Constructive criticism for my site

Hi,

Will you please review my blog's layout? It is newly redesigned, and I wanted to get some opinions on it. Any constructive criticism would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. The link to it is the first one in my sig.

 

I like the domain name it must be said
Good navigation, liking the layout, SEF urls (bonus), and I think the site can do well.

 

Thanks for the review piniyini. I rep'ed you . I'm a little skeptical about the ad placements. My site is still new, and I only get a little less than 200 hits a day...do you think I've got too many ads up?

 

When it comes to ads my opinion is that you/we (well this is what I do) is only have ads when you have good number of uniques per day. Small site + ads = bad user experience (imo).

I notice your site is just over 2 months old and under 200 hits (is that uniques?) I wouldn't have put ads up so soon. Get more links in, more traffic then users won't mind the ads. If I was you I'd remove the "your ad here" 125 square box (since you do have the advertise link at the top so advertisers can contact you from there).

The google ad links I would throw inside the freshgeeks green banner and have it in white text or something and I'm not too sure about the offers (never tried anything like that). The overall feeling I get is that you can make this blog a success.

 

Yeah, the hits are uniques. My blog is actually only one month and a half old. You're probably right about the ads, and I'll take your advice on that. Thanks. What do you mean when you mentioned ' the offers'?

 

I meant the mpire ads

 

ahh, the widgetbucks widget...got it

 

I really like the look and the color. Good!

 

Nice design and layout...very clean and readable.

 

Hello j.blu

Just had an opportunity to look at your site. Very impressive site... and a good read...

My Thoughts

Logo
I like the logo but I think it needs to be just slightly bolder to stand out a little. Right now it seems to get lost in the header.

I would also suggest for some sort of tag line to go with your Logo.... something that tells people what your blog is about in 4 words or less...

Domain Name
Love the domain name. I would suggest that you pick up the additional domain names with the different endings.... .org .net .info and so on.... that would add a lot of value to your site if you decide to sell it.... and also protect your site name...

Home Page
I've been testing your site with 3 different browsers. I did notice with Internet Explorer that your 3 column gets moved. This is the column that starts with 'Subscribe' & 'Fresh Posts'. You can get an idea of where it is currently located in IE with the following image:



I also found that the space between the header and the first post title bar was enough to be concerned about in FireFox and Opera. It looked fine in IE.



Navigation
Excellent navigation links. Your site makes it easy for people to get around your site. Very user friendly.

I tried a couple of the links from the right side also... in each browser and they worked good.

W3C Validation
Not to sure if it is a concern for you... but I also took the time to test the site through W3C validation. As a note... it did find a number of errors.

Content
Your writings are very interesting. It is good to see such well written thoughts and interests.

Conclusion
Very excellent site that has good design and content... just a few things to tidy up.

This review was done with 3 browsers (FireFox 2.0.0.9, Internet Explorer 6.02 & Opera 9.24) on Windows XP SP2.

I do hope this helps.
Respectfully,
Lhlalyam

 

Really good site. Probably you are walking on the same path of John Chow. Best Luck.

You should now try to get more readers by promoting your RSS feeds.

 

the font for the post content is too small. i'm not a huge fan of serif fonts, but either way it should be a bit bigger. btw, i'm on flock.

 

@Lhlalyam, thank you for the extensive critique...I knew about the XHTML errors, and I plan on working on it. I just got a little lazy . I'm still working on getting my template going, and I will definitely take your advice.

@shrkscn...well, I don't know about the John Chow part lol but thanks for your thoughts.

@monosodium, yeah I was worried about the font size too...I'll make it larger. Hey, what do you mean you're on the flock?

Thanks people I rep'd all of you

 

I really like the logo and soothing color choice… it’s very calming

 

haha, I like green...it's the color of money lol

 

fresh geeks muahaha ) funny .. i like it's it's nice, although in my oppinion the RSS button is a little too large

 

Good to hear that you liked the review. I'll keep myself posted as to updates.

Respectfully,
Lhlalyam

 

the rss button...now that you point it to my attention, it kind of does. I think I'll downsize it.

 

I like the look and layout of the site.

And, personally I think the ads are fine, as I didn't really find them annoying. (And, that's saying a lot cause I hate seeing ads )

And, I like the domain.

 

I like it I like it! maybe a little too much green in that header bar though