Posts tagged Blog Review

First impressions are strong sentiments.  After a long absence from reviewing blogs, I was very positively impacted by my first impression of the AJK Artistry site when it loaded. AJK Artistry is self-proclaimed as “your source for handmade paper goods, custom-designed invitations, handpainted ceramics and watercolor art for yourself and for giving.” Based on the beautiful work displayed, I’d say the New Jersey-based artist, Alison Kooney, knows herself very well!

Back to that first impression.

Many of the blogs we visit either on purpose, or in an exploratory way through environments like Entrecard or Adgitize, have widgets and gadgets and many other distractions.  The Ultimate Blogging Toolkit and others use a variety of ways to help pay a few blogging costs. I’ve written many times about how overboard some of these sites can become, to the point where the page barely loads. AJK Artistry occupies the other end of the spectrum with a clean, efficient and quite pleasant design.

Because of that clean design, there isn’t much design advice I can provide. Hey, Alison is a talented artist and it appears she’s used her skills in her web design as well. How I may be able to help is simply with a “second set of eyes.” I am big believer that if I’m designing my own content, I’m too close to it and sometimes I just don’t see some of the subtleties.

First, let’s look at the generic Title Tag.  Notice that my tab in Firefox shows “Home.” This is a lost opportunity to further identify the site visually, and to add more Search Engine Optimization juice to potential customers’ searches. According to W3Schools, the title element defines a title in the browser toolbar, provides a title for the page when it is added to favorites, and displays a title for the page in search-engine results. In addition to all these, it adds just a bit of professionalism.

Next, ETSY.

When clicking on the Cards & Gifts tab, the user is taken to Alison’s ETSY page. Nothing bad about this – ETSY is a great environment for creative people and she has taken the effort to customize her page with similar colors as her site. I’m not familiar with some of the advanced customization capabilities, but if possible, it would add considerable consistency if the same graphical elements could be employed. For example, if the attractive header from her web page could be captured and displayed instead of the text-based header ETSY provides. It may be helpful to adjust the tab’s label to indicate ETSY in some manner. Leaving the AJK Artistry site can be a bit abrupt for some.

I’m now getting nit-picky because I don’t have much dirt I can throw.

In the center of the page, there seems to be some awkward phrasing. “Use the links above shop my work online 24 hours a day!” might be better said as, “Use the links above to shop my work online 24 hours a day!” or maybe make it a link to the ETSY Shop and say, “Visit my ESTY Shop for a complete review of my work.”

• Facebook and Twitter links: Check.
• About and Contact tabs where they should be: Check.
• Even the “Upcoming Events” section has real “upcoming” events! Too many sites don’t keep their time sensitive postings current. Check.

A few suggestions to a well-designed site. One of my more enjoyable reviews.

Dave

Blogging is truly an international pastime. My analytics consistently show visitors to the Ultimate Blogging Toolkit from a large number of countries and continents. Many of those blogs center around topics from crafts to dogs and cats to family to actual serious topics.  This review is about a blog from the U.K. that takes a look at those serious topics facing Britain (and the rest of the world for that matter) and attacks them with an irreverent tone that is intoxicating, thought provoking and down right entertaining.

Caledonian Comment.

As I often do, I’ll begin with a definition. Wikipedia defines Caledonian as “a geographical term used to refer to places, species, or items in or from Scotland, or particularly the Scottish Highlands.” With my wife born in Cambridge and her mother in Liverpool, I have a certain connection and deep fondness for the British.  That makes this review even more enjoyable for me.  A visit to the Lake District (nearly as far north as you can go in England before you get to Scotland) a number of years ago seared into my soul the intense beauty of that region.  Wikipedia’s definition brings back fond memories.

Why do I share that personal perspective?  It is because of the irony between that beautiful definition and the seriousness of the issues explored in the Calendonian Comment.  One such serious issue is the recent attempted bombing of an airliner destined for Detroit from Amsterdam.  It is unfortunate that the picture of the accused bomber is currently the top post.  It is common in my Free Blog Reviews to show an image of the front page of the blog under review.  Instead, I would like to also share a more appropriate image, taken from the Background page. Truly a better  representation of the fine work contained there rather than that of a terrorist’s picture.

The author cited on the Background Page is only referred to as Caledonian Jim.

To give you a sense of what you’ll get when you visit, let me share a few excerpts from the Background page:  “with cutting satire and withering abuse aimed at as many deserving victims as possible… to enrich your internet experience with cynical world-weary observations designed to prick the balloons of the pompous…” You get the picture.

One final quote: “As far as the author of this blog is concerned, all politicians are deserving of equal contempt.”  I’m beginning to really like Jim.

Caldonian Jim serves up a consistent and thoughtful message.  With the published archives going back to May 2008, the numbers show that he has shared his perspectives at least every other day.  Some months, it is virtually daily.  His topics range from the terrorist mentioned earlier, to the growing number of British citizens having trouble paying their fuel bills, to the irresponsible growth in wheel clamping licensees (some areas of the U.S. call this a “boot”) to climate change to his perspectives on couples being happier when sharing household duties.  Jim’s quote is priceless: “Marvelous – I’ve tried to avoid doing the dishes for bloody years and now this!”

Jim provides excellent photos to accompany his posts and uses many of the same blog promotion and community tools as I do.  He has a considerable number of widgets along the right side, but being contained in one panel, they are not imposing nor distracting.  Regular readers know my frustration with too many distractions on a page. His work just fine there.  His template layout is simple and very straightforward.

In most reviews, I have a number of suggestions for the budding blogger.  In this case, I honestly have to say that I am stretching to provide some constructive feedback. In his template he seems to nearly have it all:

• Welcome message with a quote from one of The Lads: check
• Last 10 Posts: check
• Monthly Archives (quite impressive post counts!): check
• Last visitors comments: check
• Blogroll: check
• A very interesting countdown to the next post (well done): check

The only suggestions I might make relates to a thought about email protocol – single topic messages.  Caledonian Jim is quite prolific in his posts, including photos liberally.  The two frustrations I have is that posts contain multiple topics and there isn’t any sort tag cloud to look for certain topics.  Jim takes the time and care to assign quite a number of appropriate tags to his posts, so there is already a significant categorization infrastructure in place.  Personally, I would like to see a single post per day, each one on a specific topic.

The Caledonian Comment is a wonderful read.  I would be the first to admit that in spite of my British connection, his content will connect best with Brits.  However, his topics are frequently global in nature and exceedingly well written (#1 axiom for an excellent blog.)  It would be worth anyone’s time to use his blog as a taste of Britain and the world.  Forget about the BBC.

I will continue to drop by to get my British “fix” and will look for perspectives involving the Lake District.  Who knows, I might even join in the fray.

Dave