Save-A-Family.Org Review

**Save A Family** · 07-13-2006, 07:30 PM

Hello friends,

We are a new group that is aiming to help Iraqi families hurt by terrorists or the acts of war in Iraq to stand on their feet again and live a semi-normal life. We are located in Spain and most of us are Iraqis, but we have two Americans and three Spanish.

We had this idea of launching a website for the group. We are thinking of using Google Adsense instead of only relying on donations. I do know a thing or two about the internet, so I bought Studio 8 and a few other programs and decided to do it myself. Now, I am not sure if the design is good enough. It is meant to be simple and straight to the point, which is bringing people to get involved. Please check out the website at http://save-a-family.org and tell me what you think. Nothing is done yet, not even the first page, but I want to know what overall look will suit the best. Do not mind the text either, it is nothing well-done yet.

Thank you so much. I also need your help for what to include in the site that could bring visitors and Adsense income, but will ask about that later.

Thank you so much.

**Save A Family** · 07-13-2006, 07:54 PM

One more thing: Please let me know how can I get a forum that I can include Adsense in, like this one. I am looking for an easily customizable one, cheap if not free.

Thank you so much everybody.

**houseofpaign** · 07-13-2006, 08:30 PM

thie site employs http://www.vbulletin.com

another good one is: http://www.phpbb.com/

and this one: http://www.yabbforum.com/

they are all free (except maybe vbulletin)

**houseofpaign** · 07-13-2006, 08:33 PM

here's some basic ideas to make it better:

**tatrasim** · 07-13-2006, 08:54 PM

totaly agree with houseofpaign... Change the menu and center the text... I like the border. and add a footer with some info...

**houseofpaign** · 07-13-2006, 08:55 PM

you should also register saveafamily.org in case people forget the hyphens

**tatrasim** · 07-13-2006, 09:18 PM

The site looks strange though... can barely notice menu there... Bad layout, bad colors... the only thing I like is logo and the border around the text. Sorry. redo the menu and add the footer.

**Save A Family** · 07-13-2006, 09:55 PM

Thank you all very much. I have already fixed the dropshadow and I havent centered the text cause I was thinking of putting something else next to it. What kind of a footer should I use? I was only planning on putting the copyright notice. I just checked out for saveafamily.org, and I found that is registered for a New Jersey non-profit that is also called Save A Family. Im pretty disappointed, I never knew they exist. What do you think I should do guys? I have Save-A-Family.Com but not saveafamily.com, so it is the same problem. Do you think I should change the name of the website? I am really shocked to learn that another group is named Save A Family.

Tatrasim thank you. Please keep in mind that this is the first website Ive ever tried to do, and I have been trying to learn for only two months. Now, what kind of a menu what fit best? Any suggestions please?

I would not like the user to have to scroll up and down to view the whole page, just something else to consider...

Thank you SO MUCH. I really hope you keep advising and teaching me about this.

Ill be waiting for your replies

**crush123** · 07-13-2006, 10:05 PM

the site looks good.
the color for the links need to be more dark
the main page has very less content.
also by looking at the main page we may not understand the purpose of the site.
so better give some details on the main page itself in addition to "about us" page.

**houseofpaign** · 07-13-2006, 11:23 PM

the site still looks the same to me. dropshadow is still the same.

how about something more uplifting and encouraging. how about StandOnYourFeet.com or something like that? Plus, your domain could be something like BackOnYourFeet.com BUT your organization name could be the same as it is now. (please, anything but hyphenation!!)

also, there is a gramatical error: "Welcome to Save-A-Family.Org. Thank you so much for stepping by." it should be stopping, not stepping.

**tatrasim** · 07-14-2006, 12:52 AM

Good one, Sam.

Also, I do not consider this to be a website... This is more lieke a piece of graphic on the net, sorry... Look at that image... HUUUUGE!!! The whole page is just this HUGE image (which takes long time to load), and a little bit aof text... You should leave a logo, make an appropriate menu, and have the text lay nicely underneath.... I am sorry... The logo looks nice, but everything else...

Redesign! Keep the logo though, matches the domain name.

as for the domain - houseofpaign is right... but since you already got it - work with it... should've aske for advice here before... but its ok... it will work... as long as search engines list you on the first pages... idea is 50% of the success of your site, so...

**Save A Family** · 07-14-2006, 06:53 AM

Once again, thank you all very much. Houseofpaign, I still havent uploaded the image after having fixed it. Yes there are many gramatical errors, but everything is only there to know how it looks and that is why I am here asking you guys. Thank you for the advice about the domain name. Do you think I should keep this one and direct people to another domain to get involved? I am also concerned of having registeration problems in the US if we apply to register Save A Family there in the future.

We are hoping to get some money from the Adsense ads, do you guys know what content and design would work the best? And do people actually click on these ads a lot? I have searched a lot, but still have no clear answers. We are hoping for this to work, but are not sure whether or not it will. Weve invested $2000 in it so far, getting Studio8 and other programs. The web hosting was given free for us, so we think it is worth a try.

Tetrasim you do not need to say sorry, I really appreciate it

I only didnt know know about this website before. Im still new to all of this. So the image is too big? I asked some people using modem to check it, and they said it loaded fast enough... All of you agree that the menu should be changed, can you please make some suggestions? Nothing is done yet, I just came here to ask for suggestions and Im happily getting many.

Thank you again, please let me know what kind of a menu would work the best.

**LadynRed** · 07-14-2006, 02:17 PM

You really do need consistent navigation on every single page. Right now the only way to get back to your home page is by clicking the logo. As mentioned, a proper menu is needed.

The big drop shadow makes the image look drab. I'd make it much smaller and more subtle, that should brighten it up.

You need more content, more descriptions of what you're doing. Get some photos in there.

**orionvortex** · 07-14-2006, 04:00 PM

Ok I'm going to be honest with you about the adsense. You are going to need a lot more pages of content to get any money from the adsense. Right now I'm seeing a layout that would encompass 7 pages (maybe there will be more, but just from those links). From only 7 pages you will never earn much adsense unless you have absolutely, excellent adsense integration. Even if you have this there is a chance that nobody will ever visit your site because search engines don't rank it very high and there aren't many visitors.

I reccommend to first build more pages. Let them know every single detail! Also, the forum would be good. I would add to your total number of pages, thus increasing your adsense pages and increasing the chances an ad will be clicked on.

Since yours seems to be somewhat of a charitable organization maybe a donate button would be good. There are plenty of other sites with paypal donate boxes with less noble purpose. It might help out some.

**Save A Family** · 07-14-2006, 07:13 PM

Ladyn, Thank you for the suggestions. I definitely will work on what you suggested. Oriovortex, thank you as well. The pages you see are only to introduce people to Save-A-Family.Org and let them know what is this built for. I realise that Adsense income is not easy to be earned, and the website will have many pages. I already have about 60 articles written about different subjects there, with pretty good Adsense integration I´m told. Get Involved will offer people many options to let them stay on the site, thus increasing the chance to get the click. For online Shoppers, I have this idea of offering rebates on many products for online shoppers (using affiliate programs, I have talked to some companies and they all gave me the okay to do so.) There surely will be a donate button, but the idea is not depending on donations. We really need a lot to do what we want to do ( The families we want to help have real problems. Iraq is not like Cambodia for example, where you can sponsor a child for only $18. The prices there are almost the same as in the US now. The families we need to help need a lot and we would like to be able to cover the costs of operations for some injured ones. We really need a lot to make this work, and I do not think donations alone would be enough.) I am also thinking of wristbands and things alike, but I still havent a source that can dropship in the US for cheap prices. We have sold wristbands here in Spain for 2 Euros, as it costed us almost a Euro to get them printed, and it worked well. However, I dont think people in the US would pay 3 dollars for a wristband. Correct me if I´m wrong please.

The website, as of now, will have a forum, many articles, a shopping section with rebate offers, and Im looking for more ideas. As of getting many visitors, I was not planning on depending on search engines to send me some. I am counting on word of mouth, and Ill be asking people to invite as many people as possible to spend a minute or two on our website. I will also ask people to come back everyday and spend some time here, and I really hope that they will. I definitely need to get something interesting to make them stay, but I definitely do not want them to get very amused by whats there, cause the point is getting the click. I am really counting on people coming back, and the them telling others about us. We´ll see.

Thank you all for your help, I really appreciate it. Please keep the suggestions coming.

**houseofpaign** · 07-14-2006, 07:42 PM

i would pay $3 for a wristband. it's not exorborant amount of money, especially for charitable donations.

look into having a donations button from PayPal. Look here: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/websc...-intro-outside

**Save A Family** · 07-14-2006, 09:25 PM

Sam, thank you so much for all the help. I am setting up a Thank You page and I would definitely like you to be there if you do not mind.

We would love to see people donating or buying wristbands, but we just do not want to only depend on that now that we´ve learnt about Adsense. I have tried to come up with a new design, and a sample is available at http://Save-A-Family.Org/test.html. Ive made some kind of a navigation bar. Pure text hyperlinks, no big images anymore. Ive also made a footer that you could navigate from. Is this any better? The page still needs some content to answer the visitor right away, but I want to know if this design or a similar one would do.

Thank you again, I would love to hear from everybody.

**houseofpaign** · 07-14-2006, 09:39 PM

I'd love to be on there! thanks!

btw, your website has some problems when viewing it on a Macintosh using Safari. Ladynred might be able to help you with that, if ya ask nicely.

see?

**Save A Family** · 07-14-2006, 09:46 PM

Well Thank YOU, not me. And... Oops! Then I definitely need some help with that. I thought it looked nice and easy to navigate through, but I guess I have to fix this problem before I ask people for opinions.

**Save A Family** · 07-14-2006, 09:54 PM

Ive just sent him a message asking for help, I hope he replies soon. Thanks again.