Advertiser Spotlight - Young Entrepreneur.com

This article is going to take a look at a site that you may be interested in checking out. They are one of our banner advertisers and asked us to take a look at their site and do a review. We of course happily agreed, anything to keep the advertisers happy right.

This is a sponsored review but I assure you that I will always offer up my actual opinion on a product or service.

Site Design

The first thing anyone will notice about a site when they land there for the first time is the design. You may think content is king but if you have an ugly site then you are risking visitors leaving without even reading the content.

One glance at Young Entrepreneur and it becomes obvious that this is an opportunity for them, at least in my opinion. What stands out is how much information they are trying to present on the very first page, too much. It looks kind of cluttered, in fact it doesn’t look cluttered, it IS cluttered.

It is clear that Young Entrepreneur has a lot of information to offer and they want to make sure you don’t miss any of it. If this were were my site I would redesign the front page to be more streamlined and user friendly.

A nice logo, some images and a blurb about what the site is about would be more attractive to first time visitors in my opinion. Don’t let this scare you away though because they do have a lot to offer.

Content

The navigation, while cluttered, is easy enough to manage once you look around a bit. It is clear that this site isn’t a fluff piece, they have a lot of features to offer including a forum, a blog, a marketplace, legal forms and even an arcade so you can blow off some steam.

Forum - The forum looks to be a powerhouse boasting 35k members, 23k threads and 161k posts. That’s an active community no doubt and sure to provide a number of like minded entrepreneurs to network with. A nice mix of posts ranging from beginner to advanced will keep you engrossed.

Blog - The blog is a nice, clean design that is well laid out and easy to read. It appears that they have entrusted the operation of the blog to Evan Carmichael and I would say good choice. I like his writing style and he offers a nice blend of articles, interviews and information.

Marketplace - The marketplace looks to be a nice resource center that aspiring entrepreneurs can turn to in order to find a vendor provider for a good or service that they might need. The site has a feature where you fill out a form requesting whatever service you need and they will publish it to multiple vendors for them to provide a quote. This should save you some time and aggravation for sure.

Legal Forms - This part of the site offers up professionally created legal forms ranging from a lease to a will to forms to incorporate your business. Me personally I would always turn to a professional to provide this kind of information but if you are a Do it Yourselfer kind of person then this may be a perfect resource for you.

Arcade - I was going to rip on the arcade at first but then I became engrossed in a game of Donkey Kong and decided against it. An arcade does not give off an air of professionalism but ya know, so what? All work and no play makes for a bunch of dullards.

Conclusion

If you are an aspiring entrepreneur or have finance or money related questions then you can no doubt find something of interest at Young Entrepreneur. The real power of a site like this is not the information that it provides but rather the contacts.

The ability to network with like minded people is invaluable and you simply never know what kind of relationship or enterprise might produce itself from a bond struck up on a forum.

Check em out and let me know what you think.