Name of Site: CBSE Guides Site Genre: Educational Site URL:http://cbseguides.net/ Type of Review ( Full/Quick ): Quick Opening Date: 11/12/13 Additional Notes:N/A
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The Appearance
Well heya there! I'm gonna jump straight in and start talking about the appearance of CBSE Guides. At first glance, CBSE Guides looks to be a clean-cut blog, featuring simple colors against a soft white/gray background. The colors are nice, but there isn't anything really special about them. Especially in this time when everyone is going with a white/gray theme with one or two off-colors. What I mean is: there is nothing wrong with how CBSE Guides looks, but it's nothing special.
Moving on to the rest of the appearance... The main navigation features only three links: Class IX, Board Question Papers, and Forum. Excuse me, "Class IX" is a category with a handful of other links. Simple navigation, but I believe it is missing an "About" page. I'll explain more in my first negative. Along the left side, there is a sidebar with sections for Recent Posts, Recent Comments, Archives, Categories, *breathes*, and the Meta. Any other time I would mention how you have a long sidebar, but it is shorter than some of your posts! One suggestion I would make though would be to hide your "Recent Comments" until you get some activity on your blog!
In all, CBSE Guides has a good appearance that follows today's simple themes to the dot. It is easy to look at and easy to navigate. There really isn't anything (other than the right sidebar, but I'll get to that) that is impedeing on the good appearance.
Weaknesses:
What is it?
I believe that the title of this section will wrap up much of what I have to say here, but I'll go on and say it again... "What is it?" At first glance, I think the site will have guides for students and their daily lives; tips and tricks, more or less. After a few minutes searching the articles, though, I find it's not at all what I thought, and I don't know what it is. There is not a place on the site that tells me what CBSE is, and what all these guides are for...
After awhile reading though some guides, I'm still confused... Some guides have loads of sections and links, while others remind me of a multiple choice test I got in High school. I can kind of establish that these are guides meant for a certain test? Maybe? I'm not completely sure, honestly. The main point I'm trying to make here is: CBSE Guides doesn't give a clear "this is what I'm all about" aire. I don't think anyone who doesn't already know what CBSE is would be able to enjoy the site.. I know I'm still confused about it..
Well, what can you do? I suggested earlier that you may want to think about an "About" page, and take a few minutes to explain what the site is all about. Doing so would help your visitors who have no clue (like myself) what CBSE is understand it.
Forum
Alright, now I'm going to become kind of picky here! As a newly launched Blog, you should be 100% focused on getting readers and writing articles. However, it seems you have split your time and created a forum as well. Which do you want to do? A Blog or a Forum. If both, you're going to have decreased activity on the other. At the moment, you don't have too much activity on your blog to begin with. In addition, why do you need a forum for a website that's intention is to provide resources for certain students?
I will give CBSE Guides a commendation for finding a forum style that relatively matches the style of your blog. Many blogs don't do this, and it creates a major separation between the blog and its forum. When activity increases on your blog, you will find it easier for your members to use your forum in addition. Before that happens, consider making login universal (i.e. Logging in on the blog logs you into the forum). That's always a nice feature!
Anyway, I don't think that having a forum at this stage in CBSE Guide's life is the best thing to do. It splits the time given to the main blog and articles for it, making the blog grow and evolve more slow than it would have. Consider putting the forum on pause, and build up hype for the blog!
Format of Some Blog Posts
So I'm not completely sure what the reason for this problem is, but there are many formatting errors in your blog posts. This is a bad example example, but see below:
The last two lines are rather hard to read with two answer choices on one line, at least for me. Giving each answer choice its own line would be the best choice, would it not? In addition (it's not in the picture) but the answer is very close to the choices given. If this is supposed to be a quiz, there is a major problem. The subconscious of your mind can already read that answer, so it's not much of a challenge. If this isn't a quiz, I'm just blowing smoke! Heh! However, I would consider reformatting your future posts for better reading. It just helps with overall professionalism!
Final Remarks:
If my review seems a little "off," I blame it mostly on my confusion of what the blog was exactly. However, I feel as if I touched on some good points that would be worth looking into. "CBSE Guides is a little confusing blog that offers resources to some students," is all I can really say about it. The appearance is pleasing and relatively easy to navigate. The Forum, however, seems like a waste of resources until the popularity of the website itself builds. The audience who can make use of this blog seems very small, so I wouldn't expect much use from it. However, good luck in your endeavors, and I look forward to the next review!
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