Rugby-Talk has had a change of clothes, but we’re still the same beast!
Over the weekend, I have made some radical changes to the website, some of which appear at first glance to the naked eye, with a bit of a new look and feel, and some run under the radar to make the site perform as it should and also adding valuable added functionality.
Was it strange to open your favourite rugby wensite, Rugby-Talk, and be confronted with a new look?
Tell us what you think of the new look and feel!
It is a delicate jugging act as all changes need to leave the website easily readable, the articles easy to digest, the text in all the usual colours legible and clear. Commenting needs to be easy and conversations need to be easy to follow. This of course unfortunately cuts out some darker designs and limits the choice of colours to elements and background designs.
A lot of websites make use of simple white backgrounds, to achieve this, but it leaves the first impression of the website dull and quite bland.
Most websites open with a lot of “dead space” on both the left and righthand sides, leaving the core of the website stranded in the middle, whereas Rugby-Talk makes use of a fluid design which automatically stretches to fill any screen size or resolution and which automatically adapts to your computer.
At first glance it looks like we have achieved what we set out to achieve.
We are also gearing up to add a commercial element to the website, after 4 years in existence we have now garnered the necessary feet to the website, it is now time to build a bank account!
8 Advertising spaces are now available on Rugby-Talk:
- 1 at the top, 1 at the bottom, 3 on the left hand side and 3 on the right.
- Each advertising space can carry more than one advert, adding weight or preponderance of appearance to a specific advertising position.
- In addition banner advertising strips will be available on specific Articles or Live Game Articles, effectively adding a 9th advertising space.
- On web-based or electronic adverts, advertising revenue is typically based and calculated on a rate per 1000 PAGE IMPRESSIONS (actual clicks to open or refresh a web page), and not according to HITS (which is a very false measure of traffic, seeing as one click mostly means quite a number of so-called hits).
- One can specify for which Category(ies) the Advert should appear… in other words one can specify that an Advert will only appear on Super Rugby Articles or only on Iternational Test Articles or on a combination of Categories.
- In addition one has the choice of a specified number of Page Impressions OR a specific time duration for an advert to appear.
- Click-through Links are built into an advert, making it clickable and either taking the person to a specific website url or opening an E-mail Contact page to get into contact with the advertiser.
- Static images, animated images and flash media objects can all be built into advertising space.
- An advertiser’s specific advert can very accurately be measured according to the PAGE IMPRESSIONS it was up and visible for and a huge amount of statistics can be measured quite easliy, even breaking the statistics down to where in the world the website is viewed from (countries), which days of the week or which hours of the day or night are busier than others, which operating systems and / or which mobile devices are used to view the site, which referral sites and search engines are used to source the website from and which types of articles or categories of articles are more popular.
- Recognised statistics Plug-in’s, Applications and Sources are exclusively implimented.
A small but effective marketing team has been assembled to handle the commercial elements envisaged, consisting of 2 dedicated advertising specialists with a combined 46 years experience in the advertising industry and recognised as experts in their industry.
Regards,
Grootblousmile
(Webmaster)
I will
test the advertising for you on a free trial basis.
2 @ Lion4ever:
For a loyal Rugby-Talker, that is no problem… contact me!
Will do.
@ grootblousmile:
Uitstekende uitleg bru, welgedaan!
Looks like I have walked into the Namib Desert!
The colour gives you that feeling…hehehe.
Nice though gbs I like it. Will we have any rugby features in the background? Or our Boke emblem things like that.
5 @ Pietman:
Dankie… ek dink ook nogal dis moerse!
6 @ Puma:
We are moving towards a global rugby site with rugby-talk… this will be the 1st of the whole Sport-Talk.com empire… we will have cricket-talk.co.za soon enough, then eventually soccer-talk.co.za, then motorsport-talk.co.za, then golf-talk.co.za…. and eventually we’ll monopolize the WORLD…. hehehe
The domain names for cricket-talk.co.za, soccer-talk.co.za, golf-talk.co.za and motorsport-talk.co.za has already been registered… and belongs to me.
So, in essense no, not a Springbok Logo… but a huge lot of behind the scenes stuff!
7 @ grootblousmile:
Okay then, sounds brilliant. Still could sneak in a Bokkie logo somewhere…hehehe.
Nice outlook though. Fresh and clean I like it.
Me like!
@ grootblousmile:
To sum up your post in 5 words : “world domination is coming…bitches!”
9 @ The_Young_Turk:
Just put up a few sample Adverts, so I can see what it would look like… will take some down later.. do not want to overstep on any toes.
It seems that the CC will remain with 6 teams.
what are we doing tonight brain…the same thing we do every night binkey.TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD..
..
GBS
Looks great. Just a bit worried about the small cracks appearing all over the place. Indicicative of which team.
Great win for your Bulls over the weekend although could only half follow it on a streaky internet connection.
Been working like a slave the last few weeks so little time to even watch Rugby, never mind blog.
Still need to think about some advertising on the site, but need to get my ducks in a row first.
No good having TOO MUCH work and not being able to deliver.
Also might need to ask your advise on a possible contract for a BIIIIGGGG job it looks like I’m going to get. Will see what transpires. (Can’t trust financial okes as far as you can spit them.)
Anyway, great news about the “Sports-Talk” developments.
13 @ Scrumdown:
The cracks are us (Rugby-Talk), cracking the rugby world right open!!
12 @ smallies:
Is ek Brain en jy Binky??
Nice one Rudi!
@ grootblousmile:
They shouldn’t moan. Getting some freebies.
My wife has stopped me from looking at and feeling new things!
So I will not pass any comment!
@ Raggie:
Site looks awesome – much faster response time as well
GBS, looking good, although not so good on mobile devices, ads fixed, so centre ads go over ads on right, making site look untidy. Also top, centre ad covers the register/sign in box, which means you can’ log in on an ipad!
21 @ Just For Kicks:
Yip, still need to employ a totally new Mobile website theme… that was going to be next in development this week…
20 @ Gena_ZA:
Yes much faster.
Good work GBS, i Like it.
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