Familial Ramblings
Full Review by QJ
Scoring:
First Impressions & Appearance – (17 out of 20)
When I first navigated to your site, I was immediately impressed by your theme. Unlike most forums, this theme looked like it was specifically catered to your forum, and it really grabbed my interest immediately. Really nice job. One small suggestion: the brown menu navigation buttons clash ever so slightly against the green. I highly recommend you darken the brown up a bit, as this will avoid that. The reason why I had to take off points will be discussed more in detail below, but the sidebar seemed very distracting from what was an almost perfect first appearance. My eyes were trying to take in everything on the side bar, with all the colors within it. Again, I will discuss this more below, but the sidebar just has too much within it, or more specifically too many images. One issue I want to discuss here, I'm not sure that the twitter box on the top of every page is really necessary. I feel like it takes up too much space for something not as important as the blog post. Additionally, the shadows within it are a little bit bizarre for my liking, and contrast I think the quality of your theme. I would recommend removing it, or at the bare minimum, making it so that the twitter feed is on the same white background without the gradient, and then you only keep the bottom shadow line separator. That could look nice as well. But in the end, let me go back to your theme as an overall again real quickly. It is absolutely stunning, and it will attract many users to your site. Fantastic work here.
Site Layout – (12 out of 20)
This is without a doubt the weakest part of your blog. While your theme makes your blog look really attract at first, the sidebar starts to really hurt your overall appearance. My biggest issue with it is that it is extremely cluttered. I think the issue primarily lays below your "About Me" area and starts with the blog role. The numerous images and advertisement, in their current alignment and appearance, give out a very cluttered feel. I can't exactly come up with a way to fix it. I think you will have to try numerous solutions to see if you can make it less cluttered while keeping most of the images. Additionally, when you are looking at an article such as the Invisaline one that has numerous images, the sidebar's images really drown out the article, and results in me having a harder time focusing on your article. The sidebar was your biggest reason I took off points, however, there are a few more issues with your layout as a whole. The next issue I'd like to address is the picture in each individual blog post. It appears that you are using your thumbnail image as also like a cover image for each blogpost, which I really like. However, your thumbnail image is stretching to meet this size,and in the end it just looks really disproportional. I would recommend resizing the image on your own using some type of design software (like Photoshop, or even Paint.NET or GIMP could do it). It will look much nicer in the end. This about sums it up.
Statistics and Activity – (17 out of 20)
Your statistics all look really nice! It appears that you have a nice following. I was really impressed by the number of comments each article seems to be getting. I noticed though that these comments are a bit sporadic in numbers (like some have 40, a lot have 15-20, and a lot have few to none). I'm a little bit confused by what is causing that. Perhaps it relates to when you post the blog article. Normally, I'm a huge fan of producing as much content as you can, however I noticed that recently you have been publishing once a week. These weekly articles seem to have gotten fairly good attention to in the comment versus your roughly every 2 day articles, which at quick glance had less comments on average. I think there is a bit of figuring out here to do, as far as what days of articles produce more content. But less me emphasis that your overall statistics are very strong, and I know other blogs would be jealous of having articles with as many comments as yours. Keep reaching!
Content – (17 out of 20)
After reading some of your articles, I found your content to be pretty interesting and engaging. Most of them were of the perfect length. I had only a couple small issues with your content in its current state right now. The first of which would be the use of Bold. When used ideally, bold can help readers pick up on main ideas. In some of your articles earlier this month and of last month, you appeared to be bolding (is that a word?) only a couple words at a time, while the past few articles appear to be going overboard by bolding a few sentences in a paragraph. I noticed this specifically on your Invisaline blog post. I highly recommend toning down the bold a bit, while still using it. Keep it to a small amount, but still make it a part of your blog posts. Another issue I had was also regarding the invisaline blog post - the use of images in a blog post combined with your current Site Layout just adds to the current clutter. For now, I would shy away from using images. However, if you do use images I feel like that since you have a relatively narrow size (in pixels) for your articles, I would shy away from aligning them left or right of text. For some reason, this also adds to the clutter. A nice center image between paragraphs would most likely be more ideal for your forum, in my humble opinion. Still, your content is very strong, and I am impressed by it. Nice work.
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism – (18 out of 20)
Overall, I don't really think I need to mention too much here. I found that most of your blog posts have consistently strong mechanics, with exception to some small grammar mistakes here and there. I think the most frequent of the small errors I noticed were with the lack of a comma when you had an interrupting statement (ie "an be applied to anyone attending graduation, unless you’re on stage
, then that cuts out most of these options aside from day dreaming.") Again, I emphasis that you had few errors in the end. In turn, I can also speak that your professionalism remains pretty high. I especially like that you gave photo citations. Good work here!
Total Score - (81 out of 100)
Final Remarks:
Without a doubt, your blog is actually one of the better ones I have seen. It has an amazing amount of potential, and you are definitely on the right path. I think I have emphasized this enough in the review, but I will mention it one more time. If you can fix the sidebar on your blog so that it isn't as distracting, your blog will be extremely solid (and most likely, I would recommend it for showcase). I think I made numerous tips above to help improve your blog. I look forward to seeing your blog improve, and keep up the good work! You have a lot to be proud of!
Strengths:
- - First Appearance
- Community of Readers
Weaknesses:
- - "Sidebar"
- Thumbnail vs. Cover Images for Articles
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