Geeks Hut

Luke

Madly Diligent
Joined
Jun 11, 2010
Messages
5,396
Reaction score
2
FP$
14
Name of Site: Geeks Hut
Site Link: http://www.geekshut.com
Type of Review ( Small/Medium/Large/Website/Blog ): blog
Date Site Opened: 1st of February
Demo Account for Reviewer (Forums Only):
Additional Notes: Our content is to the point and basic, we inform out users of news without going over board.

Ohh, this is free since I won BOTM!
 
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Blog Review




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First Impressions


First impression is simplicity. Nothing much from the theme which makes it quite easy to read and find things especially since you made them all colorful, but in other side it feels rather bland and boring too. I started to click on various links. When I clicked on the top advertising banner, I didn't understand why it didn't navigate me to other site as shown by the banner. I was still at Geeks Hut. Scrolling down more, I was confused at why we have two columns at the top-middle of the page, with the right column acts as further explanation of one of the articles shown on the left column. I think it is rather redundant since the further explanation didn't really provide more, just bigger font and few more characters. I still have to click another link to get to the article anyway. For me those are the major confusions on my first visit; other than that I think you've already done quite a great job.

(Score: 16/20)

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Appearance


One of the foremost important elements of appearance is the site's logo, including favicon in this case. Your site logo is very simple, perhaps too simple for such a sophisticated blog theme as you are talking about technology. Making a new one with a theme closer to technology and development, adding images, or using different fonts surely would draw more attention. You can try to vary the colors as well since black and white is the most standard combination. You have a favicon, but the icon is only a check sign which doesn't really reflect what your site is about. You can make it to match the logo or find another technology inspiration for it.

A bit further down at the body, you provide six small columns based on the post categories ("PCs", "Mobile", "Web", and so on). I'm not sure if there should be pictures going there, but I see quite a large size of white, blank space below the "Read more" link. This is rather not needed. You can fill it with pictures or just remove it if possible.

I have mentioned this quite few times but I think Geeks Hut can use some more images in the design. Not only in logo, favicon, or background maybe, but also to the posts. Since technology is highly related to development, images would be very helpful to invite members and provide "quick update". The index page is very clean of pictures. Adding pictures can help visitors to have imagination of what the information is about or feeling a little bit more curious. The image doesn't have to be the thing talked about in the post; you can use another related images to the topic.

Last about links. You have double "About" link at the top and bottom navigation which you may not need so much. I would rather have "Contact" and "Sitemap" moved to the top navigation to be noticed easily; someone may want to contact you and not looking as far as until the bottom part of the blog. Also maybe it's just my eyes but the "Switch to mobile version" is so strange to be located there. I think you can turn it into an image or icon and put it at the top together with special links or place it at the bottom of the page like a footer, with proper alignment and size.

(Score: 11/20)

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Content


Browsing to the posts you have at the blog, I felt the same thing about your blog's general appearance. The simplicity is a double-edged sword. You designed it to be as simple as possible to make it easy for visitors to read the articles. However it ended up making the post feels so bland and lonely for only texts we can see. There is not even picture of avatar of the poster, for example, or images of what the item or news talked in the post. The information is mostly short and simple as well. Some posts can actually be elaborated into a more detailed information, especially by adding images or even videos if there are any related. For example, interesting articles such as the one in which you talked about how it is not safe to keep your password in shared computers could actually be elaborated more, I suppose. You could write more in general about what to take note of if you are using shared computers, what you can do and what you shouldn't, and so on.

From grammatical point of view, there isn't much to criticize. I think you and fellow contributors have done a great job to keep the grammar as perfect as possible in every post. I only found this one small mistake: "This will make many people feel more secure when using their phone. Your fingerprints are more secure than a four-didgit code." in an article about Sony's new patent. In that sentence you wrote "didgit" instead of "digit". Aside from that, you should keep up the good work.

(Score: 23/40)

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Comments


You seem to have quite a number of comments. Unfortunately they are concentrated mainly on certain posts only. Like among the most recent comments shown in the side bar widget, they are comments for a post which is almost two months ago. The rest of more recent posts are left without comments. As much as it is good that you have comments on the posts, you would have to work hard to get them to spread it more to more recent posts. Perhaps making the whole site in general or the post itself more attractive would help. Good part of the comments is that the content of the comments are relevant to the posts.

(Score: 10/20)



Total Score 60/100



Final Remarks

I think Geeks Hut have a good basis to start with already. You have contributors and already know where to get information and what to post and provide at the blog. What matters more is to the way of presentation. The site itself is not bad but can use some more works, especially to make the content stand out more and be attractive to visitors, even those who might not be very interested in technology.


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