Bloggeries Blog

Bloggeries is going to look at another blog that is a product review site. The women will really enjoy stopping into Doryn’s Dish as this site reviews products with the woman consumer in mind. Doryn’ Dish is written by a blogger that loves sharing her favorite things with people when she finds something she really loves. She will never endorse anything she doesn’t herself truly believe in, so you know these reviews are coming from the heart. For a look at any of the many product reviews she offers on her site, check out the latest bloggeries on Doryn’s Dish: Hanky Panky, Take the Time to Thank Our Advertisers, Paint vs. Paint, Bottles Stay Up, Psychic to the Stars, Flipping for Flip Video, Incredibly Soft and Snuggly Robe, and Fast Makeup for Busy Women.

The site is fairly new, so there is not a lot of meat to it *yet* though the blogger is working very hard on this. The newness of the blog makes it very easy to navigate. Bloggeries are centralized and there is both a left and right navigation bar. Bloggeries are in black text on white background and links and headlines are highlighted in pink adding a very feminine, but not too much so, touch to the overall theme of the blog. In the left navigation bar you will find an About Page, Categories Menu, Archives Menu, and Recent Comments Menu. The categories menu is comprehensive and covers all of the essentials a woman may be looking for in terms of product review – Accessories, As Seen on TV, Beauty/Health, Clothing, Doryn’s Notes, Food, Stationery, and Technology. The one thing I would suggest about the categories at this point would be for the blogger to separate the Beauty and Health categories into two different categories. Both are relevant keywords and tags that will be picked up easier by the search engines if she has separate categories or labels for her posts. In the right navigation bar you will find links to subscribe, sponsors, Love from my Readers Menu, and more subscriber links. Each bloggery is accompanied by relevant pictures for each product review, and this makes the site very aesthetically pleasing.

Overall I will go with a 4/5 for this blog. I enjoyed the blog on just about every aspect of the blog scoring criteria and have only a few suggestions that would benefit this blog’s growth. The appearance of the blog is clean and organized, and the ads are incorporated well without being distracting, so the blog does well on this count. I also like the feminine appeal of the blog theme which again, is pink but without being overbearing and will definitely appeal to the female readership. The content is well done with a strong personal voice which gives credibility to the product reviews which will serve the blogger well when it comes to monetization. Organization and navigation are excellent as well with this nice, clean template. The only suggestion I have with this is that while the blog is still new, that the blogger move all content from one navigation bar into the other to sustain one full navigation bar until the blog has more meat to it. Doing so will eliminate some of the white space that is bound to be there on a new blog, and will add to the blog’s appeal. Activity wise is great as this dedicated blogger is posting daily, and never seems to run out of content. The suggestion I do have for the activity and content is that the blogger begin to use keyword terms in her headlines. As she is conducting product reviews, naming the product specifically in her headlines will give this blogger a chance to feed the search engines the keyword food they need, and she will likely see more targetted traffic as a result. Otherwise, overall I enjoyed this blog and think as this blog grows it will do very well and sustain a healthy readership as it serves a wide demographic on a multi-purpose level. Well done!

-Chrissie

The next blog that Bloggeries is going to review deals with a sensitive subject matter and readers should take this into consideration when reading the blog. The blog is called PPD Connect. This is a blog for women that have suffered or are suffering from any degree of Post Partum Depression to join, meet, share their stories, raise awareness, and help other moms that are struggling. Post Partum Depression is a psychological disturbance that happens with some women after they have given birth. There are varying degrees of the disorder, which you will find out for yourself when you read the most recent bloggeries: Liz’s Story; Advice for Moms with PPD from Another Mom; Leah’s Story; Lisa’s Story; Amanda’s Story; A Readers Response to the Author’s Story; A new moms story, seeking Welcome to Postpartum Depression Connect. What you will find when you read this blog is story upon story that will touch your heart of real women, with real stories and the struggles they face every day when coping with this psychological challenge. PPD is a real disorder, a real problem, and this blog has been created to reach out to everyone to educate, raise awareness, and help heal.

This blog contains two navigation systems and is very easy to navigate. Bloggeries are centralized with black text on white background and links are highlighted with pink. In the left navigation bar you will find links on how to submit a story, Categories menu (containing only one category – stories), and a Recent Comments Menu. In the right navigation bar you will find a disclaimer about the claims of the blog, Learn More about PPD Menu, PPD Resources, and information on Support Groups. The blog is strictly stories and content so there are no associated pictures with the posts, and as of the time of review, the blog does not have an about page, though the blog is fairly self-explanatory.

I will give this blog a 3.4/5 for now and offer a few suggestions for the blogger so they may see some growth to the blog. At this point, there is only one category in the categories menu, and I do recommend the addition of more categories to ease navigation of the blog. The blogger could make use of additional categories for not only navigation purposes, but for traffic as well. With so many degrees of PPD, the blogger could add ‘Post Partum Psychosis’, ‘Baby Blues’, and things of that nature to sort the stories out for the reader. I also suggest the blogger use keywords in the titles of headlines for the same purposes, it eases navigation, will bring in more traffic, and sorts the stories. Adding keywords like ‘Post Partum Psychosis’ to relevant headlines for the bloggeries would make a tremendous gain on the navigation of the blog. Content is well written, and has the potential to move the readership to action which is the goal of written content. While I recognize that the point of the blog is based on story submission, I do recommend the blogger allow the readers some editorial rights to edit the submissions as some of them are not that easy to read. There was for example one bloggery I read where a run-on sentence lasted about 5 or 6 lines. By using editorial status on the submissions without affecting the integrity of the story, the blogger may make her posts easier to read on the readership. The blog is also new from what I can tell, though without an archives menu it is hard to guage this. With newness, comes a lack of blog meat for any blogger, and I suggest for Appearance sake the blogger move the navigation bars into one navigation bar for the time being to ease up on some of the white space of the blog. Overall however, this is an excellent blog with a unique niche. If it follows some of these suggestions, and works on continued improvement, it should do very well. This blog has a large target audience and with its quality content has the potential to really hit the mark with its readership and see tremendous success.

-Chrissie

Fruit lovers are going to love this next blog! This blog is all about fruit plain and simlple. The blog is called Fruit Species, and is run by blogger known as Fruity. Here at this blog you will be able to find all kinds of fruits from all over the globe, including exotic and rare fruits. The blog is not a blog about the most ordinary of fruits, and you will find information here on any kind of exotic fruit found anywhere in the world. Each bloggery is accompanied by a beautiful picture of something you have likely never seen or heard of before. To see these for yourself, check out Fruit Species most recent bloggeries: FRUIT Thumbnails, Passion Fruit (Purple Rind), What’s Your FIVE Favorite Fruits, Dragon Fruit (White Flesh), Hardy Kiwifruit, Pulasan, and Cape Gooseberry.

The blog is formatted a bit differently I think, and there are some navigation issues with the blog. Bloggeries are left marginalized and are in white text on a dark green background which creates a perfect background for a fruity theme. Each bloggery also is accompanied by a beautiful picture or set of pictures of fruit, which are only enhanced by this color theme. The blog has a right navigation system that contains a Google Search Bar, About and Profile Information, AdSense, Top Page Views Since Sept. 13th Menu, Blog Widget (currently not working), Top Favorite Fruits Voted by 50 Surfers Menu, a Fruit Menu which is a list of 25 fruits and essentially functions as the Categories Menu, Fruit Recipes, Blog Reviews, Food Blog Links, Top 30 Commenters Menu, Blog Directories buttons, and Blog Visitors Widgets. There are some other blog features as well which seem to be floating around where a left navigation bar might be, but they are formatted way at the bottom of the blog. This problem was not rectified by switching to Firefox to view the blog so the blogger may want to look into this. In this section contained subscription info for the blog, technorati links, and Blog Awards. I would suggest moving subscription buttons into the right navigation bar near the top so that new readers can have easy access to it, as this may help with subscription stats at this point. New readers may be missing this with its current location.

I will give this blog a 3/5 and right now it is mostly formatting that is affecting the score. The appearance of the blog is lovely and scores well, the theme is very appealing to the niche the blogger is writing about. The content is done well as well, and is extremely informative to the readers of the blog. Navigation again does have some issues as previously mentioned. Activity is not as frequent as it could be, and I imagine it might be difficult finding regular content on this topic. I might suggest to get more traffic to add daily content to the blog if possible. Suggestions for possible content would be fruit recipes, fruity drinks, and so on with any of the blog’s featured fruits. Overall however, this is a unique blog that is doing well with its concept as a foundation and a clearly established readership. Should the blogger be able to do some tweaks with the formatting and update a little more often, its success can only grow.

-Chrissie

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