How to improve greatestreviews.net
Deepak from GreatestReviews.net asked me today for some advice how to improve his blog. Here is my answer.
Social Media Information
1. Don’t show such big Social Media buttons on your front page, they take too much room compared to the post text and they steal the attention of the reader. If you can, use more decent buttons or links. People who are engaged in Social Media will tweet or digg a post even if the “invitation” is smaller than now. They care for good content and honor it.
2. Get rid of the word counter at the bottom. If you need to publish the counter, put it on the post, not under the excerpt.
Ads
3. These ads are animated and attract too much attention. I know you want to earn money from clicks, but first comes content. Try to find ads that support your topic or use networks like Adsense. With context related ads you would get ads about Twitter and Social Media – which would fit fine to the content.
Header
4. Instead of this animated ad in the corner of your header, try a picture of yourself. Give your site a personal note. Your content is personal either (like “The Famous Five” – I read them too when I was a child).
About page
5. It took me two steps to come to this page. Why do you break the information into different pieces? Try to write a personal summary, add a photo as well, why do you blog, why do you name your site “Greatest Reviews”, what’s the purpose of the site … tell a story.
6. Get rid of the “Readers who viewed …” line on pages, this works great for posts.
Friends, Blogroll, Commentators and Categories
7. Re-order your sidebar. Categories or tags move up, friends, commentators, links and badges move down. Be careful that you don’t nail your design because the buttons are too large.
Juni 30th, 2009 at 19:58
Thanks for this. I am already following your advices. Have done some changes and some will take time.
Thanks once more
Juni 30th, 2009 at 20:05
Deepak, you are very welcome. Thanks for connecting!
Juli 2nd, 2009 at 05:10
Very good advice Melanie! I had thought of telling Deepak about the 1st, 5th and 6th point. But very good observation about the 3rd point, I think such Ads divert the attention of the reader from the post!