Simple Blog Coach - Please Review

[Sneakyheathen]

Please tell me what you honestly think about my new website, simple blog coach:

The Mystery of Blogging Simplified | Simple Blog Coach

All thoughts appreciated, and if you see something you like, don't forget to stumble.

[Inspirational Blogger]

I think it looks okay. It's not very innovative, but its readability is good.

I would change it so that some of the blogs show up on the main page... thats really the point of a blog after all.

[Blogetize]

Well I spent about 2 minutes looking at your blog and here's what I noticed right off the bat.

1. Your descriptions of your articles are too short, while I like that you use pictures, there comes a point when using a picture with every article seems more like a novelty than a cool feature of a blog. Maybe if you extended the article summary to 200 words or so it wouldn't seem so bad, but as it stands you just don't have enough content to get users interested on your home page.

2. Your layout looks like a free wordpress theme. If you want to be taken seriously, i really suggest you invest in a professional wordpress theme. This will instantly give your site more credibility than 95% of blogs out there and will boost your chances of retaining readers, much in the same way that owning your own domain name gives you more credibility than having a xxxx.blogspot.com domain.

3. Your widgets are boring. Your sidebar is just 3 forms and 3 link lists. If you want to draw in users you have to make sure every single part of your blog is attractive to them, sidebar included. Think about adding some social media or picture widgets, people love pictures!

Forgive me if I seem rude but I wanted to write this as quickly and concisely as I could as there's a thunderstorm outside and I have no idea if my internet will stay on. But like I said, this is just what I saw from a quick glance at it, if you'd like a more detailed analysis I'd be happy to help you through e-mail or PM's and such.

Good luck with your blogging!

-Alex

[Melody]

I had actually very briefly glanced at your blog from my phone earlier today when poking around here online at bloggeries: On my phone I could not read that dark grey text on near black text towards the bottom of your home page.

Also, I notice that we have sort of a rash again of blogs about blogs here at bloggeries. That seems to be popular to jump into, but it confuses me why people blog about blogging because it is an incredibly saturated area of blogging online. Is this a topic you're passionate about?

I would agree with others that the visible area of your content is too small.

Did you write all the content yourself? It sort of feels "canned" somehow.

On the upper right of the page there is this thing about downloading "how I made $3500 in 6 months of blogging" - If you really previously made $3500 in 6 months of blogging, then there is no need to start over...? If it's just an ad, it's a deceptive one because it looks like it is you talking about your successes. Your little mascot guy through out your blog looks like he is lifted from that book, so that's why it makes it look like it is your book.

[ChickenFreak]

Hmmm.

I agree that the post summaries are too short - if I have to click to get more than a couple of lines of a post, I'm likely to move on, because it's too much work to do the initial scan required to figure out what your blog is like.

There's a fairly high percentage of what I'd call "ad posts" - posts that advocate the purchase of a specific product. The "Headway Theme", the "Digital Access Pass", and of course the book that you're selling in the header.

This is in addition to the regular ads at the bottom. It all _looks_ very good for a blog with such a high percentage of advertising content - clean, consistent design, clean writing, energetic but not frenzied colors and graphics, and so on - but it is still a very high percentage of ad content.

I also agree that this is an overserved niche. There are _so_ many bloggers trying to make money by telling bloggers how to make money. While your blog looks better than many in the niche, I think that there's just too much competition. Your content would need to be fundamentally different, and so far it doesn't look _fundamentally_ different, just better and more cleanly written and formatted than many.

[gemini]

I like your header. The theme is good. The content is only for newbies but I wish there is more value in them. Please persist with blogging as you have eyes for presentation.

Choose a better paying niche for your next blog. Physical fitness and related products pay well as of today.

Cheers mate.

[Sneakyheathen]

@Blogetize
Thanks for the feedback. I'll try making the summaries longer and add more to the design. I made it myself.

@Melody
No, I'm not "passionate" about blogging. I'm that "passionate" about anything. I'm excited about blogging and after doing it for a long time (4+ years) I genuinely believe I have some ideas that can be shared in an interesting/fresh way and some unique ideas of my own.

Why do you say the content feels "canned"? I wrote everything myself and worked really hard on the articles, too. They all top 500 words and yes, I wrote the free report myself about my experiences. I'm not "starting over." I'm starting a new blog. I still run the successful one and it's still making me money.

@Chicken Freak
I'm not "selling" the book in my header, it's free. But I can see how the ad content may seem to overpower the actual content. I'm hoping that will even out as more posts are added to the website. I'll be sure to hold off from writing more reviews until later and probably remove the footer ads too.

@Gemini
What do you mean by "more value" specifically? Is there a post that you think could have been expanded/explained more?

And blogging about physical fitness would be boring. I didn't start this blog just to make money. I started it because I had a group I wanted to target and thought I could make a really good product.

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

[Sneakyheathen]

I made some modifications to the design that hopefully make the blog look a lot better.

The Mystery of Blogging Simplified | Simple Blog Coach