Well 2010 is off with a Bang. I’ve started multiple blog articles and I’m logging all ideas in my iPhone, Moleskine, and chalkboard wall.  Soon enough, there will be a consistent flow of articles.  I’m getting it all in order and decompressing from the cubicle lifestyle.

As I decompress, I wanted to start Nuwomb Creative off with an objective look at this very own blog.  There are a number of aspects that I have wanted to attack, but never had the energy.  I needed to make sure that I was creating some content to keep the site moving forward.

I am not about to change the WordPress Theme for Nuwomb. The point of my own blog critique is to refine, correct mistakes, move forward, and convert. If I felt that I was way off track, I would look at an entire redesign.  Blog critiques I’ll do for you in the future may look at refinement or a complete overhaul.

A few of the issues I made sure to look at within the blog critique:

• Blog Layout
• Design and Branding & Content
• Pages
• What’s Missing?

Looking at Nuwomb Creative right now, you may not notice some the small changes I’ve made since the screen shots below. The screen shots should show you what I didn’t like and felt off about my blog.  I can’t say these are the same issues of your blog though.  Usually most blogs have the same problems though.  I’m no exception.

Blog Layout

I am using a Premium WordPress Theme by WooThemes called Headlines. I’ve overhauled most colors, headers, fonts, banners and social icons.  I’ve given it a feeling that’s unique to the site but still retains the strong framework that WooThemes gave it.  My issue at the time of looking into a critique was the feeling of bulkiness.

I found the space for each article teaser was quite large and I think by making it streamlined, I’d be able to show more articles on the screen.  I don’t see the added value in displaying the category and tags underneath each article.  Removing this part of each post would take out some of the fluff.

The other issue I was fighting with was the featured area. The featured articles rotate and take up a great deal of space below the navigation.  I thought to removed the featured posts or change the way I was utilizing them.  The “Featured” Banner wording, just felt generic and expected.  If I was to change the way I use the featured area, I would need to change the wording of the banner.   I decided to use the featured area as a way to introduce a new visitor to Nuwomb Creative:

• Who We Are
• What We Do
• Is This You
• Portfolio

The subjects are not finalized, but making this change would enhance the usability of my blog. If you’re new here, I am sure you want to know what this place is about – Probably within the first couple seconds. Stumblers especially need to see something within a millisecond or they’ve already clicked the stumble button.  The “Featured” banner could be replaced with “Welcome” and hope to show that I want the reader to stick around for a while, take their coat off, have some hot chocolate, and enjoy a smore or two.

I need you to realized why you’re here, and why you should come back.  Once you realize this information, you’ll be able to make the informed decision if the blog is for you.  And since it totally is (the place for you), you’ll join the Nuwomb Newsletter for free awesomeness that will be frequent too.

Blog Design, Branding, and Content

The Header Graphic is way too large. I knew this from the day I uploaded the design. I went with it anyways, and realized that I need Illustrator on my laptop.  I would be more inclined to make quick changes if I had that sexy program on here.  Soon!  Anyways, the header looks pretty good to me on my 24″ imac; however, on a 13″ macbook, not so much.  The header graphic takes up half the screen real estate.  This issue impacted what else a new viewer would see right away. I know people are scrolling more and more, but I can’t ignore the fact that the graphic is massive.

As great as showcasing that a header can be fun, illustrative, and conceptual, it’s important to get the content shown too. I want to help people – people that are stuck and want to act on their creative urge and pursue passion – go digital and start their own website, blog, business, or all of the above.  I also want to help people and businesses with outdated websites and blogs show their drive and love for their industry.  A lot of the content here, will be about passion.  It’s about doing whatever you want, whenever you want, and still paying your mortgage.

With that said, the header needs to shrink. Below are some screen shots comparing header and navigation menus of other killer.  You may recognize them, but let me know if you must find out their domain addresses.

I am sure you get the point.

Next, I found font size, and line height to be too large.  It created bulk to me and didn’t allow the “read more” button to fall in the same location on a regular basis. Changing the font and line height would condense the teaser box and give the site a crisper look.

The “read more” button color did not fit in with the color that I was using for hyperlinks and it bothered me. It just didn’t read across the site.  Making the button larger and changing the font color to white will allow it to stand out.

Changing each of these issues will allow for more content to be visible upon the first impression, and make progress towards the first goal of keeping the visitor on the blog.

As for the sidebar and footer – there are too many categories listed in the widget.  Knocking them down to 5 or 6 and different from the categories in the top navigation will be helpful.  If not reducing the list, drop it entirely.  I’ll have more information about the sidebars further in this blog critique.

Pages Issue

The pages are unfinished.  So freaking unfinished. No idea what services I actually offer people, and the resources are not configured at all. I re-read the my newsletter page, and my contact page only to find out-dated information.  Nuwomb has evolved in scope since writing on those pages.  While there is a strong dedication to Photography as a creative outlet and passion, I am not limited to it.   I am more interested in showing viewers that we can have many passions and we can pursue them all and make a living.

These pages need to be defined. They need immediate attention, or take them down until I find the time and energy to attack them.

• The Hire Us Page does not tell what I do, what I offer, what it costs, and leaves the impression that I am not open for business.  I certainly am so why does it sit unfinished? It’s there though so there is a hint of offering something more.
  
• About Page is pretty scatterbrain and I admit to writing and publishing with out proof-reading it.  I feel weird writing about myself, but it’s something to get over.  I’ve been wanting to spend some serious time on this page to tell people what the sites all about in much longer detail, where it came from and why I blog.  I also want to like to all of my social profiles around the interweb so that people can connect.  I think this is where the value is in social media icons.
  
• Resources Page – This is intended for amazing resources I’ve come across or used for building my online business.  I put up two resources and forgot about the page.  The headline font colours don’t even match the branding of the site anymore.
• Projects Page is useless at this point. The projects listed do not have links to their websites, and I only created one other page for my “i heart texture” project.  It won’t take long to update this page, so there is no reason to let it continue to rot.
  

What is Missing?

What is Nuwomb Creative missing? I browse a lot of blogs on a daily basis and it seems as if they all have x number of more subscribers than my blog. I know this blog is growing and the subscriber count will be over 5000 by December 31 2010, but what was I missing? How would I achieve the goal? What does a visitor get from my blog and/or subscribing?

The tagline of the site, and the tagine in the logo are not the same. The tagline needs to tell the viewer what is in it for them, instead of what is in it for me.  Yes, I want to walk the talk by living out all of my passions, living the Renaissance life, but that’s not the goal here. The goal is to help you do it too.  Perhaps look to blend those two ideas together and see what comes of it. Either way, the tagline must tell the viewer what is the blog is about, what’s there for them, or how I am there to help them.

Newsletter subscription is just stuck in the footer and on the newsletter page.

So like, I got this newsletter you can sign up for, but if you don’t want to that’s okay too.

It comes back to informing the person as to why they need to sign up for the newsletter.  I don’t intent to spam or share information – Ever.  I want to share information and talk to people that sign up for the newsletter in a special way – give updates, be more intimate, offer special codes to products I love and hear about. I want the person to feel great about opening my newsletter e-mail.  It’s another tool for helping people with similar interests.  This needs to be communicated in a short but sweet manner, and I need to get sign-up form in the sidebar near the top of the page.

I know there are negative connotations to newsletters that ask you to sign-up in order to receive a free report or ebook. This is because people like gifts. Those e-books don’t write themselves.  Some of the best information I’ve read has come from those free reports.  Update this area and provide a killer resource to promote on social media. Also having it visible at the top of the sidebar will get people interested.

Next, the sidebar needs links to my most popular and top posts.  Self-Promotion can never be held against me because this is my website.  Now, there are a couple ways to go about the top posts in the sidebar.  Headlines offers a widget that shows popular posts, latest posts, comments, and tags.  I found it a bit bulky – But there is value in having your favorite articles being displayed on the home page.

This is where I want to take you over to Ittybiz (I love this place).  After the redesign, I e-mailed Naomi about her use of the sidebar.  We chatted back and forth via e-mail and my assumptions were correct. I liked that she was directing her viewers. She had no fussy junk or clutter in her sidebars. He site was direct and to the point.  Ittybiz is a place to help you improve your business.  Boomshakalaka.  From her site, I also like the way the monthly readers is displayed.  Nice design feature to take note of!

At the end of each blog post, there isn’t much to do. There are the share buttons, but I am not sure how many people actually and honestly use them. I have a weird feeling that they’ve just become a standard and more for eye candy.  I’d love to hear your view.  I’ve learned that traffic is fantastic but high traffic is useless if the viewer has no way to build a relationship with you and your blog.   Adding a block at the end of each post that provides another way to subscribe to RSS (which needs to increased visibility in other places too) and/or the newsletter would be very intelligent.  These are short conversion goals and important to building a great long term relationship.

There are a lot of areas for attention on my blog, and that’s cool with me.  Most of them will not take that long and it will be interesting to see the impact.

This is a great exercise to look at for your own blog.  If you don’t have time, let me know and I could do something like this for you.  It may give you some direction.  You’ve just got to take a step back.

I would love to hear your feedback on what I’ve noted about my blog.  If you have anything constructive criticism give me a shout in the comments!