The web site is: Newindependentparty.com. What is you opinion of it as a web site, politics aside.

Not much time to review, but a couple of basics stand out.
1. You should link your header banner (or the left 1/2 of it) to your index - clicking on the banner should lead back to the home page. Thats a basic seo standard.
2. The color of "over" state of your left navigation links render them impossible to read. The bright gray over the yellow background render the link unreadable.
3. The "platform" link opens a flyout menu that is about 2.5x the height of the page...I would suggest researching a more elegant method of leading your visitor to (what I would assume is) an important part of your content.

Whenever someone posts for site feedback, and I post anything, I am brutally honest...so please take this as constructive feedback.

The site is very "meh" - in other words its boring and flat. I personally did not find it compelling (or professional looking) enough to want to stick around and find out what you had to say. If you are looking to capture immediate interest and keep me on your site to learn about your political party, you have to make the presentation compelling, inviting, substantial and impressive.

Best of luck with it.

Thanks for the feed back I am new to building web sites, so it may take me a little while to implement your suggestions. I appreciate your time.

Mike

I managed to change the hover color on my navigation bar and to link the title in my header to my home page. Unfortunately there does not seem to be a way to make sub-pages of sub pages using the network solutions website builder. I have listed all of the links that appear in the fly out for the platform in a platform table of contents. I could just collapse the fly out so that it just referred to the platform summary, platform philosophy and the platform table of contents. That would be more elegant, but it would make the platform less accessible because they would not be able to reach the planks directly by using the flyout and would have to go through the table of contents. Do you really think that would be better?

Hey MikeBVA.
Not sure what your experience is with site design and building...that being said, I would suggest using a pencil and grid paper to design and map out the information on the site - then move back to electronic changes.

You might also want to do some site testing for usability - there are tons of books on how to do this inexpensively and quickly.

Best regards.

I looked at the home page of your site just now. I too tend to be quite honest about my "opinions". It seems to me that the best way to entice people is to only list teasers on your front page. Don't try to close the sale right off the bat. There is quite a bit of info you are providing which needs to be read and digested. As mentioned above, too much too soon.

I think that you could also reduce the size of your fonts. Unless you are going after older people that don't want to use their readers, you don't need to make the letters so large. You might also try centering your text or at least increase the margins. This will not only make it easier to read, but give the center content some separation from the links on the left.

As far as content goes, you have quite a bit of information and theory as part of your content. Without getting into your beliefs vs. others, I think that it is important to take into consideration the fact that most people coming to your site don't know who "you" or "we" are, as it pertains to the New Independant Party. I for one like to see some statistics to support one's positions. Facts and references would be helpful, not just ideas, principals or rhetoric.

I try to remember the simple rules of writing: who, what, where, when, why and how.

Good Luck,
Note: when it was suggested you link the banner to your home page, it refers to the image at the top of your page as well as the link that floats above it. (you won't need the link above your image if you make the image your link)

Great feedback mdsource