Open forum …. got any suggestions for tweaking the site?

Links on Head for Points may pay us an affiliate commission. A list of partners is here.

It is now nine months since Head for Points got its fresh new look, and – for want of a better word – started looking ‘professional’. I have continued to change elements here and there – some big changes, such as adding the ‘Hotel Offers’ page, and many small changes which on their own don’t really get noticed.

However, I am fully aware that there is an element of ‘snow blindness’ in what I do. After all, I look at the site every day for a considerable period of time, and I can only second-guess how you, the readers, respond to the different elements.

As we start a new year, I’d like to open up the floor to any suggestions you have about the layout of the site. Remember that I need to cater for two audiences at the same time – the regular readers and the hundreds of people who come here via Google each day and who I want to convert into regular readers.

Is it clear to a newcomer what the site is about and why they should keep on reading it?

Are there too many menus at the top of the page? Too few?

Are there too many ads? (Probably not, most sites would run ads inside posts as well, which I don’t)

Are the sidebars too confusing? Should I push the social media links more?

Should there be more ‘sticky’ information for newcomers?

Does the current format of running a fixed number of stories at fixed times every day – with a ‘lead’ story and two less important ones below – work for you? (Most sites just post at random times throughout the day, but I am middle-aged and grew up with the newspaper tradition!)

If there is anything about the way the site currently looks that annoys or confuses you, or if you have any ideas for improvements, please post below. You can also email me at rob at headforpoints.com if you’d prefer.

Anything from your dislike of how I punctuate the headlines in the sidebars through to ideas for new ‘sticky’ pages are welcome – no idea is too small!

Thank you, and a Happy New Year for 2014.

Category

General

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Jon says:

1 Jan1 January 18:45

What about a “top 5 things to maximise points” for different types of people? For example non flyer , husband and wife, etc. could be things like having multiple avois accounts set up (BAEC, avois , IB) linked credit cards, maximising spend on credit cards (eg paying for council tax)

It would then be a health check for existing folk to ensure that they haven’t forgotten something.

Forums, in my opinion, always end in tears, with public stropping off and a void being left behind. Then people say isn’t it quiet and go elsewhere. I would avoid.
squills says:

1 Jan1 January 18:50

Above all, stay friendly to us ASD guys – there seem to be loads attracted here Raffles lol
David Faichney says:

1 Jan1 January 19:52

Having read through most comments – I concur with my initial view this morning – great site leave it be!
Edd says:

1 Jan1 January 19:55

Something I’m wondering, having read through a few of these comments is whether there would be a benefit in getting some stats about your core readership is. I know you’ll have analytics for all readers, but would there be some use in knowing how many business/leisure travellers you have, how many focus on hotels rather than airline schemes, can they think of a particularly memorable article they’ve read on HFP in the last 12 months etc.

I’m assuming the readership is sufficient that you’d get a meaningful response, and perhaps this would be useful in guiding the content of the site? Obviously you’d have to be careful with collecting anything that could be considered personal or identifiable, but there are ways to avoid such issues.
- Rob says:
  
  1 Jan1 January 21:03
  
  It’s a broad church. 69,000 unique visitors visited HFP in November. Even stripping out people who visit from a number of different devices, that is still a big number.
  
  The focus will always remain Avios, because people have more enthusiasm for that – and its far more complex than the hotel schemes. A purely hotels blog wouldn’t really work for the UK market as there isn’t much going on. In general, for each hotel scheme there are a couple of clever things you need to know (eg that the travel packages are the best use of Marriott Rewards) but once you have covered that then there isn’t a huge amount left day to day.
edd m says:

1 Jan1 January 20:02

My suggestion for luring in casual visitors is just a Facebook or Google+ page.

It is easy to set the social media page up to automatically just push out three (etc) status updates per day with the headline and photo of each blog post, so not much effort’s required if you don’t want to engage with the networks.

It’s much easier for a causal visitor to click ‘like’ once and then receive your updates via the network than it is to make the decision to give an email and subscribe.

If nothing else, test for two months. I think you might be surprised by the traffic uplift. It is also very likely to benefit your rankings on Google search.

Thank you for a great blog, regardless.
- edd m says:
  
  1 Jan1 January 20:04
  
  Er – you already do this – sorry!! I guess my actual point then is the buttons are much too hidden.
  
  I come here every day and have never, ever noticed them.
  
  Sorry – that’s embarrassing!
  - Rob says:
    
    1 Jan1 January 21:06
    
    The buttons used to be at the top of the sidebar and then I swapped them for the search box. To be honest, I want people on the website if I can, because they engage more and because they see the ads. If its a choice between people not following me and only following me on Twitter / FB etc then I will obviously take the latter, but I have a huge preference for getting people onto the site.
Stuart says:

1 Jan1 January 20:13

How about a members board where people can trade / exchange the miles they don’t want ?

(not sure if there is any interest in this but as a member who has been collecting for the past year only, I find myself with some miles but would need to buy more to make it worth the while to use as a good redemption….but the cost charged by the airlines to buy miles is not that attractive)
- Rob says:
  
  1 Jan1 January 21:07
  
  Possible. However, it can lead to a bag of worms (you’d really only want ‘vetted’ people to post but I can’t obviously do that, and also it is against the T&C’s of the airline and hotel programmes.)
Matthew says:

1 Jan1 January 20:22

Happy New Year too. I’m very grateful for coming across this site and hope to have a great holiday this year on Avios….something I never even contemplated just 3 months ago. I also enjoy reading the articles in the morning so my suggestion would be to publish all 3 at the same time…say 7am or something so I can read them all at once. It’s probably me just being selfish but as I work shifts, I’m often up early or get home early and have sometimes found myself waiting for the last article to publish before getting some kip! Forums – definitely against these. I run and continue to run a number of WP sites and have found people are much friendlier and willing to help on a comments section than on a forum. Have you looked at other comment plugins Rob? I think Disqus is quite popular these days and works with most themes. Another option instead of a forum could be a Q&A style page a bit like Yahoo answers for example. So you wouldn’t have to answer all the questions yourself all the time as the community could. In time, the questions build up and create a comprehensive FAQ section which you can link to the main posts and Google loves that! This is more relevant for example, when a question pops up regarding a post where the comments are now closed.

Keep up the good work and have a great 2014
Matthew
Steve says:

1 Jan1 January 20:57

I would maybe do the home page as three columns, some way to divide up the stories between airlines, hotel and other? That help people zone in to what interests them most