New Website – Forum Traffic

[wickededge]

Hey guys,

I’m wondering about your reactions to the new site and I’m wondering if the new format is putting people off of posting in the forum. Is there something about the design that makes it less appealing to post?

-Clay

[Organic]

I like the new design. It is clean, and modern, and is well organized. I’ve noticed that it has been pretty quiet around on the forum the last several days as well. My guess is that people are just busy with other things at the moment.

1 user thanked author for this post.

wickededge

[Alan]

I also like the new format.  It’s all come a long way in the couple years since I first became a member.  Most of us have seen these slower, quiet times before I think.  I predict things will pick up again before long.

Alan

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wickededge

[dulledge]

I don’t know about other areas but in New York we only recently got a warm weather. It was unusually chilly for June. I guess people just started to enjoy the summer. I didn’t notice much changes about the forum design. Top menu is different and I like it. I don’t see what changed in forum itself. Did you reduce font size? If yes, I’d prefer a larger font size please.

1 user thanked author for this post.

wickededge

[Cheesehead_Slasher]

I love the new site and forum. I think it is a HUGe improvement over the previous version. The old version seemed dated and clunky. On the flip side, the new site and forum are both clean, efficient, and modern.

I think it will be positive for your business. Don’t worry about traffic I think it’s due to summer. The economy is doing well and people are having fun and not sitting inside playing on their computers.

I’m curious how close web traffic relates to sales. I have been looking at a WE for a few years and recently pulled the trigger. I am doing my part in the “trickle down” economy 🙂

1 user thanked author for this post.

wickededge

[Mark76]

I also like the new design.

I think that most new people who wanted to post on the forum previously first went to http://www.wickedegeusa.com. Personally, I always went directly to knife.wickedegdeusa.com (the forum directly), but I don’t think newcomers did so. (I cannot even remember how you got from www.wickedegeusa.com to the forum. If it was not obvious how to do that or easy to do that, my text below doesn’t apply.)

If you now go www.wickedegeusa.com (or even knife.wickededgeusa.com), you get a very long list of horizontal menu options. As I said, aesthetically very nice, but it might cause the problem.

What I’d do in that case is:

• Bring in more hierarchy to this long list, so you don’t get so many options at once (which makes it difficult to choose or even to spot an option like the forum;
• If you don’t want to do this, do something to highlight the forum in this long list, so it is spotted easier. Or bring in some hierarchy in menu options, so you don’t get to choose from so many at once. This might be useful anyway, regardless of the ease with which the forum is found.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

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wickededge

[Josh]

I like it a lot! Think you guys did a great job personally.

1 user thanked author for this post.

wickededge

[wickededge]

Mark76 wrote:

If you now go www.wickedegeusa.com (or even knife.wickededgeusa.com), you get a very long list of horizontal menu options. As I said, aesthetically very nice, but it might cause the problem.

Thanks Mark, we’re working on cleaning this up without burying things so they’re not easy to find and use.

-Clay

[Snecx]

I don’t know about the rest but I’m just patiently waiting for my 2017 Gen 3 Pro to ship. So I’m just quietly waiting until it arrives! 

I think the new layout is great!

1 user thanked author for this post.

Organic

[Mark76]

For some reason, I only wrote about the aesthetics of the new site and Clay’s question whether it may be offputting to post to the forum (which I also think). I forgot to add I also think it is a pretty good site from a marketing point of view and could increase sales, which, let’s be fair, the new products deserve.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

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wickededge

[Rich]

I agree, the site is much improved!  Much cleaner looking.  One thing I would love to see is a more complete grit chart.  For one, the 1500 diamond is not listed.

I am also waiting for my 2017 Gen 3 vice. Can’t wait!!!!

2 users thanked author for this post.

wickededge, Snecx

[sksharp]

The new site looks great and after a little time getting used to the changes I really like it. Very user friendly from my point of view.

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wickededge

[Mark76]

The site structure has been overhauled again. I must say I like it a lot! Before we had a very long list of options, now they are structured very logically in a main category and a sub-category. Perfect.

Two things I would personally change:

• The forum is really hidden now on the main website (“under How to/Forum”). I would give it a more prominent place, i.e. as a main category (as it was a couple of days or so ago, I think) rather than a sub-category. I think this is more friendly to the users. In addition, it has been shown that websites with a forum are substantially better from a marketing/sales point of view, since it users can interact and it shows that comments from users are taken seriously (provided that the shop/site workers also participate, of course). I think this latter is a core value of WE.
• The forum website doesn’t show the other (product) categories anymore. I would personally add them: when I read the forum I sometimes also want to read about the products. And now the number of main categories has been reduced, I think there is room for them.

And one tip: the accessories/upgrades part of the site is still empty.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Mark76]

Haha, the website really changes on an hourly basis now a and my second bullet is out of date already.

But it wouldn’t be me if I hadn’t something else to add : the banners of the main website and the forum website are different, but mainly only in layout. I would make them the same, since this would integrate the forum in the main website even more. (In the past the forum and the main website were two completely different websites and that was quite an annoyance sometimes. It also didn’t look professionally.)

An now we really get into the category of nitpicking. The text size of the forum (at least after a post has been submitted) is point 18. However, the default size of the emojis is point 16. As a consequence the emojis are a little smaller than the other text, unless you change this default text size (which nobody does – except for me in this post ). So I would make 18 the default size of the emojis.

And a question for the other moderators/webmasters/developers. Curtis learned me a few days ago how I could pin and unpin a message. (Maybe this functionality already existed for a long time, but I didn’t know it. And as far as I know it had also never been used on the forum.) Is there a way to edit the “thanks” for a post?

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[cbwx34]

Mark76 wrote:

And a question for the other moderators/webmasters/developers. Curtis learned me a few days ago how I could pin and unpin a message. (Maybe this functionality already existed for a long time, but I didn’t know it. And as far as I know it had also never been used on the forum.) Is there a way to edit the “thanks” for a post?

The ability to “pin” a post has always been there… it just doesn’t work in the “Recents” section… it always defaults to what’s new.  You could see them if you went to the individual categories.  With the Knowledge Base… I’m not sure they’re really necessary now anyway.

You can “Remove Thanks” if you have a change of heart?!?…. you’ll see the option appear in the same area the Thanks Button was… once the Thanks posts.

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