Reader Blog Critique : LinkersBlog.com
Welcome to the 13th Reader Blog Critique. Last weeks critique of TechZilo had some great replies from Clare, Rarst & Desk Coder. I’m sure this weeks critique will generate some great feedback too.
This weeks review is on Linkers Blog, a blog which helps you build links, traffic and PageRank.
Here are the questions the owner Danny would like to ask you all about the blog :
- What is your favourite and least favourite part of the design?
- Is the text easy to read?
- How many ads should there be on the left hand side?
- Is there any widgets you would like to see on the right hand side?
- Is there anything blairingly obvious missing or anything you think is horribly wrong with 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 
Danny 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 : Linkers Blog
Written by Kevin Muldoon from Blog Themes ClubPosted on November 18th, 2008 and filed under Reader Blog Critique
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12 Responses to “Reader Blog Critique : LinkersBlog.com”
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Hi!
My pointers:
1)The “blue” twitter box looks very weird to me.
2)I feel you need a better favicon.
3)I like your content.
4)As i scroll down, there is too much empty space on the sides.
5)Why is there a “Share This” on your about and contact page? Its not needed.
Cheers!
In addition to the above points:
What is your favourite and least favourite part of the design?
Least: Twitter Box
Favorite: The logo rocks
Is the text easy to read?
Yes for me
How many ads should there be on the left hand side?
I feel the current number is alright.
Is there any widgets you would like to see on the right hand side?
Recent comments
Hi Farrhad,
I’m at work so I can’t take all your criticism in mind at the moment, but one thing i can say is that the ‘Share this’ is on all pages automatically, I don’t choose individual pages.
Interesting blog…especially since everyone loves building backlinks
-Mike
I personally hate the green theme of the blog. But that’s my just taste, you should test it.
And since the rest of things are on white background, the ads on the left stood out very much. And it’s annoying to say the least.
Green words on white paper is not a good color combination. As a rule, you should keep to black words on white paper – people are most used to that. You can, however, retain the green words for your headings and subheads if you’re trying to achieve that “feel”.
The boxes to the right is strange. The upper corners of the box is sharp, while the lower corners is rounded. What’s up is that? Work in progress?
The “link building book” box seems out of place. A square box with a digital image. It feels cut and paste to me. Perhaps you want to try rounded edge with a slight drop shadow or outline.
Hope that helps.
Hi Andre, that’s a pretty hard criticism, but I can appreciate that.
I will be changing the text to black to see what effect it has right now.
When I first designed the boxes I thought that was pretty stylish.
In terms of the ebook I don’t really have time to be changing that image right now, I will bear that in mind for the future.
Hey Danny,
1. Favorite: The logo kicks ass!
Least Favorite: The strong contrast of green and the white sidebar boxes
2. The text is fine, easy to read
3. I don’t know how many ads should necessarily be on the left but I would suggest that you change the background color of the site so that it is toned down. Right now the ads standout like a sore thumb and are off-putting.
4. No specific widgets come to mind. However I do see some random “echo ‘”text just above you ebook widget that shouldn’t be there.
5. I just keep coming back to that strong dark green. I would suggest a much much lighter background color (i.e. white, gray, tan, etc.). It’s easier on the eyes and much more inviting to me as a reader. To me, it gives the blog a gimmicky feel and you definitely don’t want that.
In summary, your logo kicks major ass but the green background color is not inviting whatsoever and it greatly conflicts with the colors of your widgets. I think if you move to a lighter background color that permits more blending in of the widgets it would feel much better. You might also want to add rounded corners to your widgets instead of the sharp ones you currently have. Oh, and one last thing I would say is to align the length of the header with the width of the blog.
I hope that my words were helpful in some way
Happy blogging!
I had visited previously but was not interested in staying as reader so second impressions.
Blog looks fine at first glance but that impression evaporates quickly when you start to notice untidy details.
Answering questions
1. Logo is best. Right sidebar and footer share worst.
2. Normal font, good contrast, good use of headings. Definitely easy to read.
3. Amount is about right. I am fine with them but I think some people are finding such positioning annoying. Left sidebar is very visible but rather annoying area for ads. They also “tilt” a bit cause different images have borders that interact with background in different ways.
4. Not really.
5. In details lower.
General notes
6. Doesn’t validate. http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http://linkersblog.com/
7. Terrible work with images. Huge ebook ad downsized via markup – heavy and ugly. One of banners is 60Kb – I had seen whole sites lighter.
12-13Kb per each tiny social icon in footer (and they look bad on top of it).
8. Boring 404 and search pages.
9. Green background looks original but heavy (and it’s kinda hard to get heavy looks with green). I think you should experiment with color or maybe background patterns.
Header
10. Good logo and navigation bar but twitter part is badly designed and looks slapped on. And only tiny and least visible part of it is actually a link.
Static pages
11. ShareThis on static pages as noted above. “It works that way” is not a reason to not get that fixed.
12. Hard mix of true static pages, posts and archive-like stuff (without actual archive page). I’d make it more uniform.
13. Contact page could use email link (some people dislike forms).
Index area
14. Good balance of full posts quantity. Could use some separators between posts.
15. Too much stuff between posts titles and content – I beleive in opinion that there must not be any at all there.
16. Why display author in single-author (right?) blog.
17. Could use proper pagination in the end of index.
Single post
18. Doesn’t have RSS link under post – it’s critically important to have it there. rest is more or less fine.
Sidebar
19. Parts “tilt” and are not aligned. Weird “echo” string probably from some broken code. Mentioned downsized image above.
20. Huge RSS icon is valid tactics but everyone is using same huge RSS icon. It’s too recognizable and boring by now.
21. And the purpose of lone technorati link is?
Footer
22. Bad. Everything. Icons as mentioned above, balance of space used, font sizes and margins, paid links are not featured – they are paid, alexa widget is ugly.
Overall
Blog looks like it went through series of small tweaks that piled up in big mess. It still manages to look pretty good but everywhere there are tiny broken details. In my opinion design lacks a focus – it has usual elements because they are usual elements and they are combined in random way.
Choose your goals, kill the clutter, reinforce parts that fit your goals.
Rarst, that is probably one of the best critiques I have seen!
I will try to address each point in this comment.
6-8 I will address tonight and try to improve based on your comments.
9 I think I will leave this to last as I’m not really into design.
10 I’m going to change the text in the twitter bit and make the link standout more
11 I’ll work on it >_<
12 I don’t understand what you mean
13 Sure I will add that
15 I can work on that
16 I have guest authors every so often
17 I’ll look into pagination
18 How come?
19 I’ll alter that tonight too
20 It may be boring, but it works
21 It works at getting me technorati fans
22 Didn’t want to alert Google with the ‘paid links’ thing
Thanks
>Rarst, that is probably one of the best critiques I have seen!
I am kinda local authority around this project.
>10 I’m going to change the text in the twitter bit and make the link standout more
I think you should work on image or move it to another part of page. Blue on green is not working to well.
>12 I don’t understand what you mean
I mean that you are mixing static pages with posts you just put in menu. In my opinion it’s better to stick with static pages in there and do separate section for featured posts.
>18 How come?
Pure personal experience
http://www.rarst.net/web/rss-icon-placement/
Not having RSS link under post is greatest sin of theme design.
>20 It may be boring, but it works
Yep, I am not saying to go for smaller icon. I am saying to go for different giant icon.
Preferably unique one.
>21 It works at getting me technorati fans
And of what use are they?.. Not promoting technorati myself so you can disregard me here. Still link feels bit our of place.
>22 Didn’t want to alert Google with the ‘paid links’ thing
No matter what you name it Google will kinda get a clue for OIO publisher purchase link.
Good luck with making changes and improving your blog!
@Kevin – I’m guessing this happens a lot but I will have to choose Rarst as the winner, his critique was by far the best and most thorough.
Thanks for this opportunity!