Appearance and Style - (Out of 20)
Your blog is nice to view and easy on the eyes. The blues, greys and whites flow well together giving the blog a calm feel which is ideal for a blog. I really like your logo, it is something a bit different which really suits your blog. It would be nice if you could make the sub-text slightly bigger so it is easier to read and try to work it into the logo a little bit more, it seems to be floating in thin air right now.
The advertising placed at the top is well placed but it is too visible as it is different from the rest of the site. If you were to use the same border/box layout system that you have on the rest of your blog to include it in the blog more. It would be less visible, but still have the same effect. It also needs to be more inline with the logo.
You have a nice clean, well-planned menu bar, but it would be nice to see the search bar on the menu instead of being positioned separately underneath. Right now it creates too much of a big blank space where it is now. This also pushes down the content. It is the part of the page a user sees when they first visit, before scrolling down, that gives the first impression. For this reason you want to have as much content as possible visible at the top of your page.
The top scrolling slideshow works really well, the only suggestion I have is maybe adding a 1px border around the image to frame it in and make it more part of the slideshow. The news boxes also work really well, apart from the image backgrounds. The thing that causes this is the fact that you have a slightly grey background on the box and white background on the images. The easiest way to solve this would be with 1px border, or using PNG images so that you get clear backgrounds.
Moving down to the bottom, there is a 1cm length difference between the Tags box and the Flickr Photostream. Making these two the same height would do a lot for the appearance, and it is an easy thing to adjust.
Appearance wise, the archive page needs a lot of work. Your front page is stunning, but many of the other pages seem to be overlooked. The archive page is a prime example of this. Bullet lists really don't do much for professionalism. Maybe adding snippets under each month category, or just making the looks more interesting and structured. It is hard to suggest something, but something needs to be done about these pages. The blog post pages are well laid out with a good amount of text on each.
For ease of access, when wanting to read more on a blog post, one must press the read more button. To make things more user friendly, the ability to click the blog post title too would be a nice added extra. There is only one other thing that can be improved, the comment area. Right now the comment area is quite blank and light compared to the other parts of the site. Adding some colour here really wouldn't help and it would make the area more a part of the page.
Overall, I can see a lot of work has gone into the theme on your site. It really is a good theme, but with some tweaks it could be even better!
(Scored 16/20)
Blog Layout and Categorization - (Out of 20)
Layout wise, I feel that your front page is a bit too long, there is too much information to take in. You already have a bar informing of the latest posts and boxes under this informing of the latest posts in each category. Having even more posts on the first page with images and all just turns into an information overload. Maybe cut it down to having 2 or 3 more articles underneath, not 6 as you have now. Having them as one long bar across the page instead which is split into thirds would make things a little more compact and easier to browse. You could then have tweets and RSS under this. This would also help to make the poll and other blue menu items more visible.
Having the latest comments and tweets bars so narrow makes them hard to read and it isn't very easy to see the gap between them. In my opinion you have a good base layout but the ease of access needs to be looked at.
The layout of your posts works well, they are clean and easy to follow with images along the way. The first image, the one next to the text information at the top of the post, could easily be a bit larger. This is the image that represents your post, it is important, so make it look that way too!. When you add youtube videos and images they all sit to the left of the post. Centring them would make them easier to separate from the text and easier on the eye.
(Scored 15/20)
Commenting Activity and Other Interactions - (Out of 20)
There are plenty of comments spread out around your blog, however the spread is quite uneven. I can understand that it must be hard to get comments on a blog with your niche, but the comments you do have are good, structured comments that I am sure positively help your blog. My suggestion is to try and get the comments spread out even more, so that nearly all your posts have comments. It is also so that your older posts have a lot more comments than your newer posts.
It is nice to see an active Twitter feed, which shows there is genuine interest in your blog. Overall your blog has many ways for readers to interact and discuss which is nice. You are creating a community and bringing fans together. At the same time you supply them with a good read and put new thoughts into their heads, good job!
(Scored 14/20)
Quality and Frequency of Posts - (Out of 20)
On average you make 1 post per day, which is really good. These posts are always long and informative . They are well written and contain everything a good blog post needs. Quality wise I don't have much to point out, maybe working on combining the images more is the only thing. I would also like to give you a reminder regarding images and that is copyright, I don't see any references anywhere in your posts to where you have collected the images and I seriously doubt that you have taken them yourself. This is important as it can cause issues for your blog later on.
Frequency wise, 1 post a day on a blog of its kind is really good. Some days you even manage to push in two posts which is actually very impressive. Keep this up, as it gives your blog a really positive side. It will keep readers coming back and give more of a chance of them remembering your blog and referring to it in the future.
(Scored 19/20)
Spelling/Grammar - (Out of 20)
This is the area where your blog could do with improving. There are a lot of small grammatical errors which continue to pop up in your blog posts. The excessive use of commas, sentences don't always have to be long. In many places you forget capital letters for names and places, which is something that can change the meaning of a sentence. Your paragraphs are often quite short and information on the same thing is carried over two paragraphs, which defies the reason of the break in the first place.
(Scored 12/20)
Total Score 76 (Out of 100)
Final Remarks:
What was most liked about the blog:
The appearance and commitment
What was disliked most about the blog:
The grammar and the front page layout
How could I get you (The Reviewer) to read my blog? Would be difficult, as the niche really doesn't interest me.
After you have read your review, please click the following link and rate our service to help us make it better for you.... [
Click Here]
The Team Leader will deduct the cash from your account shortly.
