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Blog Reviews Offer
first of all thanks to everyone who grabbed a copy of the “$365K Blog Traffic Formula” report recently, you can read the full details here if you missed it: –
$365K Blog Traffic Formula Blog Review Offer
As a bonus for people buying through my link I offered to write a quick review of their blog and publish 5 (of my choice here).
I’m going to actually publish 6 in total, to show you the kind of spectrum out there, although I believe you will notice some “similarities” across the board, especially in my advice.
I’ll also do a quick summary of the blog reviews at the bottom of this post as well.
I should also point out that the “positives” and “negatives” are my opinions, based both on my experience and personal taste, so feel free to disagree! 
there also tend to be more negatives than positives as I tried to concentrate on finding what is “wrong” (imho) with the blog, as correcting some basic stuff can make a huge different to how well a blog does…
so on to the reviews, in no particular order…
~##~
Negatives
The theme expands to the full width of the browser window, not good on a wide screen, better to have a fixed width theme
The affiliate links for Clickbank products and aweber in sidebar not cloaked
Note: see the video on cloaking links on Internet Marketing Videos
There are contradictory adverts – AWeber v Getresponse, choose one or the other
There miss-matching “EA Expert” badges, choose the same version for consistency
“Title” text above ads and EA expert badges, not really necessary
too many ads, with some repeated
Positives
The blog sub folder name is keyword based
A targeted custom header that looks ok
The highly visible email subscribe offer in sidebar
Affiliate links in posts are cloaked
The lightbox drop in for email optin capture
The main domain home page is highly targeted product sales page
There’s a link for the main product sales page at bottom of related posts
A good mix of content posts mixed and promotional posts
Suggestions: -
Add an image to lightbox optin and some color in the text, plus decrease spacing and remove everything below “get more info” button
Remove “Title’s” on ads in the sidebars
Remove duplicate ads and focus on the important ones
Use the
The Post Teaser Plugin is No. 10 on the WP plugins page
~##~
Negatives
Permalinks format – http://amadavit.com/healthbiz/?p=559
[see suggestions below]
Using sub folder for blog, when there is nothing in the main index folder!
The “self improvement mini-Course” offer doesn’t catch attention, it needs to stand out more…
the theme stretches across whole window, making for a very “wide” post on large screens (like mine) see example pick from the previous blog review above
Why are there keywords “stuffed” at the top of the page? They really shouldn’t be, especially as they seem unrelated to a degree…
The site seems to be a little hectic/unfocused in what it’s covering, it might do better if it was more “targeted”, at least until the blog is more established
The Twitter widget sticks out of side of the theme
On recent post – need to make images left hand side aligned so that the text wraps around them – e.g. post – http://amadavit.com/healthbiz/?p=565
Also on the same post, personally I wouldn’t approve comments where someone puts the likes of “How I Make $5000 a Month Posting Links on Google” as their “name” on a comment. It’s fairly obvious they’re just spamming for the links and a comment like “Loved your latest post, by the way” isn’t really adding much to the conversation, so why reward them?
Different font used than standard in post – http://amadavit.com/healthbiz/?p=544
it’s possible that this is from the post being written in word then “copy & pasted” – always copy to a text pad first to remove any excess formatting tags that some word processors tend to put in. You won’t see them until you post unless you check the “html” view.
Positives
good quality posts, with some personal touches, but could use a bit more “personality”
Suggestions: -
Add a graphic and some headline text to the free mini course offer for getting people to optin
Change the “Health, Wealth & Creativity Product Resource”s to individual product pages with more info on each one and a separate link for each one, this will also allow you to refer to them individually more easily in posts, as well as have an image link for each one in the sidebar
use the
Change the permalinks structure – my preference is /%postname%/, see the The Best SEO Permalink Structure for WP Blogs video
~##~
Negatives
The sidebar seems to have been thrown to the bottom of the page in my version of internet explorer, again this could be the version I’m on, but I recommend checking it out: -
Note: it does appear fine in Firefox
The subject of the blog it possibly a bit too tightly “niched”, it could become difficult to find sufficient topics/recipes for new content. If I was setting up a blog in this “market/niche” I would probably have targeted a more “broad” term, such as recipes, then used categories and posts to dig down to more tightly focused keywords.
Whilst it is good to see you using clickbank’s new cloaked links (see my video on Mat4.com/videos) I still believe it would be better to put that link within a redirect html page of your own.
Could use better spacing on posts, don’t be afraid of line breaks and some white space.
Permalink format: -
http://shrimpscampirecipe.org/2009/06/red-lobster-shrimp-scampi/
*See answer in previous blog reviews above
Post name for earlier isn’t “keyword” targeted: -
http://shrimpscampirecipe.org/2009/06/instructions/
Positives
Clean tidy looking theme, although possibly a little “bare”
Very tightly “niched” blog so should be easy to get high rankings
Monetization fits in very well with topic of blog
Suggestions: -
Change the permalink structure, see previous blog reviews above
Get some more content posted, the blog is obviously very new and could use some extra posts
Add some form of lead capture to start building an email list
~##~
4. Motivational Cartoons and Sports Quotes
Negatives
The formatting is totally messed up in my version of internet explorer: -
Permalink format, see previous blog review answers
http://motivationalcartoons.co.uk/2009/07/02/cartoon-how-to-avoid-negative-people/
The sidebar doesn’t show up on individual posts in Firefox
Positives
This is generally a good looking blog with a very nice clean theme and custom header
Not too “busy” or cluttered with ads
subscriber options are at top of the sidebar and easy to find
The “ads” are well targeted to the topic and “eye catching” without looking out of place.
Suggestions: -
Make the RSS and email sign up options more visible
Offer an “ethical” bride of some sort to start building a newsletter, perhaps a “top 10 motivational/inspirational resources” report
Make the Twitter follow option more visible
use the
Move the “pages” list further down the sidebar it doesn’t really need to be at the top.
cloak the clickbank affiliate links, see the cloaking video on Internet Marketing Video Tutorials
There appears to be a broken link/insert under/after BlogCatalog -
BlogCarnival Submissions
4.b. Sports Quotes
I’ve got a couple of extra’s for this 2nd, related, blog: -
Negatives
Permalink format – http://sportsquotes.biz/?p=62
The ads in the sidebar need to be centered
Positives
same as MotivationalCartoons.co.uk
Suggestions: -
Give the categories a name, using related keywords
Put recent posts and categories above archives in the sidebar
~##~
Negatives
The email optin for the free report should be under the free report offer, not further down the page
Need more line breaks in posts, get more “white space” in there as it makes posts easier to read, so make sentences shorter and put some spaces between the paragraphs, and keep the paragraphs short
Some older posts seem to be all in BOLD
Some recent posts are a tad short, e.g. outsourcing post
Positives
Good header graphic
Free offer in place and at top of sidebar, with rss subscribe
Uncluttered with ads, focused on content
Suggestions: -
Make the free video marketing course offer more prominent, make the text bigger and put the heading in red
Add to blogcatalog, technorati, mybloglog
Correct and cloak affiliate links
e.g. – https://paydotcom.com/r/21977/XXXXXXX/
unless “XXXXXXX” is your user name on paydocom you are not going to get credited for any commissions…
~##~
Negatives
Header graphic is a bit too large and perhaps too “personal”, although that can work, it’s just not my taste
The sidebar is broken with “most popular” sticking out of the side (in Firefox), this is probably from a missing tag to close a div tag set
There are clickbank ads straight underneath the free report offer, they could distract people from signing up, keep your main aim focused, leave the ads to further down the page/sidebar
Very long post titles e.g. -
http://www.it-takes-work.com/2009/07/rip-michael-jackson-farrah-fawcett-and-its-vacation-time/
* I would have split this in to 2 separate posts e.g. “michael-jackson-and-farrah-fawcett” &” “vacation-time” although I might have tried to go for something more keyword targeted for the vacation post, as “vacation time” is not a great search term for attracting “useful” (i.e. likely to be converted to buyers, subscribers or repeat visitors) traffic
The “Tags” widget takes up way too much room
After the “most popular” widget there seems to be a formatting error where there should be 2 columns to the sidebar and there is only one.
Positives
Great images with posts, that fit well and catch the eye
Free report for optin immediately visible
Not cluttered with ads
Good “personality” infused posts
Suggestions: -
When you link out to another blog post from a post use the target=”_blank” setting to open as a new page, that way the visitor is not leaving your blog
e.g. http://www.it-takes-work.com/2009/03/no-funny-quips-this-just-ticks-me-off/”
and put some description of what the post is about.
Add to blogcatalog, technorati, mybloglog etc.
~##~
Some general observations: -
I was surprised to see so many formatting errors, possibly caused by the choice of theme, as opposed to the blog author messing anything up.
It does show that it’s important to check out how your blog looks in InternetExplorer & Firefox at least, obviously trying to check them out in old version of the browsers could be a bit time consuming, but may be worth doing when your blog starts to get a lot of traffic.
It’s good to see most of these blogs have a free offer to get people to sign up to a newsletter in place, this is one of the most important things you can do for improving your income, just make sure you do follow up with regular emails and offers…
Try to get some personality in to the posts and blog itself somehow, a pic of yourself can help “personalize” the blog and help people identify and connect with you and the blog.
Sidenote: it would make more sense on an “SEO” basis for me to have posted each of these reviews as a separate post, giving me 7 to 8 days of content based on the blog reviews, instead of just 1 long post.
I’ve chosen to keep it all as one post to make it easier for people to be able to compare the different blogs all in one place, instead of having to jump backwards and forwards between separate posts.
I mention this simply as the separate posts option is what I would generally advise anyone else to do with such posts.
Tags: Blog Reviews
Very interesting article. I like how you went through each of the blogs that you worked with and pointed out different things.
Thanks for the advice Matt.
We”ll take it all into careful consideration before we make any more changes.
We’d be happy to have you over as a guest blogger too!
All the Best
Alex and Kathy
http://expertlistbuilding.com
Hi Alex,
you’re welcome!
sorry, I’m going to have to take a “rain check” on the offer to be a guest blogger, I’m a little too busy right now.
cheers,
Matt
That was one of the best posts that I’ve read recently. It helped me realize what I need to do on my own blogs. My main problem is that I don’t know how to add an optin box that will look good and won’t stick out of the sidebar. I tried to use the text widget, but when I put the aweber code in it, it always sticks out and looks ugly.
Thanks for this Matt
Jack
Hi Jack,
it’s usually the size/width of the text input fields that makes the optin form stick out of the sidebar.
look for 2 lines that start with input type=”text” and change the size=”20″ to a smaller figure that fits in.
Don’t worry, changing this doesn’t limit how many characters people can type in, just, how wide the form is displayed as.
hope this helps.
Matt
Hi Matt
You’ve gave some great advice out on here, these people where lucky to have you review thier blog.
The best thing is I can take some of your comments and use the advice on my own blogs. It’s like giving free training away.
Thanks
Anton
Interesting observations. Which observations are personal preference and which are from polls or studies of some sort? (Ouch that sounded like an attack) far from it… I am just curious.
Thanks for the post
Scott Thrall
Hi Scott,
um, sorry, but I’ve not really got time to go through and individually note which are personal preferences and which are based on results, but as a guideline, it’s the “looks” of a site that is usually down to personal taste, so things like how a header graphic looks, how the theme used looks etc.
The rest is based on personal experience with my own blogs, of which I have quite a few in many different “niches/markets”, not just “IM”.
cheers,
Matt
Hey Matt,
Great to connect with you on your blog…. Great blog post and enjoyed reading your comments on the selected….
I hope our paths cross again very soon!
To Our Success,
Philip J. Mutrie
Twitter – @philmutrie
Thanks Phil!
Matt
Hi Matt
thanks for the review. Its really important to understand how other people see your site. The real obvious comment to me was the one about leaving more white space, simple but so affective.
You will see an improvement on my blogs in the future.
So thanks again Matt.
Andy Beveridge
Anyone want meet up on twitter? @andybeveridge
Hi Andy,
yup, it’s such a simple thing it makes it easy to overlook, and to underestimate the difference it makes.
more line breaks and “white space” simply makes it easier for people to read the posts, which means they’re more likely to stick around..
cheers,
Matt
I found this post really interesting and helpful. There is useful advice there for most people I would say. Certainly some pointers that I need to take on board and that is priceless.
Thanks for posting and also doing it in one post. As you said makes for easy reading.
Peter
Hi Matt,
Loads of useful info there, I will read through again. Would have gone for the blog makeover but £££ low at the moment.
To our success
Annie
Twitter @Annie52
hi Matt,
This is a great blog. I have always thought that paying for a theme is a bit of a luxury but the more I think about it the more appealing it becomes. There are some good free themes but how do I know if it is well coded and easy to use? It could have been written by a novice in his bedroom and although looking pretty is a devil to work with. Proffessional themes are not expensive and you would think would guarantee a certain level of coding expertise.
What are your views? I am using a free theme at present, have you a favourite proffessional theme provider?
Phil