Reviews

Bloggeries is going to look at an artist’s blog today, and the blog is about pencil sketching. The blog is called Pencil Drawing Sketch Art. The blogger is an amateur artist, but only in the sense that she has never been formally schooled in the field of either drawing or painting. She enjoys drawing and painting on different objects, and makes a point to use recycled materials. Her theory is, if she can make something useful out of something someone threw out, it’s one less thing in the landfills. If you enjoy stopping to look at those with a gift in the visual arts, then you will definitely enjoy this blog. Have a look at some of her recent bloggeries at Hendrix and Vaughan – Guitar Legends, Custom Pencil Sketch from Photo, Feedburner Widget Text Not Working, Horsin’ Around – Farm Heritage Shows, Biker in Paradise, Criss Angel by: Sierra, and Jim Morrison – This is the End My Only Friend.

The blog is fairly new and this makes it very easy to navigate. Bloggeries are centralized in white text on black background and links are highlighted in red. I normally don’t really like the black background/white text in blogs, but this blog has more to offer with its visual pieces and thus I think the black background is very fitting as a showcase for her art. The blog contains both a left and right navigation bar and a top navigation bar as well. In the left navigation bar you will find a Categories Menu that contains items such as Aerosmith, blogging, Criss Angel, Gifts, Island lake tanning, paintings, pencil sketches art, and so much more. The left bar also contains an Archives Menu, Blogroll, and blog Meta. In the right navigation bar you will find feeds, MyBlogLog widget, Advertising, and from the blogosphere widget. The top bar you have the Home links, About links, and Contact Susie link. I think the only thing that would make navigation easier here would be a recent posts menu so the blogger’s readers could find posts easily without scrolling through the main page.

I am going to give this blog a 4/5, which is a very good review for such a new blog. The blog scores well on all accounts. It is aesthetically appealing and scores well for appearance. The navigation system is very easy and I did not have difficulty finding anything or moving around on the blog at all. Other than a recent posts menu, or even a recent comments menu as the readership will support it, I have no other suggestions for this blogger. The blog is well organized and it certainly is providing good content for its niche. The blogger’s content is very good as well. This is clearly a personal blog on her personal art, and the voice of the content has a beautiful personal touch to it. The activity is doing very well as well, with content coming in just about every day. This blogger clearly understands the necessities for a good blog and she is doing very well at it. As her blog grows, I am sure her readership will as well.

-Chrissie

Bloggeries is going to look now at another blog about blogging, but this one comes with a twist which I think you will find interesting. The blog is called Blog About Your Blog, affectionately known around its home on the net as BAYB. This blog is a blog dedicated to quality in the blogosphere. Quality blogs, quality bloggers, and quality people. The blog itself is more of a project, where quality bloggers come together in collaboration of a project to bring bloggers together, and to make bloggers better. It’s all kind of a help us help you mentality that the owners of the blog want your quality blog to be a part of. BAYB is in a never-ending effort to seek talented bloggers on this project and if you are interested, drop them a line. Too shy? While you are getting up your courage, read some of their most recent bloggeries on how to make your blog a better place to be: VidSearchLive Video Search Engine, Forget Page Rank, Comment Friday for January 25th, Search Engine Traffic is Easy with Tech Support Posts, Shopaholic at Entrecard, Conduct Interviews for Easy Content and Traffic, How Often Does Google Crawly You?, and Create Your Own E Store with Wholesale.

The blog is very professionally laid out in clean design and organized template. Bloggeries are left marginalized and in black text on a beige background with links highlighted in black. There is a right navigation bar that contains just about everything you may need to know about this blog, and about blogging in general in several well organized menus. You will find here subscription information and widget with an impressive count of 563 readers; Pages Menu containing About Us, Authors List, Contact Us, and Free Blog. You will also find in this navigation system Are you In my Top Spots Widget, Blogroll, Our Members Blogs, Recent Posts Menu, Recent Comments Menu, Archives Menu, Categories Menu, and Popular Articles Menu. The Categories Menu is comprehensive and contains just about anything you want to find on blogging such as Blog Promotion, Blogging News and Information, Blogging Tips, Blogging Tools, Comment Friday, Contests, and How to Increase Website Traffic among much more. The Popular Articles is something that is very handy as well, and a menu you will want to check out. You can see articles here like 6 New WordPress Plugins You Haven’t Seen, 10 Quick Blogging Tips, and 10 Firefox Addons to Supercharge Your Blogging.

This blog is getting a 5/5 from me as there is little I can offer suggestion wise to a blog that is maintaining and sustaining a regular readership of over 500. The blog scores well on all accounts. It has a professional appearance with a clean layout and organized design and its navigation offers no issues. The activity is consistent and is coming in daily which is keeping the search engines happy along with its healthy readership. The content is very well done, so the owner of the blog is clearly finding the right authors to represent the blog. All tips and articles are done in a user-friendly but personal voice that lends credibility to the advice that is being offered. The only suggestion I would offer at this point would be a change to the font size in the menus in the navigation bar. There are *ahem* older eyes that may have more of an issue when it comes to reading the fine print. But otherwise, this is an excellent blog, and an invaluable resource to its readership and anyone else that happens to, and should, pop in and have a look.

-Chrissie

Those readers that share their love with a fur baby in their life will really enjoy reading the ‘Animals Need Help’ blog. This blog is exactly what it says it is, a blog about the prevention of animal cruelty. The owner of the blog is Stacy and has been looking for a way to help abused animals. So she created a blog to use as an educational resource for others on the topic of animal abuse. Stacy also uses her affiliate links with pet companies to raise money for organizations such as PETA and ASPCA, and all monies raised by her blog will go to support these organizations or a local animal shelter. You can get a good idea for Stacy’s commitment to this project by looking at any of her recent bloggeries: Animalsneedhelp.com wins the thinking blogger award, Why are there So Many Pets in Animal Shelters?, Educate our Children on Animal Cruelty, How Many Dogs Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb?, Stop Puppy Mills, 10 Ways to Help Stop Animal Cruelty, and Animals are Not Ours To Experiment on.
 
The blog is well organized with a clean template which makes navigation very easy. Bloggeries are in black text on white background and the blog is bordered in grey and has mossy green color theme in the rest of the blog. The blog is attractive and appealing and greets the reader with an adorable kitty picture in the header of the blog. Bloggeries are left marginalized and there is a right navigaton bar. In this navigation bar you will find a search button, disclaimer on the non-profit nature of the blog, advertising, blogroll, sponsors list, categories menu, feature pet, more advertising, and feed information. You will also find a handy top menu in the blog that contains the Home link, About page, Partners link, and Contact information. The categories menu is comprehensive and contains relevant links for topics in the blog: Animal Rights Education, Animal Shelters, Blogging Award, Guest Posts, Pet Education, Stop Animal Cruelty, Stop Puppy Mills, and What You Can do To Help. Right now I do not see an Archives Menu, and I do not see a Recent Posts Menu. I think a Recent Posts Menu or widget would really help the navigation of this blog.

Overall I give this blog a 4/5, as it is doing very well on blog criteria for what seems to be a new blog. The appearance of the blog is appealing with relevant pictures that add meaning to the blog content. Navigation is very easy on this blog so it scores well for that also. Content is well written with a strong personal voice that offers credibility for the blogger, and is also appealing enough that it would lead the reader to action which is the blogger’s intent. I think activity could use some consistency, as there is bloggeries coming in every day for a few days, but there are gaps of anywhere from a few days to a week or so in between posts. Regular updating will definitely bring this blogger more traffic. Overall however, I think this blogger is off to a great start and if she continues at this pace should see some regular traffic as the blog grows.

-Chrissie