Reviews

Bloggeries is going to look at another personal blog, and this blog is called Pinoy Dreamer.  Pinoy Dreamer is a blog that ‘started in dreams, and ended in reality’.  The blogger is a 20 year old blogger from the Philippines, and is currently working on his CPA.  He has been a writer since elementary school and has always enjoyed writing essays, sports reviews, and more.  The blogger wishes you will join him on his quest of making his dreams a reality. He has started from scratch and has not gained anything yet, but is still dreaming that his efforts will not be wasted.  He wishes you will join him and together he and his readers can make their dreams a reality.  You can see what he means by this by checking out any of his most recent bloggeries:  The after grad sentiments, Extending My Traffic Sources, PDmo#2, I’m Back, No More Monthly Hosting Bills for Me, I’ve Spent $7.15 for a New Blog, The Making of a CPA: Some Useful Tips to Consider, and How to Properly Account Your Blog’s Income Part 1: Recognizing Revenue.

The blog does have somewhat of a busy theme, and this compromises its navigation somewhat.  The blog offers a top navigation system, as well as two right marginalized navigation systems.  Bloggeries are left marginalized and are in black text on white background and the blog theme and animations almost have a comic book theme to it.  In the top navigation bar you will find links to the Home page, About, About Me, Contact Form, Free Pinoy Blog Reviews, Privacy Policy, and a Sitemap.  In the left sided navigation bar you will find some advertising and a categories menu that contains categories such as Blogging Issues, Business, Games, Humor, Internet, Lifestyle, Opinion, Politics, Religion, and more.  In the far right navigation bar you will find the blogroll, Archives Menu, and Recent Posts Menu.  Moving down you will find this blog also offers a navigation system in the footer. Here you will find quite a bit of blog meat that you may have missed such as Recent Posts, Recent Comments, Most Comments (Top Commentators), Recent Readers widget, Popular Entries, and more information about the blogger.

This blog will get a 2.6/5 for now, but I attribute this primarily to the fact that this is a fairly new blog and with some time and some tweaks this blog will do well.  From a navigation standpoint the blog is a little disorganized with so many navigation systems.  The top navigation bar offers two about pages, and one should be deleted to maintain a professional look.  In the first about page the reader is taken to a standard wordpress page and this should be deleted.  As for the about page itself, I am not quite sure what this blog is about. It appears to be a personal blog, but the blogger only writes about making dreams a reality and does not quite specify what the intention of the blog is.  The blogger needs to clarify this for his readers a little bit.  I did find more information about the blogger in the blog’s third about box, which is located in the footer of the blog. Unfortunately I did not see this until well into the review, and this may affect the blogger’s credibility with its readership if the readers can not connect fully with the blogger. Moving this will improve the visibility of the blogger as well.  The content is well written and in a strong personal voice that readers will identify with, but activity is weak with content coming in with a week or more in between bloggeries.  For such a young blog, I do recommend much more regular, if not daily, bloggeries to bring in traffic and to sustain the credibility of the blogger.  This blog however does offer a lot of potential, and with a little organization it could be a very good blog for its readership. Finally I noticed many ad spots available; you may wish to try our blog directory affiliate program.

– Chrissie

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Bloggeries is going to review a humorous personal blog today, and the blog is called Blogstress.  The blogger is affectionately known as Aunt Bloggie, among many other nicknames, and blogs out of Istanbul, Turkey when not living in Baltimore, Maryland.  Besides working at his day job, you will find him blogging at Blogstress and playing bass for the Turkish Rock Band sensation called 45 Degrees.  From first glance it appears that the blog is a question and answer blog, with questions being submitted by readers and answered by Aunt Bloggie.  Questions range on everything from Shakespeare to blogging, and you can see this all for yourself through any of the recent bloggeries:  Aunt Bloggie Versus Sententious Drivel, Aunt Bloggie Feels More Alive, Aunt Bloggie’s “Ask Aunt Bloggie” Contest Give Away, Aunt Bloggie Knows You Know She Knows, and Delete or Not Delete?

The blog is fairly new, in fact not quite a month old yet, and contains little blog meat.  While this does make the blog seem a little scarce, it makes navigation somewhat simple.  Bloggeries are left marginalized and are in black text on white background with headlines highlighted in grey, and links in bold black.  There is a right navigation system containing the Archives Menu in pull down format, Blog Directory, Blogroll, Recent Posts Menu, and a Recent Comments Menu.  Otherwise there is little contained in the blog, and bloggeries have small images of a woman working at her desk, theoretically to symbolize the image of Aunt Bloggie.  Otherwise, the blog is primarily textual.

Overall the blog gets a 2.8/5 at this point, however the blog is so new that perhaps with some time and growth the blog will improve.  The blog is containing very little blog meat and this is affecting its overall readability.  Starting off, it is very difficult even to tell what the blog is about, and thus, what it has to offer its readers. Two components would assist readers in this, a Categories Menu and an About Page. The blog currently only offers one of those elements in the About page, but the about page itself needs some work.  From the About page we learn more about the blogger himself, and less about what the blog has to offer its readership.  As such, the readers may be left questioning what the purpose or overall function of the blog is.  Most blog meat is present, but a Categories Menu would organize the blog more as well making the bloggeries more available to the readership in an organized format.  The appearance of the blog needs just a little tweaking in terms of fonts that are used, and cleaning up the appearance of the bloggeries.  Right now bloggeries are not consistent in terms of fonts used, with font sizes ranging such that some bloggeries are very difficult to read.  Also, the activity for a new blog should be much more consistent, daily if possible, in order to attract traffic, and this blog is updating every few days to a week or more in between.  The content however is very well written, but because of some of these issues, is perhaps being overlooked by its readers.  Perhaps with some tweaks here and there and some growth with time, the quality content on this blog will begin to stand out on its own.

-Chrissie

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If you are looking for another way to make money online, you may want to stop and check out Online Earning Opportunities. Simply put, this is another marketing blog and offers you user-friendly advice and tips on how to make money with your blog, as well as other opportunities to make money online.  You can see this for yourself through any of its recent bloggeries:  Entrecard vs. Alexa, ClickBooth – A Review of CPA Site, Kiiji Local Classifieds, BuyBlogReviews.com – Paid to Blog Site, and Earn Money Writing for Encylocentra.

The blog is well organized in a very simple blog theme which makes it easy to navigate.  The structure is such that bloggeries are left marginalized and there is a double-wide navigation system to the right.  Bloggeries are black text on white background and the theme and border around the bloggeries is a tan khaki color.  There is a simple top navigation system for basic pages such as Home, Blogroll, and Contact Me.  In the right navigation system you will find on the left side a Categories Menu and a My Blog Log Widget.  In the right side, there is a Archives Menu, Recent Posts Menu, Recent Comments Menu, Entrecard, and Advertising.  The Categories menu is comprehensive and includes categories such as Affilliate Marketing Sites, Blog/Website Development, Classifieds, Cost Per Action, Link Building, Marketplace, and many more.

Overall I give this blog a 2.6/5 with just a few suggestions.  The blog is well organized and the blog contains all necessary blog meat and thus does well for navigation.  The only thing I would change there is to combine both navigation bars into one, as currently both bars are only about half full and this leaves a lot of white space on the page.  I would also add an About page to one of the menu systems so that the blogger connects a little more personally with their readers and thus increasing their readership.  The appearance of the blog does need some work, and primarily this is in the advertising area and header. Nothing says professional like a custom header that is a form of branding. Having blank text takes away from the credibility.  Regarding advertising the blog has an ad embedded in the footer of the blog which is very distracting and makes the blog slow to load.  The blog also has so much advertising that in some areas it is difficult to understand what is blog content and what is advertising.  The word ‘Archives’ in the navigation system is also spelled incorrectly which may seem unprofessional to some readers and it does affect the appearance of the blog.  The content however is well-written in an excellent user-friendly tone that readers will be able to identify with and learn from, but if the blogger wants regular traffic, more updates in the form of daily content are recommended.

-Chrissie

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