Reader Blog Critique : LessonInLife.com
Last weeks Reader Blog Critque proved to be a real success. Feedback was slow at first however soon readers started giving their thoughts on Xfep and David was very appreciative of the effort everyone put in.
The 2nd blog to be critiqued in this new feature is Mohamad Zaki’s Lesson In Life. Online since May 2007, LessonInLife is aimed to provide self-improvement advice in a more personal and casual way. It covers a variety of topics ranging from career, relationship, student related tips, finance, productivity with a slight specialization in mind hack or attitude renovation.
I asked Mohamad what he thinks needs to be addressed on the blog and this was his response 
Concerns
- Having the theme design tweaked by myself (a non designer), is there anything else I can improve to make it both attractive and easy on the eye?
- Do you find the content useful and enjoyable? Based on the first article you read, will you read another? If not, can you please describe why?
- Appreciate any comments on anything else on the site. It can be anything from monetization to grammar. I’ll be taking notes. For me who is looking at it 24/7, everything seems perfect. You may notice all the area that can be further improved.
In addition I welcome commenters to talk about the blogs content and design and any suggestions you have for promoting the blog.
The most helpful and constructive commenter will get $10. Alternatively, if you prefer, I can register a domain for you at eNom and push it to your account Mohamad Zaki will decide who the best commenter was.
As usual, I remind everyone that positive or negative, all feedback should be constructive.
If you have any questions about any of this please let me know in this thread
Blog to be Reviewed : Lesson In Life
Mohamad Zaki | September 3rd, 2008 at 9:53 am #
Thank you for the opportunity Kevin. For all readers, please make your self at home at my blog. Any comment is highly appreciated. However I would like to ask you not to move any thing around
Erica Douglass | September 3rd, 2008 at 3:14 pm #
I’ll take a stab at this…
This is a tough one, since the posts are in English but it caters to a non-English-speaking audience. I say this because most of the comments and conversation are in another language.
As a native English speaker, the posts are hard to read. This is rough for me to say since I’m in the process of learning another language right now and I know how hard it is — but I really think it would be better if the site either was in the author’s native language (especially since that’s where the visitors are coming from), or if the author hired a native English-speaking editor.
Also, I vastly prefer blogs that give me a reason to read right up front. Having a section at the top of the page that identifies who you are and why you’re writing this blog is essential. Without it, I felt a bit lost. What’s your motivation? Who are you?
Your blog uses the words “we” and “you” a lot, but I don’t feel a connection to you. I don’t get a sense of your past experience and what you’ve done wrong and right. Writing more about yourself would engage your readers more (this is a lesson I’ve had to take strongly to heart on my own blog as well.)
As a fellow blogger, I wish you the best of luck and continued success on your blog! You’ve put in a lot of work, and you have a good audience. This is a good start.
-Erica
Rarst | September 3rd, 2008 at 3:52 pm #
I am roughly going from top to bottom.
1. Header. Logo looks subar comparing to the rest of site. Font is not consistent with rest of design and I don’t like background gradient. Favicon uses same idea but looks way cooler than logo itself.
2. RSS. “A Better Us Daily” is RSS link but that’s not obvious. It’s far from RSS icon and there is plenty of wasted space around.
3. Navigation. Looks good but there is no rollover on lessons link? Also “CONTACT BANJI” made me think “contact who?”. Simply “contact” is more common.
3a. Contact page. “Instant Messenger - YM available upon request” if you are not including it on page there is no reason to mention it. It’s like saying that you don’t trust your reader.
3b. Page numbers. Looks cool and fresh above the posts. But no reason not to include it in the end of page as well. Also not customized to fit theme in width and looks.
3c. Archives. These commonly contain by months archives. But here you have to follow one more link to get there. I’d suggest either to do two separate pages - archives and sitemap or try to combine them in one (maybe go for templated page ditching sidebar for two-columns sitemap).
4. Post. Icon before category is excessive and yellow doesn’t fit in theme well. Photo credit makes more sense near photo than in the bottom of post. Including full posts on home page is personal decision but I’d skip related posts there. Sidebar is compact so there is lot of wasted space lower on home page.
4a. I have some lag problems with white background displaying. Opera and Firefox. I can’t reliably reproduce it - it seems to come and go.
5. Post content. Well written and formated to be easily scannable. But posts are rather large and I feel tempted to scan instead of actually reading it in full (as I probably should considering blog focus). Again - it’s personal author decision so my opinion is only for record.
6. Sidebar. Excellent ad blending. Too many horizontal lines under 125×125 zone. Feedburner counter feels out of place and breaks “quick links” block looks. Choice of words in that block is not consistent. Full feed? But where are others? Different words for email subscription used in different parts of page.
6a. I don’t like conversation block. In general. I think it’s clutter. Especially when blog is in English but conversation is full of non-English messages.
7. Footer. I like recent readers design. Looks cool and fresh, maybe could use mention of service that powers it. Says 2007 but we are way into 2008.
There is no reason to have login link unless you have plenty of registered users (do you?). Stuff that is only useful for blog owner should not be on pages. XML Sitemap is for search engines, not for readers. Set its location in robots text for engines and cut from footer. 67800 of what?
Overall I like the looks but it seems that tweaks you add are not always perfected. I’d say you should make sure that every feature blends in theme exactly before adding next one. At my blog I usually take one part of design for weekend and play only with it without touching rest.
Mohamad Zaki | September 3rd, 2008 at 4:30 pm #
Erica Douglass - Thank you for the comment. I’ve always wanted to know whether native English speaker can understand the content.
About “A section that identifies who I am”, I think I’ve got it covered in the About page. Or are you referring to something else?
Rast - That is a very detailed comments on design. I like it. Thanks
Everyone - Keep them coming. No worry, I’m not going to be defensive about the blog.
Commercial Photographer | September 3rd, 2008 at 5:37 pm #
I had no problem with Firefox at all, very quick. This is very good information for many, will be sharing with my community. Be back later.
Hire website designer India | September 4th, 2008 at 7:07 am #
Also working fine for me at FireFox.
Kevin Muldoon (Post Author) | September 4th, 2008 at 5:50 pm #
Here are my thoughts
1. Header should be increased in size a little. Logo in particular is quite small.
2. Email subscription box is good however the RSS feed itself isn’t heavily promoted. Currently it is below the ads in the right sidebar. You should perhaps place a full rss feed subscription box above the email subscription area.
3. I like how the recent readers widget from mybloglog is used ie. not too prominent.
4. Don’t think theres any need for the pagination tab at the top of the page. I think it’s better if they remain at the bottom.
5. I’d personally lose the Entrecard widget. Sends more traffic away than you receive and the traffic you get back is usually less targeted.
Mohamad Zaki | September 4th, 2008 at 9:15 pm #
Commercial Photographer & Hire Website Designer India - Thank you for the comments. I usually have problems with IE when I tweaked things around (Obviously)
Kevin Muldoon - I am hoping that the Feed image on the top there to serve the purpose. I guess I should group them together with the Email subscription box.
I agree about entrecard. I will lose it very soon. It takes too much effort to run and in the end, like you said the traffic is not targetted.
Maybe I can give away the balance credit I have in a contest of some sort
Thank you Kevin for the comments. I would like to keep this review open for a few more days if it is ok with you. I’m getting a lot of ideas here.
Rarst | September 4th, 2008 at 11:15 pm #
>I am hoping that the Feed image on the top there to serve the purpose.
My experience is that readers totally don’t care about RSS icons on top of page. It’s usual place but it’s absolutely not effective. My subscriptions increased by five when I added RSS link under post. Readers don’t look for it there, they come onto it naturally.
>I agree about entrecard. I will lose it very soon. It takes too much effort to run and in the end, like you said the traffic is not targetted.
My opinion about Entrecard traffic - people that mindlessly mass-drop get exactly crappy traffic they deserve.
I drop cards only on blogs I read and on some (not all) of those who drop on me (if I am actually interested). It’s not much traffic but I see people coming back and reading my blog. Such traffic is targeted.
D Hart | September 5th, 2008 at 12:28 am #
This may not qualify as helpful critique but here’s my experience I stumbled on the site through lifehack (I think it was?) and liked what I read. Checked out your website and found the article for all students and one named Banji. Loved that
The e-mail subscription box was easy and inviting and your e-mails feel as though a friend is writing. I’m happy to get them, and know there will be something worth thinking about.
The English is fine for me - maybe having friends from Malaysia, and elsewhere, I “hear” their voices as I read. (is that patronizing? but it makes me happy
So - for me - play around with the look as you will. The content is what I’m there for. Though as an older reader my eyesight probably wouldn’t do well with the dark background you showed in your e-mail, and I do appreciate the legibility of the site as it is.
Thanks so much,
D
Mohamad Zaki | September 5th, 2008 at 4:36 am #
Rarst - RSS link under post - check. I agree, putting it there has drastically improve the number of subscriber especially those coming from search engine reading an article or two.
Entrecard is really an experiment I tried. I once put all effort on it dropping within my category until I was about 6 or 7th most popular in the category. And then I stopped altogether. I found that only a few still come over and read the blog. Currently I’m putting the widget there just to allow some readers who are on entrecard to drop and gain EC.
D Hart - It’s always a good thing telling people that you enjoy their work. The feeling is like when you receive your first paycheck
Thank you D-Hart for supporting the blog.
I’m glad that you are fine with my level of English. For me who speaks English as a second language, it is a challenge to write a blog in English. But I took that challenge as a way for me to improve my English. Seriously I even took out my old grammar book just to ensure readers understand what has been written. It’s a work in progress.
Again thank you D-Hart. If you have the time, do contact me and maybe I can be your new Malaysian friend.
Erica Douglass | September 5th, 2008 at 5:48 pm #
Hi Mohamed,
The About page covers who you are, and a bit about why people would come to your blog, but I don’t see this on your front page. You can see here on BloggingTips what I’m referring to: right at the top, they have “Take your blog to the next level.” This is a tagline, whereas on my blog (erica.biz) I’ve gone a bit further and used an intro paragraph about myself and why I’m writing my blog. Putting either a tagline or a paragraph at the top of every page will help your readers feel a stronger connection to you.
-Erica
Mohamad Zaki | September 6th, 2008 at 9:38 pm #
Thank you to all that participate with the review. Based on the advice given, these are my responses
1) Level of English - Now that I know where I stand, I will work on this area. Nothing is more important than to ensure my readers understand what I blog about.
2) I believe the about page will cater for brief blog and self introduction. I will work on the tagline and its placement as advised.
3) I will consider hiring a designer for the logo. It is relatively small, isn’t it? At first I designed it in such a way to make full use of the above fold space. What do you think?
4) Contact Banji - The idea of putting the name there is actually to indirectly introduce the author’s name. It’s also aimed to provide a bit of variety to an otherwise a very typical navigational bar.
5) Page number - Good advice, will relocate the page number to the bottom of the post
6) Archives - I actually found more people are browsing my archive after I change it to be categorized based on category instead of the common by date. I guess it’s easier to find a topic they like.
7) Post - Thanks for pointing out the yellow icon. Will change it. The photo credit immediately under the image will also be implemented. However, the main aim of the blog is to encourage readers going through past articles, so the Related Post will stay.
9) Entrecard widget - Will lose it. Now I’m actually planning a contest to give away the 4000 EC accumulated.
Again, I would like to say thank you for the time you spent on the blog. There are a lot of good advice on some areas that I may not noticed if not for this review.
I will start working on the renovation right away.
Rarst | September 7th, 2008 at 1:08 am #
@Mohamad Zaki
“However, the main aim of the blog is to encourage readers going through past articles, so the Related Post will stay.”
I meant removing related on home page only. They are fine in post pages.
Good luck with renovating.
And I’ll go
sharp my claws for next blogger victimwork on my subscriber count to enter project.