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30 Minute Redesign #80: Tundra Headquarters

Today I’m going to be redesigning Tundra Headquarters, a great resource for Toyota Tundra enthusiasts and owners..

The Original Design:

You can see the original site design below:

You can check out the original website here.

First Impressions: Strengths

Every site has some merits, and the good impressions I made here are these:

Cohesive Color Scheme

It’s encouraging to see that Tundra Headquarters has a fairly consistent color scheme, using a deep red/maroon color across the site for backgrounds, headings and logo details. This helps establish a visual brand and draw the various elements of the site together a little.

The Homepage Integrates Relevant Imagery Using a Content Slider

Using relevant imagery on your site is always a good idea, as it often lets your visitors instantly know what your site is about, more effective than text can. Tundra Headquarters actually does this well by using a content slider, which doubles as a great call to action. The content slider presents the most important content, and really is the defining feature of the homepage. Users can browse between the slides using the thumbnail images below the main slide, which helps engage them.

Decent Attempt at Visual Hierarchy

Whilst the visual hierarchy on this site is far from perfect, there is at least a good attempt to integrate headlines/headings to establish the flow of content. There is still far too much going on, meaning that the page is visually distracting/confusing. However, without these headers things would be a lot worse!

First Impressions: Weaknesses

Of course no website is perfect, and our site’s often make negative first impressions upon readers without us even realizing! Here are the negative first impressions I received from this site:

Strange Double Menu

This is a surprisingly common problem among many websites. There is a double menu happening, whereby one menu area would be sufficient, but there is a doubling up of navigation content.

At the top of the page there is an eye catching maroon menu, offering links to the homepage, blog and forum. At first glance this appears to be the primary navigation for the site. However, below the logo area we get a second menu. We see the homepage link repeated (this is pointless) and a lot of links that help organize the site’s content.

Looking at this second menu I would class it as more helpful/important than the top maroon menu, but it’s far less noticeable, using a plain white background and smaller text.

Scrap the double menu approach and use a single, noticeable menu to organize your site.

There are Far too Many Ad Units

I totally understand that websites have a need to monetize. Hell, I even released a video on the subject: Ask Tom: The Best Way to Monetize Your Blog and When to Do It.

However, Tundra Headquarters has so many adverts it’s seriously detracting from their content. This amount of adverts will simply push your users away, when you should be trying to increase time on site and reduce the bounce rate.

If you look at their sidebar the structure is:

Google adsense
Subscribe box
Banner ads
Google adsense
Post Categories (surrounded by more ads).

This is wayyyy too much. It’s also against Google terms of use to have more than 3 units on a single page, so it looks like they’ve installed ad units using another similar service, as well as Google!

Worst of all, the ads are practically the most eye catching aspect of the page, using a really harsh blue color. It’s been proven that text ads are clicked more by blending in better with the surrounding design, and whilst the general link color of the page is blue, these ad units certainly don’t blend in!

The Link Color Isn’t Attractive

This partly ties in with my complain about the ad units. The garish blue used site wide for text links feels really 90s. It’s literally like the default color given to texts when you make your first html site. It also clashes with any attempt to establish a nice color scheme using the red/maroon color elsewhere.

I would continue the red color scheme, using this to style your links, and scrap the 90s feeling text links.

My Redesign Proposal

You can see my redesign proposal below:

Let’s look at some of my aims for the redesign:

I Created a Much More Eye Catching, Usable Menu Area

The double menu happening on the original site just wasn’t working. I combined the two into one, simple usable menu that is bold and bright enough to capture your visitor’s attention.

If you need additional space I would consider using a drop down option.

I Reduced the Adverts and Clutter

The amount of clutter and adverts on the original design was killing this site and detracting from the really important content. I scrapped most of the ads (leaving the most lucrative to help with the site’s income) and presented the content in a clean, organized format.

You’ll notice that I also continued the color scheme into the text links, replacing the blue used in the original design.

EXTRA ADVICE: On a side note, I’d like to make an income recommendation. From what I can see this site does use affiliate income as well as advertising. I would push forward this side of the business and scale back your advertising. Keep the most profitable ad spots, scrap the rest, and then focus on providing quality, relevant reviews that your audience will enjoy. This way you’re making money by helping them, rather than pushing them away from your site using off-putting ad units.

I Improved the Slideshow Area

The image slideshow in the original design was one of the site’s strongest features. However, it did feel quite boxy and rigid.

There is no reason why your slider’s background can’t be the same color as your page background. By doing this your slide presentations won’t be boxed in, and can feel like a more natural part of the layout.

I also integrated an eye catching bit of headline text (which should help explain what the site is about), as well as a colorful call to action button to encourage more pageviews from your users.

Suggest Your Own Site for a Redesign

You can have the chance to have your website redesigned in next weeks post. All you need to do is leave a comment to this post with your website address and why you think it needs a redesign.

About the Author:

Tom is the chief editor at Blogs.FanExtra and founder of the FanExtra network. He loves interacting with the community, so if you have any questions hit up the contact page and he'll get back to you.

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