Feedback required for spoof newspaper

I've had The Bramfieldian up and running for nearly a couple of months, so it's still in its infancy and I'm still trying to build up links etc to attract visitors.

However, from the occasional hits I do get it's clear that a lot of visitors don't explore as much as I hoped they might. Now, either the layout is off putting, or the content, or both!!

I would appreciate feedback from any of you comedy-philes so I can attempt to improve it.

I'm ready and braced for anything ( having read a few of the Critique threads ), so let me throw it out there and see who steps in it.

Thanks

Graham

Do these spoof newspapers ever work?

I used to play spoof. It was with coins. Paying it with newspapers must
be a real challenge!

Do they ever work?

Well clearly they do for the few that actually make money out of the venture, although I'm not looking to do that.

For me it's just a humourous exercise that began years ago that I wanted to expand on, given the publishing scope of the Internet, and I hope I can create something that's amusing for others to read.

My concern is that the magazine theme I adapted is not displaying the headlines and stories to their best advantage. Plus I do need to rethink the category system I've adopted, which seemed like a wizard wheeze at the time but which is somewhat unwieldy.

Maybe for this type of village newspaper to work you need to access individual editions rather that a rolling news format?

You've come up with some really good ideas for spoof news items there. But you have a lot of competition on the net. All I can suggest is keep plugging it. It will either attract more traffic or it will just plod along, in which case you might consider using your talents on something totally new and different to everything else out there. Hope this helps.

Quote: billwill @ February 22 2011, 12:32 AM GMT

Do these spoof newspapers ever work?

View original

There's one called the Daily Mail that's funny as all hell and has been going for years

There are some good ideas on there but the layout doesn't really invite exploring the rest of the site.

I don't know if it's due to the browser but the categories thing is way down the bottom instead of being a sidebar, which means I have to scroll through everything else to even see it and it's sort of plonked on the edge of a blank white screen when I get there.

I actually quite like the category names but when you click on one I think perhaps you should have a hadline story in full with others to click on - at least while your content is limited.

For instance, to read the story about the guy wanting his staircase gritted (which I enjoyed) I had to scroll all the way down the main screen, choose a category and then click again to read the story, even though it was the only one in that category. If you want to grab readers, you need to put good content in front of them as easily as possible. I think the same goes for your front page - if your conceits is that it's a newspaper then you actually need a story on the front page, not just a lot of links to the stories.

Another thing - it's mostly just plain text on a white background, which just looks a bit boring to be honest. If you're sticking with the 'it's a newspaper' thing, perhaps you should at least try to find a background that looks like paper.

>I don't know if it's due to the browser but the categories thing is way down the bottom instead of being a sidebar

Almost certainly your browswer or screen is too narrow for this design.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~#

I suggest that you put NEXT & PREVIOUS buttons on each story as well, to just lead the reader through stories.

Thanks all round for the input. I do appreciate it and it confirms my fears that all is not well on the layout front. I feel a revamp coming on.

Fortunately, thanks to the excellent Wordpress, I can change theme, and categories, fairly easily. I'll take all suggestions on board and just take time out to find something that is easier to navigate and entices the reader to delve deeper, and is not quite so boring.

I will stick with it, because it is something I enjoy writing, and it keeps my comedy hat on when approaching other projects. Good exercise in other words.