As stated above, this review is on me for the extended delay.
Basic Review
Site Name: Mahogany Folk Music
Site Type: Music
Age: 5 months
Appearance
Your sites appearance is not very appealing to a first time visitor. The mauve on the white clashes and the background does not go with the rest of the site. I would suggest going with a very light grey for the main background and a darker color for the areas that currently mauve. This will bring the high contrast down some and make the site easier to view as a visitor. The text and text color are good and are easy to read. The images are of a good size and do not alter the layout of the site at all.
Layout
The overall layout is decent. You have a good content spread in the header with almost no empty space. I am not sure what the images are for under the header. Maybe add a heading above them to let your visitors know what the images will lead to. The sidebar could be laid out a little better. I would move the "Popular This Month", "Our Friends" and "Recommended above the "Categories". after that, I would move "Recommended" above "Our Friends". On your about page, I suggest adding an image of either each person next to their names or an image that represents them the best. Also bold and even maybe color the persons name to make it stand out a bit more. I see on your contact page that you offer advertising. It would help potential advertisers if you included either a screen shot of the area where the ads will be, add something where the ads would be on the site with an "Advertise Here" text or banner, or both.
Statistics and Activity
You have a good amount of articles for your visitors to read and discuss. The more articles that you add the more likely you are to be found on search engines like Google. You categories have a decent spread, with a lot of your your posts being in the "Folk" category. This a very good thing since your site is about Folk music first and everything else second. Those numbers convey that to your visitor and that you are truly passionate about the subject.
Content
Your articles do lack a bit of depth about the artists. There is background information and maybe a video or audio clip and that is about it. Maybe you could include their discography, if they have any. I know that not every folk artist has CDs out, but some do and it could help your visitors get a better feel for the artist. One thing that I did notice was that the dates listed for the posts are very confusing. You have one post with "Wednesday, 11 November 2012" as the date and another with "Tuesday, 11 November 2012" as the date. To me, both of those read as November 11, 2012. But, both Tuesday and Wednesday could not have been the 11th. I would suggest looking at other options for dating your posts so that the date is easier to read and understand.
Organisation and SEO
Your SEO is pretty good for only being open for 5 months. Your Google PageRank is at 3, which is really good for a new site. Keep up with what your doing and you will keep rising in the ranks. Your Alexa rank is 1,282,552 which is decent for you site age. You only have 45 sites linking in. You could improve this number by submitting your site to different do-follow directories for music. If you can find a couple that focus on folk music that would help increase the number of relevant backlinks and boost your PR even more.
Words from the Reviewer
You have a great concept. The music niche is very saturated, but I have never seen a site dedicated to Folk music. Work on the appearance of your site and you could make a huge impact on the folk music scene. Best of luck!
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