Hello everyone, my first forum up for review. I launched the site on April 28th I believe. We have just over 1000 registered members and bring about 150,000 impressions per month. My community is a niche market highly targeted towards a new value investing strategy by Phil Town and Rule #1, and have a nice foundation to branch off and attempt to be the primary resource for all things value investing. Looking for your criticisms here, I am wanting to get serious about this one!

http://www.ruleoneforum.com
http://www.ruleoneforum.com/blog

Some basic info around the forum:

The Big Five & Margin of Safety Calculators are an INVALUABLE resource to my members. This section of the forum has had some 45,000 views in 5 months.

The Active Trades section will be much more active once the stock markets turn a bit more bullish and in favor for our investing strategy, probably within the next month or two. I forsee a large portion of our new content being posted within this section.

The Homework Analysis forum is an archived listing of all of the potential investments that meet or exceed our investing criteria. This is where the community gets together and digs up as much dirt on a company that we can find.

The Community Spotlight forum differs from the Homework analysis forum in that I try to bring a primary focus to whatever company the members vote highest. This was done in attempt to bring a further indepth conversation than the homework analysis forum often brings. (the homework analysis archive lists some 80 companies and can be a bit overwhelming for many). The response here in the Community spotlight has been somewhat sub-par. Started off good but lack of interest has caused it to begin spiraling into the bottomless pit of irrelevancy. I'd like to correct that somewhow.

And finally, the Rule One Investopedia Stock Market Simulator is a competition designed to let the members compete against one another implemeting the strategy/philosophy outlined within the community. Since our strategy is a bit more long-haul investing rather than day trading, I needed to find a balance between having a long enough competition yet also allowing new/future members to join into competitions as they join the forums. My attempt at accomplishing this can be found here: http://www.ruleoneforum.com/read-me-vt466.html

The topics listed above are where I expect to find most of my new content. The rest of the forums are mostly education based, "where do i find this, how do I do this" kind of stuff. As people start getting more comfortable with the strategy, their post habits are likely to migrate to the topics that tend to be more interactive with the current market activity, such as the forums listed above.

I am completely new to coding, I have struggled nearly every step of the way during these past five months. I have done a small bit of SEO but probably not nearly enough. Google hasn't danced for me yet, but I am indexed with a proper sitemap. I have also injected topic titles into the url's for better indexing purposes, and have run some ad campaigns on the sidebar.

The ads are netting between 0 and $2 per day. Should I be doing better than this yet?

Please get out your red pens and bleed all over my website. Constructive or destructive criticism is completely welcome. As I said, I want to get serious about this thing. Thank you for all observations!


Justin Brand
admin@ruleoneforum.com
http://www.ruleoneforum.com
http://www.ruleoneforum.com/blog

Initial Impression

Nice website. I'm not particularly fond of the header, mainly the font. I think you could make this far more eye catching. The theme looks professional and I like how you integrated your Google ads on the sidebar. My first impression is a good one overall.

Organization and Feel

Everything seems to be laid out nicely, and you don't seem to have too many forums. Is the stock market simulator new? I think that's a great idea, but you've got to find a way to get more people participating in it. Until then, I'm not sure it deserves its own forum.

I also notice that you've got a great number of members, but not many posts. How many active members do you have? I'd do everything I can to encourage these people to participate more...

Skin and Modifications

I really like the look of the site, aside from the header. Even the header is alright, except for the text.

I'm a real fan of the way you've implemented your ads, like I mentioned above. I bet that could get annoying for members though, since it makes the forum so narrow. Do you only display ads for guests?

Also, adding a link to your blog to the navigation bar is a nice touch...

Nice favicon too...

Guidelines and Staff

I couldn't find any rules or posting guidelines. If you have them, they're too hard to find. I did see that you have a disclaimer though, which is good.

It was also a little difficult to find your admin username. I had to go to the member list and look at the members who registered first... Could you change the administrator and moderator usernames to display in a different color? Also, perhaps add a Forum Leaders page, if possible.

Recommended Changes

• Try to do more with your header... I think a more eyecatching design would benefit your site.
• Add in rules and/or posting guidelines. Make them easy to find and understand.
• Display your advertisements and sidebar for guests only.
• Make your staff easier to find, possibly with username colors, a forum leaders page, or staff introduction threads...
• Try to encourage your existing members to participate more in the discussions.

Great site and it looks like you're doing well. Hope some of my comments help.

__________________

I appreciate your comments, thank you for taking the time for the review. I have since updated many things on the board, including a full import to vB 3.6.1. (vB rocks by the way..absolutely incredible software).

The import seems to have went well, and the new features I have access to are sure to improve my website.

Now I just have to save up some cash for vbseo!