Geeks Hut
Full Review by QJ
Scoring:
First Impressions & Appearance – (17 out of 20)
When I first clicked through to your blog, I was happy to see a professional looking blog. The theme on your blog is pretty minimal, however it adds to the sense of professionalism. However, I think one of the parts of your blog's theme that could be improved is its background. It would see that your background has shadows leading into the content area. While these shadows aren't bad to have, I believe that these are too strong of shadows and are therefore distracting. I asked another user to confirm my thoughts on this, and he agreed. I would recommend toning these down. Additionally, I noticed that on your slideshow, some of the titles are cutting into the pictures a bit, especially on slide #2. I would recommend on all of the slides to increase the space between the text and the picture to create a better look. One final issue I had was with your forum. While your entire blog focuses around the colors black, grey, white, and orange, your forum is blue. It makes it appear as if your forum was just placed there, and then forgotten. Regardless, your blog features a very professional theme in its current state. While the stuff I have mentioned is pretty small, it will defiantly increase your forum's overall appearance.
Site Layout – (14 out of 20)
On your blog itself, the layout is very strong. I navigated all throughout your blog without any difficulties at all. Everything seem to be laid out well (with exception to what I mentioned regarding the slideshow above). I did have one issue with your layout, and that was regarding your "Like", "Tweet', and "+1" buttons. When I would click to any page containing an article, I would noticed that these buttons would appear to the left of the forum content areas. I do not think that this is a suitable place to put it, as it breaks up your theme and ultimately makes your site looks less professional. I would highly recommend placing these maybe above or below your title. Lastly, I noticed that some of the review sections on the dropdown lack reviews, such as the Routers and Website Hosts, while some sections, such as the Cell Phones, have a plethora of reviews. I would recommend either increasing content on the under-performing categories, or removing them in general. From here, I then navigated to your forum, and I must say I was quite disappointed. The forum did not share the same uniformity that made the other sections of your site great. I was really disappointed with how different it felt. While your forum is not the centerpiece of your website, I think drastic improvements need to made still. First and foremost, the site width on the forum should be the same as what it was on the blog. Additionally, everything feels very cramped here, probably because you have a large amount of text placed into a small board space.
Statistics and Activity – (13 out of 20)
I was quite impressed with the amount of articles your blog is producing on a daily basis. It would appear that over a course of 14 days, your blog is producing about 66 blog posts, which is an average of 4.7 blog posts per day. Incredible! However, I was disappointed to find that after looking through 10+ articles that were published over three days ago, I noticed that none of them have comments. To me, it looks like this blog is producing an abundance of articles without any sort of noticeable audience. I think a larger emphasis needs to be placed on establishing a GeeksHut community as well increasing your regulars. Additionally, I was very disappointed when I went onto your forum to see that it consisted of a very small community as well. Moreover, it would seem to me that about 5-6 users make up the majority of the forum's total posting. I understand that you guys are a blog site, but if you are going to offer a forum as well (which for the record, I think you should), I would ensure that it is also being taken care of. In the end, I think your site has the potential to go places, but first need to attract a following in order to be successful.
Content – (16 out of 20)
I was generally quite happy with the overall quality of some of your content, however I was slightly concerned with the length in some of the blog's articles. The Review section seemed to complete excel (with exception to the previously mentioned issue regarding allocation of reviews). It was long enough to give me all the details I would want, while also being short enough that it wouldn't take forever to understand how the product is. Great length on these! However, I was a bit disappointed with the length of some articles, specifically some of the more recent ones. Some of these articles only have a paragraph each from the writer, and typically in these articles, over half of them are quotes. I would highly advised increasing the length maybe another paragraph or two, instead of being a quick news update.
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism – (17 out of 20)
I have high expectations regarding blogs regarding professionalism. Blogs like yours rely on professionalism, and good writing mechanics in order to succeed. Poor mechanics will especially discourage a possible reader, and can ruin a blog's reputation. I am happy to say that I found your blog overall quite professional. The theme and certain elements of your layout suggest that it is a reputable site with accurate articles. However, while overall mechanics are strong, there are still a couple of grammatical errors in most of the recent articles (or in the absent of that, awkward sentences). These however do not take away from the article themselves, and appear relatively minor. Instead of taking time to point out some of them, I think that these "few errors" can be reduced down to "rarely an error" with maybe an additional round of a double check by a separate person. Ensuring these mechanics are improve will result in a very strong professionalism rating.
Total Score - (77 out of 100)
Final Remarks:
I think that your blog has a ton of potential. I really do. There are numerous small things that you can do to improve your blog. However, I think the number one spot that you need to focus on is attracting a stronger community for your site. Also, as one of the first reviews to be requested, I would just like to emphasis that although a score in the 70's may feel low to you, it is actually quite a strong score and represents a quality website. I wish you the best with your website and I will certainly be keeping an eye on it. Good luck!
Strengths:
- - Amount of articles
- Overall Professionalism
Weaknesses:
- - Overall Statistics and Activity
- The "Forum" portion of your website
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