The Online Money Box
Full Review by Twisted Fairytale
Scoring:
First Impressions & Appearance – (16 out of 20)
Wow. I'll just start off by saying that I was pleasantly greeted by a beautiful theme with a just as good layout. The Online Money Box is beautifully coded with a straight-line theme and simple colors. There is an out of the way left sidebar that actually disappears in smaller windows to keep the content unpressed. This bar has a slight change in color, so the user can easily distinguish the bar from main content without seeing much difference.
Your top category bar is also very simple, therefore matching and appealing. There, the categories of your blog are displayed in a row, each evenly spaced and very responsive to the cursor. You have social media and RSS links in your upper right hand bar, each responsive and functional. I'll touch more on this in the next section though!
I actually had to talk to my team about this one to find a few flaws. Maybe because I'm half asleep or I'm just super optimistic about the sites that I review, but anyway, we found a few things that should be taken into account. First, I like how your dynamic content will scale to the size of the user's browser. This looks great, and is a feature of a great site, but your scaling seems to have a flaw or two. Your site will scale automatically, but only correctly until you reach 1600 pixels in width. After which, only the right side of your site will increase, creating a rather odd centerage of your material. You can see what I mean below...
Image provided by Quacker Jack
As you can see, this is a little awkward. As I said, this only happens with windows larger than 1600px in width. I'm not sure how easy this will be to fix / change, but I would definitely consider addressing it, considering that most of the avid internet users will have a widescreen monitor in use. I initially saw this as well as
Quacker Jack, but my right space was not as large due to my monitor being a little smaller. All of this is a minor flaw, in my opinion, and does not take away from the experience of the user.
There are a few more points that I will touch on about your appearance, but I feel they belong more in the Professionalism category. Overall, I would say that your appearance is one of the best that I have seen for a few reasons: it is easily navigated, you do not have any ads, everything is very simplistic and dynamic, and everything has its place. I got a lot of feedback from the staff, but I feel as if there is not much you could improve on your appearance.
Site Layout – (17 out of 20)
The overall layout of The Online Money Box is relatively simple and there really isn't much to say about it, but I'll try! First, I want to commend you on the simplistic navigation bar that you have provided at the top. This allows users to easily jump to the categories they are interested in and want to read on at that moment. The bar doesn't seem to get in the way, and it seems to add a necessary feel to the template. Without the bar, I don't believe I would like the appearance as much as I do...
Your sidebar is very well placed and nice in size. Everything on the sidebar is responsive and functional from every page (that I checked, anyway). There is an obvious divide between the sidebar and the content, good!
On a blog post page, everything is kept simple, like the rest of your site. I'm not sure if simple is the right word anymore... Minimal? White? Sharp? I like sharp. Everything is kept sharp in the way that all template text seems to be in place. Wait. Template text? What do you mean? Well, I mean the headers, links, and any other text that is kept universal throughout all blog posts. What about the post itself? Honestly, I feel like there is too much formatting used in the blog posts that it actually takes away from the 'sharpness' feel of the rest of the blog.
Do you see how the text is simple, everything feels super professional? Well, then we get into a blog post that has inconsistent text sizes and such. Even in the image above, I feel that WHY should be in quotes instead of caps lock. Which, otherwise, is okay, but here I feel that you should stay standard, just to keep with the sharpness of your blog. Here is a picture of the inconsistent text...
I'm completely sure that someone on the team would debate me on this, but I feel otherwise. You keep consistent throughout the rest of your blog with your sharp text, and I feel that this holds you back. I'll come back to this in Professionalism.
Before I wrap up, someone made the comment to me about how your index articles don't line up and they are scattered. I kind of see where this team member was coming from, but I feel that you have a decent index layout. How you have it allows the feature of an article, as well as two more sub-feature articles. I do see, a little further down, how one article does not line up with the bunch. This is very specific, so it's not that big of an issue.
Overall, the layout of your The Online Money Box is above average. The site is easy to navigate with minimal, if any, kinks that need to be worked out. I don't agree with comments made about your index being cluttered, as I see it as a unique way to feature an article or two. In conclusion, very easy site to navigate, everything has its place. Would not change much if I were you.
Statistics and Activity – (11 out of 20)
Alright, I'll try to keep this section relatively short, due to the overall length of this review. I'll cut straight to the chase here as well. Your featured post (the one taking up most of the index) was written back in August. Dude, it's November. From what I can see when I look deeper, you have about a blog post every week, with some infrequent additions in there. But from the index, I see posts from August and October... You are promoting some old articles when I feel you should show guests new material. Mostly because if someone logs onto your blog and sees old material, they will immediately assume that there has been no new material since they viewed last time and leave. You definitely do not want that.
Other than featuring old articles, it seems like you have a decent flow of material, at least for the last few months. There are a few sections that are suffering, such as the SEO & SMO section that last received an article on September 20th. The one mistake that bloggers can make: stop producing material. If you stop pushing content, many people will quit your blog, so keep stuff coming!
Taking a second to look at member involvement... There are only a few comments regularly posted on your blog. Honestly, most of those comments are from FP Package Team members, from your package awhile back... If I could make any suggestion here, it would be to bring people to your forum. I know I say that a lot, and I get tired of saying it because it sounds generic, but content is nothing without readers.
I am scoring you a 11 on activity because your blog shows stable activity from you (and your writers), but severely lacks in user involvement. For any higher of a score, there needs to be much more involvement from your readers in the form of comments, or even guest articles.
Content – (10 out of 20)
As I mentioned before, the amount of content that you have produced is not a problem. You seem to have a steady stream of content throughout the site with a dead spot only here and there (SEO & SMO). The whole blog is concentrated around the content that is found within, and I don't too much of a problem with the quantity. However, if you ever wish to grow and encompass all of the subjects that you have categories for, you may look into hiring another writer to help you out. It is highly unrealistic to write posts for eight (8) sections by yourself while keeping active in all of them.
Honestly, I have to say that the quality of the posts is a tad bit dull. I feel like I am reading an article that has no voice or "spezzaz" to it. This isn't saying that it's bad, but there is just nothing super special about it. In addition, the audience is never addressed in your articles. One of the best ways to get a user response is to involve them by just mentioning them. "Hey guys, so I was..." and other phrases that relate you to the audience, instead of hiding behind the white template can really make your content jump and increase reader activity at the same time.
I'm scoring you 10 on content, which is right on average. This is due to the amount of content produced, which is decent in quantity, but there is nothing super special about the quality. The content found here is average of what you would find on another blog. Find some way to make your content jump out and be enjoyable to your users. Don't be average, be awesome!
🙂
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism – (13 out of 20)
Awesome, on to the section that I like. Spelling and Grammar... Well, throughout your content, I see very awkward sentence structure that makes me stop and say, "What was he trying to say?" I'll give you an example. You wrote, "If you want to disable it like I have just to stop there been issues with future updates, then you luckily can with a very simple fix." It took me a few reads to see what you were trying to say, and even then, the sentence is still not constructed very well. These errors can be found sporadically through the blog, but are not overwhelmingly common.
What I really want to get to is professionalism, so I'll just jump into it!
😀
Alright, the one huge thing I have to say about the professionalism of your forum is about your images! I'm not speaking about the images that make up your template, I am talking about the images that you have to represent your articles on the index. What's wrong with them? Well, they are inconsistent in quality. Some of them look
really bad and some look super amazing. I mean, not super amazing, but acceptable for stock photos. What do I mean? I threw the image below together for ya.
Just take a second to look at that... I see one image that is clear and has no obvious signs of pixelation. Then, I see two images that have been stretched or made larger, or just plain bad quality. These do not belong on your blog at all if you have any desire to keep your forum professional and good looking. I mean... they just look bad...
If you are going to add images to represent your articles, which you will because that's how the theme is set up, you need to make sure that they are of super high quality. If they are not, they will deter users from reading your articles. When I saw that super bad quality picture as a feature article, a little part of me cried. It shouldn't be too hard to find more high quality photos, even if they are stock. Which brings me to another point.
Stock photos are okay for starter websites who can't go out and get their own images, but if you want to increase the professionalism of your forum, I would hire someone out to go get some images. Either create them from photoshop, or find someone else who can, but you really need some unique images for your unique content. Remember I was talking about finding something special about your content? I would do the same with your images, because they are a part of your content.
I am giving you a score of 13. You write in decent English, with minimal spelling and grammar mistakes. Your sentence structure could use some variation, but it does not impair the reader, for the most part. The blog stays professional until we come across the bad quality images, which just makes the blog look a little eh... I don't have a word for it, but you get the point!
Total Score - (67 out of 100)
Final Remarks:
I greatly enjoyed your blog, and reviewing it. I took a little longer that I thought, just because I had much more to say than I thought I would. You have a very nice looking design and layout, but I feel that you need to focus on your content. In addition, I didn't mention this before, but you don't seem to have many posts that stay true to your "money box" theme. By improving the content that you put out, you will improve the amount of visitors that you receive. You have a lot going in your favor right now, so make sure not to waste it! Good luck on your blog, and I hope to see it continue and grow!
Strengths:
- - Your beautiful design and sharp approach
- A well laid-out blog, with easy navigation
Weaknesses:
- - Sporadic English errors and iffy sentence structure
- Unprofessional and inconsistent images, especially the featured article image
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