did have a handful of reviews from other shopping sites I had that included motorcycle products.

What you see as a heading on the front page is "Five Latest Consumer Opinions". Underneath that, you see the 5 latest consumer opinions arranged from newest to oldest.

Paul, are you still confused? I guess I never thought that people would wnat to submit reviews on what 'motorcycle boots' are in general terms. I guess an example would be..

"Motorcycle boots are great! They help protect your feet so you don't ride barefooted!!!"

or..

"Motorcycle jackets are great! Especially when it's cold outside! They keep me warm! HEHEHE!"

[MarkB]

Some other ideas...

For your reviews, colour code the 'Positive'/'Negative' text (or have a nice icon for each:)) so people can see at a glance what the general consensus is.

Also, for some pages (this one (http://www.motorcycleclothing.com/product.asp?prod=29) for example) I had no idea there were reviews because they were beyond the scroll. How about a link at the top saying, eg, 'there are 5 reviews for this product - click here' (or something not so basic) so people can jump to them? Or simply place them a little higher...

Oh, and orange links X-D

[MarkB]

Additional: space the reviews a little - right now, they're in one seemingly large black of text, which is a little hard on the eyes when it comes to distinguishing between individual reviews...

On the main page, have the reviews linking directly to that product's page where the reviews are listed, and perhaps (if this is possible) have a link saying 'read this and five (5) other reviews of Vega Helmets!'...?

Ok, enough :D

[Kyle]

Wow thx dude. Excellent ideas. I will definitely be incorporating most of your suggestions.

[MarkB]

Ah yes, my community advisor service will soon be online LOL

[shim]

Great suggestions, Paul and MarkB!