Blogging Blog Reviews

Uploaded by selva  *

We have recently received three excellent and helpful reviews here at Blogging Blog, and you will see the advice reflected here in our design changes. It's our hope that Blogging Blog might gain a wider readership, and we seem to be on our way. Subscribers are up; Blogging Blog has a respectable page rank of 4; and comes up on the front page -- sometimes even first -- on Yahoo searches for blogs about blogging.

Two weeks ago, Blogging Blog was reviewed at The Weblog Review, which gave us an average rating of 4.3750 out of 5.

Wendy said:

This blog is a great idea. People new to the blogging world start their own weblog on a daily basis, and [here] they can find “tips, tools, and toys for the personal blogger”. Those people will luck out when they find this site.

amusings said:

The Blogging Blog is a collection of tips and tricks to make your weblog look... well, more schnazzy.

The header graphic states that this is blog is "blogging for the fun of it," and they sure do have a host of fun items to liven up the average blog. Our authors have done a tremendous job over the past two years combing the web for interesting gizmos, gadgets, and doo dads to help you make your blog more interesting, and less Web 1.0.

They also each had some specific suggestions to improve navigation and fix some bugs; all done, I think.

Michael at ProBlog Design also offered specific suggestions:

• Work a little on the banner. I love the teddy bear images, but the actual color of the background is too dark for the rest of the blog...
• Shift your categories list above the “contact” etc. links. The categories are more important than most of the pages in that list, so readers should see those first.
• I know you like favicons and avatars ... so you should add one to each of the 4 contributors. It would be nice to give them a bit more recognition.
• The current slogan is “blogging for the fun of it.” That sounds like this is your personal blog. The sidebar then clears that up with “Tips, Tools and toys for the personal blogger.” You could solve that with a slightly different slogan in your main banner...
• The post footer should be visually separated from the rest of the post... At the minutes, the ratings, social links and tags sort of blend into the other content.

What makes each of these reviews so helpful is that the reviewers took the time and thought to really look at this blog, and to take our goals into consideration when evaluating whether it works. We want it to be fun, and personal, and useful -- and these writers got that.

We thank them for it!

I have found that reading blog reviews often helps me rethink what I'm doing on my own blog, and I encourage you to click through and check out the Blogging Blog reviews -- and others -- at The Weblog Review; and to add ProBlog Design to your reading list, along with skelliewag.org. Both of these are aimed primarily at probloggers, but are full of good writing and tips that are useful for any blogger.

* This blogging bear was the inspiration for our banner. So, thank you Selva, too!