ANY help / feedback appreciated

[jdsutt1]

Good Afternoon,

Thank you all in advance for your time and for any feedback that you provide. I am excited to join these forums with people who have the similar goal of allowing themselves more freedom.

I am still struggling to come up with what my "muse" should be right now, so in the meantime I have decided to create a website just so I can get acquainted with the process of creating a site and how people implement ads, etc. onto sites. I plan to start selling an actual product (in whatever niche it is that I end up in) within the next 3 months.

For my current site (which I just started) I am looking for ANY feedback that people might have both positive and negative. The site can be found at: www.elephantuprising.com - I don't know that there's really a way to make much money from this site, but it's definitely something that I enjoy doing from a creative standpoint in my free time.

Does anyone have any suggestions for ways they could see something like this turning into a muse? Any ideas for ways to expand the site? Any general suggestions (look, layout, sections, etc?) I am considering adding videos and t-shirts to the site, but as of right now that's just a thought.


Again, I am very appreciative of any suggestions / critiques / feedback that anyone can provide. Thank you all again for your time!

Best Regards,

Jason

[Marcie]

Hi Jason! Wow, did you do all that writing? Too funny! I really think you are on the right track. I recently sent these two resources to a friend (who is a writer) to encourage her to do a site something like what you have set up -

http://www.problogger.net/
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/07/0714_bloggers/index.htm

Maybe we can learn from eachother...

[jdsutt1]

Thanks Marcie!

Any critiques? Things that you think would work well on the site?

Thanks again for the links -

[wildsoul]

I'll 2nd Marcies suggestion for you to check out ProBlogger articles!

One thing I like about your blog, compared to a lot of spamlogs that are trying to get attention, is that you have real content. And it's funny!

I would like to suggest a new header image, and maybe a different name. Now, part of my reason for saying that is because of my personal obsession with elephants (sacredelephants.net (http://www.sacredelephants.net/)) and so I was hoping it was related to that, but your header image also made me think that was what it was about!

When I started reading, I was confused. (Where's the ellies?)

Then I thought, "Oh! This is probably a Republican site."

*scratches head* but that doesn't seem like what it is either.

*reads on, laughs at satire* So it's neither about elephants or Republicans?
I think you need to change the name.

Did you write those, or are you pulling content in as a feed somehow?
Funny stuff.

[jdsutt1]

wildsoul, (if that even is your real name)

Thank you so much for the suggestions. I'll definitely have to check out that problogger and start checking out name possibilities on godaddy. Do you (or anyone else reading this) happen to know of any good places for me to get a logo created? I was thinking about maybe the image of an elephant from the trunk up with one eyebrow raised either coming out of tall grass or just over the words elephant uprsing if i do keep the name - either way, I have no idea how, or where, to begin looking for a design. Any thoughts?

As for the content, it's all me. Haha I don't even know what a feed is. I have no desire to merely become one of those sites that just posts someone else's content and then signs their own name for it in the interest of generating traffic for ads. If I do end up getting traffic, I want it to be because I am producing quality content that people enjoy. I really appreciate the feedback. The content is funny to me in my head, but without responses like yours I have had no clue if it was enjoyable to others or not. Maybe you can check back later tonight and let me know what you think - I'm working on writing a new post right now "Barack Obama Lands Nike Endorsement."

Thanks again. Keep the suggestions, critiques, ideas for the direction of the site coming anyone (and everyone.) This is beyond helpful to me!

[Marcie]

Yeah a new header/logo was my next suggestion. Try www.elance.com to find an affordable graphic designer. Good stuff!

[jdsutt1]

Thanks Marcie! I'll check out elance right now to find out how much they charge.

What do you guys think of the layout of the site itself? Should I try to find a way to make it look more like a newspaper site? Maybe add a section for humorous videos?

Thanks again! Any suggestions are welcomed!

[natereed]

http://www.theonion.com

[onemoretry]

As for the content, it's all me. Haha I don't even know what a feed is.

I hope you're kidding about that! Without a good (but basic) understanding of RSS (feeds), CSS, javascript, etc., it's going to be very hard to get the traffic you want to actually make any money off your site. You have AdSense running so I'm sure this just good humor.

You should check out feedburner.com, which automates most of the process of syndicating your blog with lots of promotional features. Google bought it recently but nothing drastic has happened as a result.

[jdsutt1]

Thanks for the link to the feedburner site!

Unfortunately I wasn't kidding about the feeds. I had heard of RSS because I see the symbol everywhere, but as this is my first attempt at anything remotely like this I had no idea what it was for. I'm still trying to learn as much as I can as quickly as possible. I just did a wikipedia search on it to get a basic understanding. Pretty much it sounds like it would be a good idea for me to add the feed program and allow people to sign up for feeds from the site.

I'll most likely struggle with things like CSS and JAVA at first, but that's to be expected. I could always outsource things that I don't learn to do myself as well I suppose. I'm trying to use this site as a learning experience so that when I am able to decide on what niche my "muse" should be in, the process will hopefully be much more streamlined for me. I don't anticipate making any money off of this site, but I do want to work with it to the best of my ability to ensure quality content. If traffic ever did really pick up (which of course would be incredible), then I would worry more about ads at that time.

The site hasn't been up for very long just yet, so I'm still looking for suggestions on how to make the layout. Should it be designed more like a newspaper site? Has anyone seen another site's look that would be similar to something that would work best for this style site?

Also, I took your suggestion Marcie and I put out a logo design for bid on elance. I very much appreciate you pointing me there. Already some of the people who have replied seem like they could do a great job.

Thanks again everyone for any suggestions!