[inishindie]

Hi

Gardening.ie has been running for three years and has built up a network or over 400 people interested in horticulture.

We are looking to make the website more interactive and dynamic and to bring it up to date. We don't have those sorts of skills, but maybe you do.

We run affiliate ads and have a classified section that could be optimised.

If you have computer design skills in Joomla! we would love to hear from you.

We can't offer money at the moment but would offer the incentive of profit sharing with the adverts etc.

http://gardening.ie/index.php/contact

Thanks

Ian

[ormondsview]

If you want to make it interactive by giving people the option to post comments which you can moderate, then use a wordpress blog. You can download any theme you like and customize it. Unlike a website, where you have to build all of the navigation from scratch, this updates by date, so it maintains its order by posting time and archives older posts, all easily searchable. Lots of widgets to add on. You will be tracked by feeds on rss. A good service provider should have fantastico which downloads the wordpress to your cpanel quite simply.

You can get a free blog in blogspot and wordpress too.

For Joomla and Mambo, you have to admin and give people access logins. Much more of a learning curve.

Which way do you want to go and I can help with answers.

[inishindie]

Thanks for the ideas Ormondsview.

The site already has a facility to add comments, articles and photo's, it's a very little used function.

I also had a forum running for a while ( http://inishindie.freeforums.org/ ) the forums seem to be reducing in popularity though with social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter getting more popular.

I decided that the Gardenplans forum here was far better equipped to deal with queries so I got rid of my forum and added this as a link instead, which works very well.

I have two blogs running too (both blogspot) which are linked. I do deal with Wordpress on the www.greenme.ie site that I write for and find it easy to use so I will look into that.

I started the classified section a while ago too but only a handful of takers , I don't push it much.

I think my weaknesses are probably in the SEO of the site. I have joined forums, added to sites that claim to increase viewings and even paid for google ads, which can be an extremely expensive way of promoting a site if you have nothing to sell.

I think the site needs a higher profile and making more attractive, (dare I say funky) to attract a wider audience as well as taking a lot of excess junk off of it that has accumulated over the years.

I tried adding Amazon affiliate ads onto some of the articles but felt that I was trying too hard to sell products in favour of content. There's a balance somewhere and I feel it will be better to join up with an impartial person with web experience who can see the site as something to improve on.

I would even consider stripping the site right down and starting again if necessary, as the site address has quite a high google ranking on some keywords, this could work in it's favour.

Cheers

Ian

[inishindie]

Thanks for the ideas Ormondsview.

Update....We've had a fantastic response to the article here and are pleased to say that we have recruited a web design company to improve the site and make it more user friendly.....Watch this space......

[inishindie]

The www.gardening ie site has a fresh look. We recruited the help of Heaventree Design http://www.heaventreedesign.com/ who have done a great job de-cluttering the site and giving it a new fresh feel.

Thanks

Ian

[Sarah Evans]

Wow...

It is certainly easier on the eye than previously will do another blog review of the site and mention the changes via twitter..

[inishindie]

Here's the new look site.....All of the ads have gone and the layout is a lot clearer.....