Hey Everyone

Im new here at p2l, and i really like this place, excellent webdesign of it aswell hehe.

Anyway i recently got my website re-designed, so i would like to hear what people think about it.
Its a tutorial site with streaming videos for 3d studio max.

Ive then got a public gallery added for members to upload their creations.
When you register to the main site, you can automaticly log in with the same details to the forum aswell.


Let me know what ya think.

Link: Visit My Website

PS: The streaming player is currently getting upgraded to one with a progress bar so you can skip back and forward in the tutorials without having to watch them all over.

Thanks
Jesper


(Question: I know this aint the place, but how to i take ownership of a source site here? doesnt seem the function works for me in the menu)

Good work Jesper, I had a look at the videos on the ork and the sound and quality is good which is important.

As a 3d graphic site I would like the above the fold area to speak click me. I would show of the tutorials either with a nice thumbnail and description, or with a flash slider box, showing of the best projects. instead of boring text at the top and video screen at the bottom.

Your homepage needs to atract people to keep on clicking!

Get rid of the empty catagories untill you get some content. If I click animation and see it empty, I tend to give up whilst the content you have is of good quality.

Look forward to seeing the site in a few months time

I will defitnally take your feedback into consideration. Soon when my wallet recovers i will start tweaking stuff making them a lot more interesting.

I will keep you updated once i get started.


helpvids do you think i should improve video quality? or is it good enough. Because im really trying to make the files as small as possible so no visitor have to wait for streaming. Currently a 10 Minute video is 37 MB.

We stream our video using a special technology compressing the vids a lot. When you still have a few vids and all for free, you can use vimeo and embed, that way you get some extra cover.

To get the files in small size you need some good compression. but the money starts adding up.

There are a few possibilities, either on2fx which in my opinion is overpriced and under performing, bitmoov which is awsome and my personal recommendation or get something custom made (this is what the big boys do, but needs some ace programmers, so very very expensive)

bitmoov looks like a really nice encoder. ill defitnally keep that in mind when im thinking of upgrading.

Thanks for the advices

Yep bitmoov rocks, we are going through a redesign at helpvids and at webzo, could you have a look and tell me what you think, would appreciate the advice. I havent got a lot on 3dsmax, just some basics for beginners, that needs work.

Your site is a bit more advanced than mine hehe. I like all the features even the small ones, as most viewed in the video sections. Fast streaming aswell. You got a shitload of tuts heh, how long have you been running helpvids?

How many members do you actually have signing up? Is there a good "market" for sign ups to tutorial sites?

Thanks Jesperj, we are working on a big change this week. We have just changed our membership types a bit, we started in april, the main difficulty is to find people that are capable and willing to make the vids. We are allways looking for content, even though we have made loads inhouse. I will let you know when we finish the upgrade to the design.

What kinda hosting are you using?

Im currently on a Shared Enviroment @ Hostmonster.com, but i think im gonna need a better solution soon.

Im not sure how much the current host can take.

Im using about 60-80Gb of bandwidth a day and about 1500 unique visits. Would a VPS work? or do i need a dedicated server?

I was just on your site, upgrading to something faster huh.

Ye i rented a VPS. My current host cant handle the traffic hehe. However i dont got a clue on how to get a VPS up and running, so im waiting for my web designer to get me sorted

I rented the VZ2 offer at http://www.hostv.com/vps-hosting.shtml

Should be good enough i hope hehe.

Since i hired my SEO company my traffic and bandwidth have increased alot, from avg of 200-300 visitors a day to 1500-3000 unique visits. Ive also advertised a lot on other sites.


Didnt you get my pm btw?

Wow, that's a big increase! Are you getting a lot of google and yahoo organic visits?

Oops, hadn't checked my pm's, sorry.

Yeah the vps you have should be good enough for a while, but you will be close to its limits soon. Which SEO did you hire? Sounds like they are doing a good job for you.

Sent you a pm helpvids.

At the moment most of my traffic is generated trough the tutorial submission sites like pixel2life, tutorialized, tutcity and so on. Then i have about 20% from search engines, but thats what me and the seo company is gonna improve. We already placed my site in the top10 of some keywords, and working on tougher keywords.

Don't forget the usefulness and power of social media to advertise.

Thats my Seo´s work They add me to 250 Social Sites per month. But thanks for the tip

We have done something similar with submitedge, 250 social bookmarks per month, etc. If you look at the backlinks that google recognises, not one! just check it out, not sure if this is really so usefull. My backlinks that google and yahoo recognise are from other quality websites.

I think that external seo, ie linkbuilding is usefull if the links are on a good PR page of the website (social bookmark submissions are often on a high PR site, but very low ranking page)

We have been up and down in google for helpvids, but get some reasonable traffic from webzo, No PR though frustratingly enough.

Elrohier, you seem to know your stuff, any tips?

Another thing I just remembered. Before you get too excited about your google position, make sure you clear your cookies! Google has a new system since a few months that gives you a listing according your search history that you have stored.

Ye, my website always come up nr1 when i search in google. thats why i use a IBP to check my search engine rankings and such. My seo company provide me links, pageranks, username/passwords if its on a site requiring log in like twitter etc. and they give me charts on all search engines where my website is placed, on all the keyword phrases their promoting. So each week i can see if my site was placed nr 210 the first week and 170 the next week etc.

As long as their doing their job im happy + im not really concinced that pagerank have much to do with anything, as google have said themself aswell for ages.

ibusinesspromoter? I was using webceo which I liked a lot, but will check out your seo-tool tonight.

Only used the trial of it thou. Dont think its worth the $ you have to pay for the full version heh.

I'm not talking about social media to get back-links, theirs already many ways to do that already. I'm talking about using them to connect with your sites viewers and using the sites to connect to new people. Finding people who need help and directing them to a page of yours that could help them. It makes the site seem less corporate and more friendly. It's all about networking, because then other people will talk about it, maybe blog about it; thus creating back-links.

Networking. Its a good thing.

Matt.

How would you implement it in the website Elrohier? Are you thinking about adding a tweet to the homepage or being more active on facebook?

I would stay away from Facebook.

What I mean is to get in touch with your target group. Yes adding a Twitter landing page is a good idea, and adding a twitter bar on your site. But it's all about connecting with your peers and customers. Thats what networking is about, mainly when you dont have millions for advertising and branding.

Yes I can see how it can be useful. I have started a twitter page, but have to admit I find most of the social media a bit tedious to keep up with. Maybe it is just me.

I guess that networking for networking's sake is not my hobby, but I might need to make it my priority.LOL

pixel2life is a very interesting source of traffic for us, I am also looking into creating tutorial widgets that people can use for free with my embedded vids.