Bloggeries is looking at another personal blog today, and this one is a little bit of everything in a world that is ‘Delightfully Deranged’. The owner of this blog is Kathleen who is self-descrbed as ‘rather insane’. She views the world differently and has some rather strange experiences. Her blog is a medium to talk about these experiences and ramble on about nothingness. Get a feel for all that is delightfully deranged in Kathleen’s world by checking out some of her most recent bloggeries: There is Nothing Wrong with Windows Vista; Tundra Gear: Hats Brought to You by the Winner of Survivor Exile Island!; Do the Batty-Bat with Your Friend, The Count!; Men and Cars: Why do They Love Them?; Race a Psycho Chick and WIN!; Have a Good Night with $44 and a White Flag; Down with the Democrats – Why No colbert?!, and Reality T.V. Shows: Retreating From Oblivion, or Deranging our Society.
The blog is only a few months old and thus with little content it makes it very easy to navigate at this point. Bloggeries are in dark green text on a beige background and the blog is bordered in a forest green “Delightfully Deranged†motif. Bloggeries are left marginalized and there is a right-sided navigation bar. In the navigation bar you will find a Featured Presentation that is a cute little widget containing the blog’s goals and objectives, such as to reach 3000 hits and to increase in traffic by 20%. The navigation bar also contains a Recent Posts Menu titled “Yada Yada Yada†and a bit of advertising. Most bloggeries are accompanied by relevant pictures which makes the blog easier and more interesting to read. I currently do not see a Categories Menu or even labels or tags on the posts and I would strongly recommend the blogger begin doing this as this will definitely help to bring in some search engine traffic if effective keywords are used for labeling.
Overall I am giving this blog a 3.0 and this is largely due to the youth of the blog. With such a young blog some essential blog meat is missing, and with time and growth the blog would probably see a better mark. Navigation scores are fine and that is due to the bare bones nature of the blog. To enhance navigation as the blog grows, I suggest adding categories and labels to the blog. I would also suggest moving the About Page from the footer of the blog to a top position in the right navigation bar. This will give the blog some credibility to the readers, and new readers will be able to attach meaning to the personal voice of the blog. Content is well written and in an effective personal voice, but the activity is lacking. Currently there are no bloggeries for December, and November only saw about 13 posts. If the blogger wishes to reach her goals in the featured presentation, she will definitely have to maintain the blog content on a more regular basis. The blog itself however is unique enough to sustain a readership if the content becomes more regular. As a new blog it looks like an interesting read and could do very well with just a few minor changes and regular addition to content.
-Chrissie