The next blog that we are going to review at Bloggeries is called They Are Our Children. The blog is dedicated to children’s charities and it depicts the urgency and importance of supporting unfortunate children everywhere. The blogger is a 39 year old female out of Carmel, New York, and is blogging to inform readers of the real need to do whatever can be done for less fortunate children, as well as to provide means for you to aide and support them. The blog offers articles as well as free means that readers can support these children and organizations through petition websites and many more. The blogger values honesty and respect in the world, and feels that her blog is a reflection of that belief. You can get to know the blogger and her work little bit better through any of her recent bloggeries: Children In Need-In The U.K , To My Readers – Thank You, Mercy Corps – An Excellent Charity, Animals Are No Less Worthy, Make a Child’s Dream Come True, and Blog Review – Stumble Aid.
The blog is fairly simple in terms of navigation and has a dark pink and mauve theme from blogspot. The bloggeries are in a dark text that appear on a light pink background with a darker pink border and links are highlighted in a darker mauve color. Bloggeries are left marginalized and there is a right navigation bar on the blog. The right navigation bar is somewhat hard to navigate as it contains quite a bit of widgets and menus that are involved with specific children’s organizations, but the navigation bar still manages to contain the ‘meat’ of the blog. In the right navigation bar you will find children’s pictures; quotes; links to various children’s projects such as Children’s International, One.org, Project Kindness; Changing the Present, and many more. You will also find in this navigation bar a link list to more children’s charities, AdSense, Recent Viewers Widget, Archives menu, and an About Me Page. I do see labels on each of the bloggeries, such as fundraising, penny donations, children’s dreams, granting wishes, free links, and so on, but I do not see a Categories or Labels menu located on the blog itself. The addition of this feature may make the blog a little easier to navigate for the blog readership.
I will go with a 3.4/5 for this blog. The blog scores at the average level on each of the criteria. Right now it is currently being updated every two to three days, and I would really encourage the blogger to update more frequently. This will increase the exposure of the blog and direct it to a readers demographic the blogger is looking for, those that are interested in supporting charities. I would also suggest adding pictures to the blog to enhance the overall appearance of the blog. Specifically, more pictures within the posts themselves would truly add relevance to this blog. Further, to connect with the readers on a more personal level, I recommend expanding the About Me or Profile page so that the readers truly get a feel for the personal voice and passion that goes behind this blog. There is no doubt that the blogger is a passionate one, but if the readers were able to get to know her more, it may increase the success of the blog. With this I recommend moving the About Page to the top of the navigation bar from its current location at the bottom of the navigation bar. This would make this the first thing readers see, and add to the overall feel of the blog. I would also suggest a categories menu so that those looking for specific charities may have ease in doing so when arriving at this blog. Adding categories and labels that are keyword friendly would also help with exposure in this case. Overall however, I think this blog is a great blog in an excellent niche, and with a few tweaks it has the potential to be a huge success within the charity spectrum.
-Chrissie