My muse, advice needed

[padma]

Well, my muse is a combo of mine and a close friend that came from our passion about fitness. We are hoping to eventually move towards more user driven content and better tools, but at the moment we need a site revamp.

We've been told our site is confusing, and I'd like to know what others think.

It is http://www.furyfitness.com

We hope to eventually make money from adsense/affiliates, but in the end we'd like to see where the user base goes.

Any thoughts or opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Padma

[zoeinthecity]

i like it

but what is the unique selling proposition? i mean, whats different about this site to all the other fitness sites that are already established.

i use myfitnesspal.com i love it because its free and i am losing weight after just 10 days with the site(wooo!) i recommend it to everyone (and no, i get nothing for doing that)

i didnt look into your site too much, but it says "sample workout" does that mean that i have to pay to get a workout?

[Sven]

It is nice to see a website with the same kind of goal as I have with shorthandedsailing.com.

I don't find it confusing, there is just a lot to see which I think is good for a community.

I do think that the dark brownish grey in the top is a bit gloomy for a fitness site. It would be quite stylish with a gadget site ore something but for fitness?

I think it is worth while to play around a bit with it. Maybe bring it to a lighter shade and more towards the light blue you have on the left? (just an idea;-)

Sven

[mandasol]

Site looks fine, and it's really not confusing.

I would recommend a couple things.

Everyone that starts a new venture seems to think they are going to create the next BIG thing. They use words like "best", "universal", "global", "first", "premier", etc. It gets way overused and when you're starting out and it's obvious that you are starting out, using those words just sets up users/customers into a cynical mindset of "O.K. so you think you're the best/premier/global company, let's just see how awesome your are.", and they start picking everything apart. It may work out better to play off the fact that you're new -- it establishes that you may not have all the bugs worked out on your site, so people will be more likely to forgive you, and it gives you the ability to create your own niche. You can be an "underground" fitness movement, or a "grass roots" group, or a "military special ops boot camp" fitness training.

Also, try working on getting more "key" users with a large social network already established, or influence with a large group of people. To do that you have to offer something or provide something unique to someone prominent so that they may be interested in joining your comunity. If you find a niche, that can also be useful to find "key" users interested in that topic. I read an article about Myspace.com and the creators discussed how they really didn't have a lot of users at first, but they had known about a pretty well known socially networked person with her own site, and convinced her to move her site to a myspace page so she could link all her friends together. Soon after the site took off faster than they could have imagined, and they just focused on getting those "key" users.

[padma]

Great feedback, I really appreciate it.


As far as uniqueness goes, we aim to go for the hardcore fitness community, but we haven't quite gotten there yet. I basically did the entire site myself and it has been a giant learning curve. However, I am currently looking over bids to add an enhanced fitness tracking tool and a workout wizard. Until that is ready, we are putting most of the focus on events, groups, and advice exchange.

And everything on the site is free...we plan on generating income through ads, and hope to grow a large userbase and sell down the road. If not, I'll just enjoy having it.

As far as the colors go, the wife said the same thing. At first I thought it looked clean, but the more I look at it the more I think it is boring,especially with the plain white background.

Thanks for the input on the "premier" text. I agree with you now that you've pointed it out. Key Users- fantastic advice...if you get the right users, they will do most of the work for you.