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Posted by Bloggeries in Reviews
If you are one of those that have always wondered if those paid surveys actually do pay out to the user, then you may want to have a look at this blog related to Online Paid Surveys. The purpose of this blog is pretty straightforward, and if you are looking for any information at all about online paid surveys, you should have no problem finding it on this blog. The blog consists almost entirely of reviews on the various survey programs, and you can see this for yourself by looking at any of the most recent bloggeries: Geenfield Online adds PayPal and Other Improvements, Earn Money Blogging for Online-Paid-Surveys.net, Make Money Taking Surveys - I Did It And You Can Too!, Share Your Thoughts on Online Income Opportunities and Test Your Stock Trading Skills with Wall Street Survivor.
The site has a fairly clean layout and thus from first appearances navigation will be fairly simple. The more time you spend on the blog however you will find this blog to be somewhat disorganized and chaotic. Bloggeries are left marginalized and there is a right sided navigation bar. There is also a top navigation system under the header. Bloggeries are in black text on white background with the blog being bordered in black. In the top navigation system you will find links to User Reviews Home, Free Paid Survey Directory, Survey Panel Blog, and Online-Paid-Surveys.net. As you go further into the blog, you will notice that the blog becomes more complicated to navigate. In fact, the more time you spend here you will find this is more a website about survey sites, rather than an actual informative blog on survey sites. In the right navigation bar you will find categories, top 10 user ralted lists, popular posts and surveys.
This blog scores a 2.4/5 at this point, as it has very little to offer the readers in terms of what a blog generally is supposed to offer. From an appearance standpoint, the blog receives its highest score in the criteria, as the blog has a clean template with very little distractions. On all other fronts however, the blog does not do well at the time of review. The content on this blog is lacking, period, in the sense that there really is no content. Each bloggery is a review of a survey site, with no personal voice or information attached to the bloggery that would lend the blog credibility to the reader. The overall navigation of not only the bloggeries, but the blog as a whole needs some work. As a whole in fact, the blog looks like a website geared to advertise survey site referral links. Anyone can go to a site with tones of links to different surveys. The secret is making interesting content that will not only draw people looking for surveys to the site but also give them some selection when there so they feel as though they are at a quality resource on the topic of online paid surveys. If the author ads more content in a major way and does an actual indepth writeup of pros and cons of each survey online this blog would do much better. There are lot’s of people actively searching to do surveys for money online; with some work this could be a quality resource; already has the domain!
-Chrissie
Posted by Bloggeries in Reviews
If you are looking for some free traffic to your blog and an innovative way to market your blog, then you definitely want to check out the Bloggers Showroom. Bloggers Showroom is a unique blog directory of sorts. Bloggers Showroom is a continuous blog of blogs that have been submitted by people just like you who understand that proper networking brings valuable traffic. The Showroom is dedicated to helping you discover what people think and feel when they visit your blog, as well as helping you make improvements to your blog and how to bring in more traffic. If you get featured in the showroom, you will be able to send your visitors to the showroom page to critique your blog. The showroom is designed to maximize your blog’s potential, receive constructive criticism, and to help you drive traffic. Each bloggery is a featured blog where a blogger submits the blog, introduces you to its purpose, and provides an ‘author’s plea’ on why you should check it out. Readers can then vote or review the blog themselves on criteria such as layout, content, and overall appeal. Check out the most recent featured bloggeries yourself: Dance Floor, Jim’s Scratchings, My Wife and Twins, and MommiesHome.net.
The blog is very colorful and offers an organized design which makes it easy to navigate. In the right navigation bar you will be able to subscribe to either the blogs showroom, journal, or news grid feeds. You can also find links here to submit your blog, see how it works, visit the showroom, see the bloggers grid or journal, find widgets, about page, and contact pages. You will also find here a Categories Menu, Recent activity in both the showroom and hot topics, and a long list of the featured blogs. If you question whether or not there is a place for you here, question no more. This blog offers an extensive category listing where there is sure to be a place for anyone. Each bloggery is very extensive and offers pictures and detailed information on each blog that is being featured.
I will go with a 4.5 for this blog as it scores well on all criteria. The blog’s overall navigation is well-laid out and organized and it is not difficult to find anything you may be looking for on this blog. The content is well done and it is not difficult to understand what this blog is offering. The blog offers a lot of blog meat as well that will assist the reader and blogger in finding out what this blog really has to offer. The blog also scores well on activity with regular daily content. Further, this blog is a unique concept that is sure to attract attention so the blogger definitely receives good scores there as well. The only thing I had trouble with was the overall appearance. I find this blog very busy with graphics and advertising. Though it does offer some good appeal to the blog, in some cases it is a little too much. It is difficult to sort through in some cases what is a blog post, and what is advertising. Also, I would suggest the blogger make the headlines of the featured blogs in the bloggeries bigger as where they are font wise right now makes them very difficult to find. Overall however, this is a good blog that has a tremendous potential and a lot to offer its readers. If you are looking for a new means to market your blog, check this one out
-Chrissie
Posted by Bloggeries in Reviews
If you have ever found yourself wondering ‘I wonder if I could find a website on….’ then this blog may appeal to you. The blog is simply called Website Reviews. The blogger is Malthy Badri and she offers a wealth of websites and blogs that you can ‘stumble onto’ in any field. Malathy is a Math teacher in India and blogs for both fun and money. She will also review websites that appeal to her, but may take consideration for other reviews based on content, design, presentation, utility, and navigation. You can get a good feel for the types of sites that interest her through her recent bloggeries: Tools from Highfivez for blog promotion, Plug and play VOIP phones from Nimbus, Why Satrnum changed to Friend2Friend, Enter the Indian Thought Terminus, Read your Feeds through IM, The news feed merger, Join review bloggers blogroll, Listen to your own posts, free podcast, Adsense Alternative by Ask.com, and many more.
I generally like to say that blogs are easy to navigate, however this particular blog is fairly loaded with AdSense that I found it to be distracting from either navigation or content areas. The content is centralized and there are both left and right navigation bars. Bloggeries are a blue text on orange background and links are highlighted in red. The header is standard text with no graphics, and directly below is a large span of space that contains the About Page and some AdSense. In the left navigation bar you will find the about page and an Archive Menu that lists Recent Posts by link. In the right navigation bar you will find AdSense, sponsored links, tag clouds, and a feedburner that contains 1 reader. You will also find here the blogroll and a link of frequently visited links. There are labels attached to each post but at the time of review I did not see a categories menu. There also at this point no pictures associated with the bloggeries.
I will go with a 2/5 for this one, there is just too much going on here that has little to do with content. I think the AdSense is far too overloaded and it is the first thing you deal with on the blog. Also, while the site is very colorful, it loses some appearance points for not having pictures as well as the advertising issue. Content is well written but needs some activity. Currently there have only been 10 posts in August and more frequent posting would definitely help with traffic here. Being that this is a site on website reviews, a categories menu would benefit readers in knowing what kind of websites are reviewed. Also, some information as to how one would obtain a review would be extremely beneficial. For a blog that has been around since 2006 I am not much surprised that there is only one reader in the feedburner as this blog has too much distraction going on to allow the reader to focus on content. I hope the blogger can make some changes and consequently see this blog succeed.
-Chrissie
Posted by Bloggeries in Reviews, Shopping, Personal Finance
If you are looking for a site that is geared towards simplifying your life and making it less expensive you may want to have a look at Apples 2 Apples Blog. Here the author welcomes you to gain more out of your life by simplifying it. The author says if you wish to live simple AND large, share your world with Apples 2 Apples to find cheaper ways to be both stylish and simple. The site covers a broad range of ‘simplifying’ methods, all geared towards finding you the lowest prices on products you already purchase. Included in the blog are also tips on how to make things easier in your daily living, for example renovating at cost or spending less time getting ready in the morning. You can get a true feel for the blogger’s objectives through any of the recent posts: Give your Furniture a Quick Make Over, More Coupons, How much Time do You Spend in the Morning, Six Tips to Help You Save Money on Makeup, Stock up on Swimwear, Atlantic Reviews, and LV 07 Fall.
The site is very colorful and extremely easy to navigate. Posts are left marginalized with black text on white background and an array of relevant pictures with each post. There is a right navigation bar that includes a welcome note, blog poll, categories menu, ads, search bar, and a link me button. Missing from the right navigation bar are a recent posts menu and an archives menu, so I am not too sure how old this blog is. The categories section is very comprehensive so if you are a coupon grabber or professional discount shopper, there should be something here for you. You can search through the Apples Café, Apples2Apple news, Cool find – Hunting for Stylish Products, Getting to Know Brands, Simple and Fabulous – Beauty and Fashion, Simple Home Style – Home Sweet Home, and there are so many other categories for simplifying your life here as the list is extremely comprehensive.
The site scores well on activity, as posting is every couple of days at most, and navigation scores well also. The site is easy to navigate but I would like to see some additional navigation features to make blog browsing more simple, such as the recent posts menu and the archives menu. The uniqueness marks are average, I do not find this niche to be one that is extremely different from others in its category, so it garners average points here. The content is well written for the most part, though I do wonder if English is a second language here just through some syntax issues and contextual comments. However, this does not take away from the readability of the blog and the posts are extremely easy to read and follow. Appearance is where the blog suffers the most, I find there to be more advertising than posts, and in facet a few posts are advertising in themselves. While at first glance the purpose of the blog is geared as such towards this kind of writing, I would still like to see more of the authors personal voice and less advertising in the specific posts that are marketing a product. Having AdSense in every post also distracts from the readability of the blog, at least for me it does, so that has affected appearance marks as well. Overall however, this blog rates a 3 from me and I wish it continued success.
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- Chrissie
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