White space is good, TOO MUCH white space, not so good.
If you’re at all serious about blogging, seriously consider moving to WordPress (self hosted). When you break it down, it’s only $7 or so bucks a month. WELL WORTH the investment.
3 Column layout – My opinion is that it looks very “busy” and you run the risk of losing your readers focus with text on either side of your posts.
Spice up your email subscribe box/RSS area. If you use Feedburner – HTML-ing the subscribe box a bit is pretty darn easy. Take a few minutes to sex things up a bit – a little color and style can go a long way in drawing your reader’s eyes over to that area.
And lastly, put Life Without Pants on your blogroll! Seriously, come on people!
Thanks so much to Lauren for letting me put her on the “chopping block” – she is a great writer (be sure to check her out) and I hope this advice was useful to both her and all of you. Stay tuned for another installment of the Amazing Five Minute Blog Review…coming soon!
A little bit of design work can go a long way (less is more) - Don’t get crazy with sidebar widgets.
Advertising is usually a wash - especially Google Ads. If you’re not making significant money, get rid of it.
Create a valuable about page factoring in the “WIIFM” (What’s in it for me?) mindset. Why should readers care about you and what will they get from your blog?
Reply to every comment - especially early on. Make time to engage with every single person who takes the time to interact on your blog
Have a question or suggestion? Feel free to share some words in the comments below! HEAD OVER HERE for an index of all “5 Minute Blog Reviews”
This week I review Beth Oppenheim-Chan’s “25 & Trying”. Beth is currently hosted on WordPress but is contemplating making the switch to self hosted, and has some questions related to her general blog design.
The Takeaways
Determine your blogging goals before spending ANY money.
Use Categories (not pages) to seperate the various niches within your blog
Make a cool (custom) header image for your blog using free stock photos, free programs, in 60 seconds!
Use Feedburner to optimize your RSS & Email blog subscriptions
Have a question or suggestion? Feel free to share some words in the comments below! HEAD OVER HERE for an index of all “5 Minute Blog Reviews”
This week I review Elisa Doucette’s blog “Ophelia’s Webb”. Elisa recently made the switch from Blogger to WordPress (bravo) and is looking to first – get more people to her blog – and second – get those people commenting and involved in conversation.
The Takeaways
Host your blog using WordPress – Say goodbye to Blogger
Each week I’ll take a look at a new blog: Highlighting the good and offering some advice and wisdom to improve the content, design, and functionality of your blog. We’ll discuss what you most want to improve which I use to craft a custom blog review and consultation to get you started on the right track in taking your blog to the next level!
INTERESTED IN A REVIEW OF YOUR BLOG? CONTACT ME VIA EMAIL: MNCHEUVRONT@GMAIL.COM FOR A 100% FREE CONSULTATION.
This week I review the “often imitated but never duplicated” Jenny Blake and her blog, Life After College. Jenny is wanting to clean house a bit (aren’t we all?) – While her content is top-notch, I do offer a few pieces of advice that might help her achieve that “next level”.
The Takeaways:
Brand yourself: The header is a great place to start. Amazing content is the number one way to get people to remember and want more from your blog. Jenny already has this down cold. The next step is all about the visuals. By creating a custom header with a more difinitive “Life After College” logo, Jenny will concrete her brand image that much more in the minds of her readers.
Widgetize the Sidebar: Jenny expressed that she would love to have a tabbed widget to better organize her sidebar content. This can easily be done using the “Tabbed Widget” plug-in for WordPress found HERE.
Limit Your Keywords: Jenny works at Google, so I felt almost stupid questioning her skills when it comes to meta-data. But, from my experience, and after researching around the web, you don’t want to OVERLOAD your meta-data keywords for your pages and posts. This actually confuses search engines a bit, forcing them to crawl through more irrelevant data. Pick the 5-10 keywords/phrases that describe that SPECIFIC page. Live by the mantra that less really can be more.
Use http://su.pr to share links. I use StumbleUpon’s bookmarking service to share links (new posts, etc) – this allows for more viral spreading of your articles without having to put in any real effort.
Kudos to Jenny for letting me put this review together. It was a pleasure and I hope this information provided some takeaways for everyone out there. As always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to share them below!
