well I broke mine the other day, so had to build a new one

http://www.oldghosts.co.uk

yes I know you need flash to listen to the songs or download the FREE 6 track E.P. but we all have our crosses to bear.

and you designer types, any tips, comments or sanctimonious critique?

bring it on!!

(I shall also be studying the STW effect as up until 16:37 today its had 33 unique visits, will let you know the results and if the server can handle the strain!)

Works well enough, looks good in Opera, Chrome and Firefox.

Needs some more design! It’s just too white, no distinction between areas of the page. Posts could do with a “read more” link rather than whacking all the lyrics into the main page.

Here endeth my tuppence.

or you could take a look at Northern Uproar’s website

It’s not been touched since the 90s – its like finding a tin of ham in the cupboard with a sell by date of 1982 – and a label using comic sans

mmm I shall investigate the “read more” link option, I too am not a fan of the mile long scrolling, now watch me go break it!!

I know what you mean about the “lots of white” thing but my old site was all photos & background, etc I fancied trying something sparse that would have people focusing on the content rather than the page itself… ..if you know what I mean?

bloody hell the northern uproar site just made my right eyeball burst!

I daren’t try it in 800x600x16bit colour, god only knows what would happen…

oh and a staggering 50 impressions on the home page now!!

I fancied trying something sparse that would have people focusing on the content rather than the page itself…

Oh I like minimalist designs, but yours is a little TOO minimal 😉 A few thin lines can be enough to help the page hold together.
Maybe something here that gives you some inspiration.

Is that really your sister then? Did she win her horsey thing?

Is she single? What if I married her, right, then she could be ‘sisterofnuttandwifeofelfin’.

It’s got a kind of ring to it. Run the idea past her, see what she thinks.

I bet she’s not real, and this is all another elaborate con….

‘sisterofnuttandwifeofelfincaptiveinYeti’scellar’

No no no.

You’d be ‘choppedupintotinypiecesbynuttelfinandsisterofnuttandwifeofelfinandfedtothepigshavingbeentorturedoveraperiodofseveralyearsandkeptinasecretundergroundbunkerawayfromallotherpeopleandinfactallaspectsofnormalsociety’.

So there.

in the true spirit of STW, do you mean “no bodies perfect” or “nobody’s perfect” ?

😉

looks pretty good – minimalist but that’s not always a bad thing. There’s some right gash out there and you don’t have to look too hard to find it. Myspace is a good place to start looking for nasty looking sites…

my band’s site is in my profile, I think.

no bodies perfect, but sometimes its called Nobody’s perfect, its all down to the angle of the guitar 😀

you’re right about myspace, I used to use it but their idiot “upgrade” killed my theme and they seem to have successfully made everything work intermittently!

Had a rehearsal last night from 6:30pm till 9:30pm and again this morning from 8am till 2pm today, my finger tips are but stumps now! 😀

Can I marry your sister then? My father can arrange.

My father can arrange.

Elfin, I don’t think the going rate for dowries on Swindon girls is too great Elfin. Try High Wycombe or Hemel Hempstead.

I’ve got a guitar just like that round my parents. Plugged in, mine sounds like someone playing it loudly 2 houses away 😕

MrNutt, as an alternative to Flash, have you tried Soundcloud? That allows those of use who’re too frackin’ lazy to drag the laptop out, connect it up and boot it up to listen on one o’them there new-fangled ‘i’ jobbies. Works very well, you can even record straight to it using an iPhone app as well.

Elfin, I’m afraid MsNutt is already taken 😀 (and the dowery seems to consist of lots of horse manure and my strange wiltshire family)

Julian, if you ever fancy parting with said guitar I’ll happily make use of it! mine needs to be pulled apart and rewired the pickups & metal scratch plate seem to be earthed creating some weird microphonic noise machine, a fun sunday job if I ever get the time! that said I love the sound that you can get out of these old pups, does yours still have the makers name on it, mine fell off but I’m pretty sure its a teisco??

Countzero, did you visit my site? I use the soundcloud player but it’s a flash based plug in when embedded in wordpress, perhaps I should look at the html5 option?? (strangely when I try and play directly from the soundcloud site it doesnt work, could it be safari doesnt work properly a few people have said they get the same problem)

oh, I had 166 unique hits yesterday! someone must like what I’m doing 🙂

Mr Nutt, mine is a ‘top 20’ but i suspect they were rebadged for whichever 60’s catalogue was selling them at the time. I re-earthed mine wrapping the wire round one of the bridge posts. Mine was pretty microphonic too. The pots are well scratchy and the ‘tone control’ may as well be a switch. Next time I’m at my folks’, I’ll dig it out and have a look at it for you…

haha my bridge went awol ages ago, I’ve now got a les paul bridge “floating” on a couple of crona beer tops 😀

well over the past three days the site has had over 400 unique hits! I’m happy with that, looks like things are starting to take off! 🙂

well Militant_biker I’ve taken on board your suggestion, I’ve added a Read more function and it works a treat (striptease), I’m delighted with WordPress, its such a great platform and so easy to use!!

now if I could just get my head around how to add a subtle shade of colour to the background of the right hand widgets I’ll be a very happy man 🙂

Well, in my humble digital designer-type opinion, it looks a nice enough site, clean, fresh, simple. Most likely created using a blog template I reckon.

But the massive problem for me is that it is net-neutral – I have absolutely no idea what sort of music you create which is, in my opinion, hugely important in making viewers want to click through.

Here is a site I did for a friend – I think it is clear from the outset what sort of music they make…

http://www.tribe.uk.net/

(By the way, I hate the site (from a visual perspective) myself, but it performs exactly the function required).

cheers for taking the time to have a look at it M_F you’re right, it is very net-neutral, but then I find that every other band site I go to is all about an image, whilst we have one I wanted to not force the viewer to decide if it was or was not for them by the site appearance but rather have them focus on the content, a bit of an odd shot I know 🙂 and yep it was created using a template, a free one by “code reduction” but then I’ve tweaked it a bit and really I’m just using it as a platform to get started on 🙂

I may add a background or some such thing soon but I don’t want to have folk switch off before they’ve tuned in 🙂

Fair enough if that was a concious consideration and there is a train of thought that suggests that approach may work.

The various plays on words and phrases are trying too hard to be clever (book of faces, no bodies perfect, strangers are just friends I haven’t upset yet.)

trying to hard to be clever?

Book of faces, yep, I’ll change that to “Facebook Comments/Activity Area”, its far more interesting that way…

I’ll dumb down my song title immediately, “no bodies perfect”, what was I thinking, maybe to something like “everybody has faults be them physical or mental don’t strive to conform to some false ideal”, yes! you’re right that’s far better, what was I thinking with that?

and as for “Strangers are just friends that I have yet to upset”, well I did come up with that, and its not actually at all far from the truth, if the hat fits n’ all.

thanks for that nick, any other constructive suggestions there mate? 😀

Book of faces, yep, I’ll change that to “Facebook Comments/Activity Area”, its far more interesting that way…

TBH there is a lots of research that shows clear signposting of content is important on websites, but I do think a band site can kinda ignore those sort of rules as you are trying to get across a personality and can assume visitors will want to understand your personas.

hey, just my first impression, you asked for feedback… personally I don’t mind the layout at all, works ok for me, maybe I have no imagination 🙂

don’t worry nick, I’ll do the thinking so you don’t have to! just remember “Vote/Buy Old Ghosts” 😀

in other news, 161 unique hits today, must be doing something right 🙂

bloody hell!

just checked, yesterday topped out at 210 visitors!

that breaks down as:

Home page 127
Next Gig 22
About 22
9th March : London 14
Social 13
Download 8
NEW SONG: No Bodies Perfect 3
20th January : Swindon 1

so thats 83 click through from the home page, I have now changed the “next gig” page to be a nested page per gig, this should hopefully give me a better idea of areas that are more interested seeing me playing?

can anyone suggest anything else I should/could be doing?

Submit the site to Google so it is indexed.

oh! good call! I knew there was something I’d forgotten! 😀

grrr it wont verify it despite me having put that bloody google file in almost every directory (inc. top level) that I can find!! its cursed I tell thee!!

This traffic malarky is strange isn’t it, some days you can get over two hundred unique visitors other days you can get forty plus, yes looking at the stats I can see no reasoning behind the surges in visitors, anyone know about these things? I’m guessing there’s some kinda theories about this?

Mentions elsewhere (such as your earlier link on here) often causes spikes.