Review of Vermont Travel Notes
I want to preface this review with this note: If you are not interested in Vermont travel, this is not the blog for you. Mr. Connor has created a blog that fits a specific niche and audience, so I will critique it accordingly.
Vermont Travel Notes was created on April 5th, 2006. Although the blog started off pretty slowly (only three posts during the first two months), the posting frequency has gradually increased over time (between three to five posts per week). During less than four months of existence, this blog has had over fifteen thousand visitors, which is pretty impressive for a niche blog.
As far as the content of the site goes, the title says it all. Jeff’s blog is a collection of events, tips and personal stories about traveling through Vermont. Whether you want to hear about Route 100 or current attractions in Vermont, this blog probably addresses it. In addition to providing plenty of useful information, the blog also provides external links for users to follow. On a topic that is as extensive as this, it is very wise of the author to supplement his posts with additional information from other sources.
The Vermont Travel Notes blog is actually a part of a larger site for the Grunberg Haus Inn. If you couldn’t figure this out, the Grunbeg Haus Inn is located in Vermont. I was impressed that Jeff avoided making the blog a blatant plug for the inn and actually made it a useful resource.
Although I think the content of this blog is useful, there are some areas of the template that I didn’t particularly like. In my humble opinion, the blog had way too many links to bookmarking and feed subscription services. A simple FeedBurner link (along with a couple bookmark links) would suffice. The excess of links makes the margins of the blog appear a little too cluttered.
I rated this blog a three for two main reasons. First of all, as I mentioned above, I think the template could be improved through some minor changes. Second (and most importantly), this blog is fairly new and needs to stand the test of time. Although it is being updated three to five times per week, less than a month and a half ago it was being updated much less frequently. As long as Jeff continues to maintain his current posting rate, he will have no problem making his blog grow and flourish.
6 Responses to “Review of Vermont Travel Notes”
July 18th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
Nice review Tyler. I really enjoy reading “Niche” blogs. It gives us something to learn from another perspective. In this case, I can learn a little about a state that I may never have the chance to visit. Sure, I could read about it in an encyclopedia, but there is nother better than hearing the words of an “Actual Person.”
July 20th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
Apart from seeming a little too cluttered, I find the theme slightly lacking in (colour) contrast. I feel that increasing the contrast would improve readability.
July 21st, 2006 at 10:48 am
Good point pundit. That may do wonders for the blog.
July 27th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
Tyler, Bloggeries, and pundit: thanks very much for the critiques - very helpful. Yes, I know I garbaged up the look of the blog. It had been nagging at me and I was trying to figure out a way to help visitors with easy links to their favorite feed readers without all the clutter. Believe it or not, I had been adding those buttons one at a time until I found a web site that contained all the code for the group.
Thanks for the Feedburner tip. I put it on almost immediately. What an amazing service. I’m looking forward to learning more about it and getting better at using it. I cleaned up the bookmarks with a single button. Now I need to work on the Links. All of them asked for reciprocal links back to them and I thought it was the right thing to do. Maybe I should just make them all text links and the section won’t look so crowded.
Pundit: about the color contrast: do you mean a darker background such as navy blue or black? Or black type on a light background? I chose this style to keep it separate from the look of my website so it would not be considered just another page promoting my business only. The blue background is pretty close the Microsoft desktop blue and I thought the readability was pretty good.
I plan to add some advertising links such as Adsense, and maybe Amazon, so you’ll probably end up rolling your eyes at that but I’ve never had advertising on my site and I’m looking forwrd to learning about it.
Sincere thanks again for the helpful comments. This is a work in progress and I am determined to have a good quality site someday.
July 27th, 2006 at 7:07 pm
I assumed you wouldn’t want to change your look radically, so I was implying a darker (navy) blue, a brighter grey (borderline white) for the header, and more yellow (less orange) for the links.
Of course, if you are OK with flipping it entirely, you could try a light (white) background and dark text. What you could do—if this sort of thing doesn’t come naturally to you—is to use a colour wheel and pick out diametrically opposite colours for maximum contrast.
There is also some bogus HTML; like a rogue > running around (just above the “links” header on the left pane).
July 27th, 2006 at 7:10 pm
I forgot to add. Another web log I frequent uses a contrasty variant of your colours (except it’s black instead of blue) and I feel it works very well.