chrissie

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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If you are looking for an all-around feel good blog, take a minute to check out the blog with the intention of Unraveling the Spiritual Mystique. The author here, Alexys Fairfield, is someone who has achieved higher consciousness by being present in the moment, never taking life for granted, and sharing what they have found along the way. Alexys says in her About Me that life is an odyssey, a collection of uniquely derived moments designed to lead you to your real moments of truth. “Life give you wings, all you have to do is fly”. The blog is very spritually based and you can see this for yourself in any of the following Bloggeries: Curtain Call; Celebrate; Group Hug; Amazing Humans; Persistent Resistance; Shaken, Not Deterred; and Are you a Troublemaker?

Navigation here is very straightforward. Posts are left marginalized and there is a right navigation bar. The blog opens up with a beautiful picture of a sunset in the forest and literally wakes you up when you log in. The background follows the colors of this sunset theme with a rusty colored background and dark text surrounded by a black border. Each post contains relevant pictures, and some of them quite pretty I might add. But all are appropriate and add the relevant mood to the posting. In the right navigation bar you will find the About Me page, Recent Comments Menu, and various subscription links as well as Blog Widgets. You will also find the blogroll and a pull-down archive menu known as “Memorable Posts” that organizes the blog nicely. You will also find here a really neat widget for Recent Posts that has a scroll-down menu with pictures and postings attached. I have not seen this on a blog yet and I really liked it. If you like the widget, you can also get it from this blog.

I am giving this blog a 4. I really like how the blog is personalized, even standard blog elements such as recent posts and archives are renamed to match the niche of the blog. I find the writing to be very well done and relevant to the overall theme of the blog. Reading each post really does give you a true sense of the spiritual nature of the blog. There was a spelling mistake in one post that was a word repeated in the post title (though it was spelled correctly there) so I do recommend the blogger keep an eye on that. I also recommend a little more frequent posting, it looks like about 10-15 Bloggeries a month at this point. This blog has a nice following judging by the recent posts menu so I think the blog would benefit from more posting. Otherwise, on all other counts the blog scores very well. This is definitely a unique blog with a unique perspective. If you need a zen moment, grab a cup of joe and sneak away for a few quiet moments with a read from this blog.

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– Chrissie

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Should you ever have any questions about Social Security Disability in the United States, you may want to check out The Disability Blog. where you will find a blog on disability matters from former claims specialist and blogger Tim Moore. Have a look at any of his recent bloggeries to see if your inquiries can be answered here: Social Security Disability – Kansas City Star article; Social Security Disability Las Vegas – KSL News; Waiting for Social Security Disability; Interesting News from Fed Blog; Disability Statistics from a UPI article; Social Security Disability in Indianapolis; Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; Disability Increasing Faster Among Women, Bipolar Disability, Can you Receive Social Security Disability and Veterans Benefits; and Disability Judges Being Added?.

Navigation on this blog is very simple and straightforward. Posts are right marginalized with black text on white background and there is a left navigation system. The left navigation bar contains archives linked by individual date, recent posts menu, and a small about me spot. The blog does not contain much other than regular postings, so there is very little to navigate here. There are no pictures with the posts and the categories menu is missing as well. I think a blog with this kind of topic is broad enough to include a few categories so that readers could navigate directly to any specific questions they may have that do not fall under the previous posts menu. I also find the archives menu a little bulky by being organized by specific date and it would look much neater if it was organized monthly or even weekly.

I will give this blog a 3, there is very little to offer the readers here other than the bloggeries. I am not sure what the readership is, but the blog could definitely use a blogroll or a related links menu. I also think the blog would be a little more aesthetically appealing if pictures were offered with the content. The writing is very well done, comprehensive, and informative. To add to this, the blog is updated regularly which is always beneficial to any blog’s success. Even in the recent posts there is a wide range of topics covered that serves the readership well. I think these could be organized into categories if readers wish to look at specific topics down the road. The advertising is appropriately incorporated and not at all distracting to the readers so it should monetize the blog nicely. Navigation here is a little bland and simply because there is very little offered other than regular posting. The blog has a unique concept and the keywords are used effectively so with these few changes, I think this blog could do very well.

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– Chrissie

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