Archive for the 'Spotlight' Category
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Posted by Bloggeries in Spotlight, Travel, Cultural
If you are looking for a bit of Irish politics or just some running commentary on life across the pond, take a look at MacKozer’s blog. Here you will find a look at Ireland from a Polish Perspective through MacKozer’s Irish Diary. MacKozer’s name is Krystian, but he is known in the blog world as MacKozer and his interests include Scotland, Ireland, Celtic culture, Archeology, and so much more. He is also a musician who plays the guitar and has very eclectic and well-rounded music tastes. But this is not just a random musicians blog’s on political rants. MacKozer also has a deep interest in archaeologist, specifically from the Iron Age in Poland, as well as interests in the Neolithic eras, Bronze Age, and early Medieval archeology. MacKozer’s writing is both intellectual and well rounded, and you can see this in any of his recent postings: 22 Years of Using Computers From 64KB to 1GM Ram, Irish Prisoners Overseas, Fall of the Kaczynski Coalition Government and New Elections in Poland – Expanding Subject Matter of My Blog, GAA at Croke Park, Konica Minolta A1 vs. Nokia N73 – Camera vs. Mobile Phone, and Exploitation.
You will find navigation on this blog very easy. Posts are left marginalized and there are two right navigation bars. Posts are standard black text on white background with a grayish border. The header contains a beautiful graphic background of what I presume is Irish Landscape that serves as a nice backdrop to the Ireland from a Polish Perspective header. There is a top navigation bar here that contains the Home Page to the blog, About Page, MacKozer’s CV, and a link to his photoblog. The left-sided navigation bar on the right contains a recent posts menu, blogroll, subscriptions options, and a healthy categories menu. The categories menu contains many Irish features such as Burren, Carlow, Clonmacnoise, Cork, Dublin, Ireland, Irish Creatures and so much more. The right sided navigation bar on the right contains the standard blog calendar and some AdSense banners.
I am going with a 4.5 for this one. This blog scores well on most features. The content is intellectually written and engaging to the reader, even if the reader does not have a prior interest. The appearance of the blog is very appealing, and most posts contain either relevant pictures associated or a youtube video, thus adding appeal to the already interesting content. Activity is excellent as well, with what appears to be regular and daily postings. The navigation on the blog is very easy, and the blog itself is unique in its niche. The niche itself is doing quite well as over the course of my review the blog went from 69 to 71 readers in the feed, so the blog has a noted successful following and readership. That alone gives credibility to the blog. A suggestion I would make is to take advantage of this readership by monetizing the blog a little more effectively. It may be worth considering making the double right bars into one on either side of the blog postings to make the AdSense a little more incorporated into the overall theme of the blog, as now it sort of seems a little off in left field. Another thought would be removing the block at the top of the first post. It loads so fast it’s often the first thing a reader sees; monetization is good but best when done subtly. Perhaps leave just a sponsored line and move the “Ads by Google” rectangle box to the bottom of the first post instead of top? One could also make the ad box taller if moved to the bottom of the first post as it’s not occupying precious space on the first fold. That being said, overall the blog is doing very well, and there is little I could offer to the author other than wishes for continued success.
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- Chrissie
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Posted by Bloggeries in Spotlight, Web Design
Are you looking for a little help with your blog? You may want to check out Vandelay Website Design Blog. This blog is the blog component of a web design business called Vandelay Website Design. The company itself services both small and medium sized businesses by developing user-focused websites that are both attractive and functional. They use valid XHTML and CSS coding with their designs making them accessible to a wider range of users. You will find a link to their homepage on the blog if you are interested, but if you just want to learn how to use and market your blog more effectively, you will find any of the recent bloggeries very informative: 10 Tips for Making Your Blog Posts More del.icio.us, 101 Ways to Monetize your Website or Blog, User’s Guide to Google Webmaster Tools, Weekly Links, Getting the Most out of your FAQ Page, 10 Ways to Design for Impatient Visitors, A Guide to Promoting Your Blog Through Guest Posts, Weekly Links, 30 Keyword Tools to Use for Your Website, and July in Review. If you take a look through the business aspect of Vandelay’s Design portfolio and the services they offer, you will see that they know not only how to create effective websites, but how to market them as well. This alone gives credibility to the blog as far as the usefulness of the information provided.
Navigation on this blog is very simple and user friendly. Bloggeries are left marginalized with black text on white background and a light grey border around the page. The header contains an attractive business sense appeal in gun metal and light blue colors. The right navigation system contains subscription methods for the blog, a menu for top commenters listed by name as well as how often they have commented, a most popular posts menu, and a categories menu. In the categories you will find a wealth of information for blog assistance – blog promotion, blogging, CSS, design, hosting, links, marketing, and more. The most popular posts on the blog include bloggeries such as 10 Keys to Effective Writing for the Web, Customize your Own WordPress Theme, 83 Top Webmaster Resources, What Makes a Website Search Engine Friendly, 26 Steps to Successful Blogging, and Find the Perfect Colors for your Website. And as if that wasn’t enough, you can find more about Vandelay Website Design in a very handy top navigation bar that contains the Home, About Page, Services link, Portfolio, Resources, and a link directly to the blog.
This blog is getting a 4.8 from me, there is little I can offer for improvement, and more that I take away from it as valuable information for myself. The blog is aesthetically appealing with unique content. The only real suggestion I have is to make the header more dynamic and attention grabbing because at the moment it’s not at par with the content and it’s a shame if someone were to visit and not spend the time to read through all the quality content the author has produced. While the niche itself does not stand out in the crowd, the content definitely does. I like the connection the blog has with its readership by making note of the commenters and by highlighting popular posts. You can see this strategy is working very well for the blog as in July they saw 26,458 visitors and 45,896 pageviews. The blog does not contain advertising, and on the main page there are no pictures with the bloggeries, but if you click on the header for each post you will find relevant pictures posted with each bloggerie. Also, I find the use of social networking somewhat of a nuisance on many blogs, however this blog has made very effective use of social networking tools and incorporated them very effectively into the blog. Overall this blog has a lot to offer and I would highly recommend it to anyone starting out with blogging that may have questions, or to anyone that is wanting to make some tweaks to their current blog to make it more marketable and more effective. Great job Vandelay, and thank you for the resource!
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- Chrissie
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Posted by Bloggeries in Reviews, Spotlight, Travel, Art, Cultural
If you enjoy reading personal blogs, then here is another that you want to take some time out for. The blog is called Correr es mi Destino which translated to English means “To Run is my Destiny”. The blog is also known as “My Life in Canada Under the Snow” and, among other things, contains a series of revelations on the author’s experiences as an immigrant to Canada. Juliette, though the blogosphere knows her affectionately as Zhu (珠), is the author and creator of this blog and interspersed with her Canadian musings, writes about her travels and experiences across the globe. Zhu is French and currently living in Canada’s capital as a Permanent Resident though she has traveled literally across the globe. You can tell her fortitude simply by her occupation, Zhu works in Ottawa and teaches French to government workers, not an occupation for the weak minded. She writes on just about anything that crosses her mind, and beautifully at that. Grab your beverage of choice and peruse some of her recent Bloggeries: Games without Frontiers, Morning Glory, Fighting for What, Neigbor – ino, La Desperecida, The Wall, The World for Dummies, Of a Blog Award, Sicko (s), and The 416 Escape.
Navigation on this blog is very simple. Posts are centered down the page with black text on a light blue background. Each post also contains relevant pictures to each post and the blog is very easy to look at and to read. Down the left border is an eclectic collection of art work and in the right navigation bar you will see very easy to find buttons for FA, Who Am I (About Me), Reviews of her Blog (all glowing), and a button to get to the home page. The Right bar also contains her profile, a pull down menu for Recent Posts that she has called “Previously On”. I am not sure if there is supposed to be a typo with this menu title, but the blog is so tongue in cheek it fits with the theme perfectly. You will also find a categories menu (known as ‘Done That’) containing categories such as Canadian Life, en Francais (posts in French), Immigration, Just Bloggin’, On the Road, Society, Travel, Working Girl, and 中文..Other interesting features in the left navigation bar include a time and date button, weather widget for her location in Ottawa, Blog Roll known as ‘Daily Blog Shot’, her Flickr Album, and a map of her visitors locations.
I am going with a 4.5 for this one. Zhu’s Life in Canada scores beautifully on all aspects. The blog has a very friendly appearance with nothing to distract from the content. In fact the appearance is extremely creative in and of itself which makes the navigation system incredibly easy. There is no advertising, as this blogger is blogging strictly for the love. Judging by her very active following she is very successful at it as well. Uniqueness scores are high as well, though this is a personal blog the range of the content is excellent and truly offers the perspective that the writer wishes to. The content is easy to read, and though it is a bit tongue in cheek, it is easily taken with a grain of salt and excellently written. The author is very good at expressing herself and her experiences. A look at the Bloggerie “Neigbor – ino” is an excellent example of this as it explains how easy it is to sleep in quiet Canada. The only place where this blog is not perfect is in daily postings. Simply put, we want more of Zhu. If you enjoy personal blogs, or hearing about global experiences, you will want to bookmark this one.
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- Chrissie
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Posted by Bloggeries in Reviews, Spotlight, Technology, Internet Marketing, SEO, Entrepreneurship, Blogging
If you are a blogger, and I mean really, if you are reading this chances are good, then you definitely want to visit Blisslogs. Blisslogs is a little place where you can pick up some blogging tips and learn from the author’s blogging experiences. It did not take me long to really like this blog, or in fact bookmark it. That being said, bloggers need to take note of this site if they want to improve, promote, or start their own blog. The author is all about helping to help you, and is even willing to provide you your own domain through blisslogs as well as some free blogging software. Further, he will not just help you build a blog, but help you work on monetizing that blog for a little extra side income. Have a look at any of his recent posts to see what I am talking about. Here you will find Goo Goo for Google Monday – Google Talk, BlissLogs is a Winner, Improve your Google PageRank in 4 Easy Steps, WordPress Wednesday – Timestamp your Posts, The Face Behind BlissLogs, Market and Analyze your Site for only $5, John Cow Contest, Blog Contests, Create your Blog Posts with a Free Editor, and many more.
One of the first things I noticed that I love about this blog is that within each post you will find a popularity ranking (of the post), a date and author stamp, tags, Digg and Email links, and then a section on Related Posts. I think the popularity rating is a great tool for both the reader and the author in terms of knowing what to write about. It also helps the reader determine the success of a particular post. I also like the Related Posts links. I find this really increases the readability of the blog, so that users spend less time on a blog searching for what they want to read about. I do not see this often on blogs, so needless to say, I was impressed.
Navigation on this site is so easy, it will not take you long to find what you are looking for. Posts are left marginalized with black text on white background. There is a top, right, and bottom navigation bar. In the top bar you can hit the Home link, read the About Me page, and Contact the author. In the right navigation bar you will find a Most Popular Posts Menu, Categories Menu, Recent Posts Menu, Archives, and the Blogroll. In the bottom navigation system you will find very similar menus, recent posts, archives, and etc. I am not seeing any advertising on the blog, so I am not too sure if this one is being monetized, or is one that is ‘all about the love’ of blogging.
I am going with a 5 for this one, which comes rare but deserved. The fact that I spent more time wandering and reading and bookmarking and taking notes (for my own blog) than reviewing was a pretty powerful indication to me that this blog is worth a subscription and bookmark for any blogger. The blog is chock full of information. The content is spectacularly written and extremely user friendly. And the blogger is really all about helping you succeed, you can’t ask for much better. On all accounts of activity, uniqueness, content, navigation, and appearance, it scores beautifully. The only suggestion I would make is the addition of some pictures here and there. I say this because I know what Internet readers are like, and visual is important and ties in well with good content. But as I have already mentioned, the content is fantastic, and the blog is extremely readable and very user friendly. You really need to check it out for yourself.
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- Chrissie
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