laptopmanpaul.co.uk

Feedback for this blog - more useful tips and notes

I’ve just had my first blog review published on untwistedvortex.com and it’s proved really useful for advice and tips.

I stumbled across the website by accident but found the reviews really interesting and rooted in giving practical indicators as to how sites can be improved.

As I’ve said before in my posts, it’s a real uphill struggle to get blogs seen when they’re new, so any kind of advice is helpful.

I’ll list the points made and outline what steps I’ve taken to remedy to the problems, as this may save you falling into the same traps.

1) Reviewer writes: This blog is using one of those themes that doesn’t use quite all of the available screen real estate the 1024×768 resolution (still the most widely-used resolution) has to offer. Most people don’t realize how much more scrolling is required when the theme is just an inch narrower than it could be.

My actions: None yet, as this one involves a lot of work searching out a new template.

It’s effectively a re-brand, but it’ll mean changing the entire look of the blog.

I hadn’t thought about the 1024×768 resolution issue but it’s a very fair point.

Over the next few months I’m intending to integrate this blog with some reseller functions, and I’ll also probably call it something more descriptive than laptopmanpaul.co.uk.

So this one goes on a very full pending tray!

2) Reviewer writes: I couldn’t find his list of categories anywhere. Besides being an almost a standard on blogs, categories count as additional pages.

My actions:Again, another good point. I’d left the categories off when I started the blog, because I had no content, but now I have I need to get those categories out there.

This one was easy to achieve, so you’ll now see on the RHS of this page my list of categories.

3) Reviewer writes: I found it odd that there’s only one article displayed on the front page. This is the first time I’ve seen that and I’m not sure what to make of it. Each of the archives pages only displays one article at time also. This makes looking for past articles very cumbersome.

My actions: I’m new to blogging and hadn’t realised this was standard convention.

I didn’t want my pages to look too cluttered at first, but now I know better you’ll see that you now get more posts to your page.

Now I’ve made the change I prefer it that way too!

4) Reviewer writes: I found most of the articles easy to read, except for one small detail: The justified text. On some lines it’s just excruciating to try and read the complete sentence naturally.

My actions: What a perceptive reviewer!

This same issue had been annoying me for some time, but having it pointed out in the review made me apply myself to sorting it out.

The problem?

It was in the style sheet of course, and all post text is now left-aligned.

5) Reviewer writes: Due to the low publishing frequency, this blog should have feeds by email enabled (but doesn’t as far as I can tell).

My actions: And there’s me thinking I was doing alright and posting fairly regularly!

I’ve taken the point on board however, and now I’ve added a ’subscribe by email’ option on the Subscribe in a reader link on the top RHS of the page.

I’m pleased I’ve got that function actually, as ‘the more the merrier’ as far as I’m concerned.

6) Comment writer: Just had a quick look at the site; the justified text is a real eye killer! That right sidebar is overloaded as well.

My actions: I’ve sorted the justified text already and also pruned the right hand sidebar.

I think on reflection, I’d recommend a three column blog template in future, it gives you more scope for arranging your links, tag clouds, adverts and so on.

Take a look at my friend’s template at http://oldvarieties.com, that’s a really nice layout and uses more of the available screen area as suggested in my site feedback

And finally …

Brave enough to get your own blog reviewed?

Add yourself to the untwistedvortex.com list and see how you get on.

Being reviewed also gave me an additional Technorati ‘authority’.

And guess what?

We found out this week that every time I mention my mate’s blogs, he gets an additional Technorati authority of 1.

He’s got 3 blogs of his own and he’s managed to get a Technorati authority of 5 or 6 simply with his own links to his own sites and the mentions I make in my blog.

He’s managed to move up to 900,000 or so in the rankings.

There’s a lesson to be learned there for all Technorati authority obsessives … like me.

And my friend’s just got himself another Technorati authority!