Hello, in the current blog post I analyze, for a demonstrative blog review, the “Only words” blog.
Copywriting
+You have a lot of content on your blog, it shows that you put a lot of work in making the blog successful;
1. The theme is not translated, and I miss that from the theme;
2. I wish you used diacritics when typing in Romanian;
Design
+I like the fact that you kept the mention of Bizz Themes, very nice;
1. Black on white colors? These are a bit hard for the eye, due to the high contrast;
2. The RSS icon is not that clear; I’m not sure what it does;
SEO
+The title of any given blog post contains only the blog title, which makes it perfect from an SEO perspective;
1. The title for the homepage:
“Comunicate | Stiri | Barfe –Â Onlywords.ro”
can be further optimized by using keywords in the title;
2. If I reach a page that doesn’t exist on your blog, I get a 404 page;
While your suggestion:
“Error 404 | Nothing found! Keep looking, perseverance is the key!”
is fine, I’d prefer you to show me a list of the top posts on your blog, so I could more easily find what I’m looking for;
Structure of information
+The sitemap is a welcome addition to the blog;
1. I don’t think that the sitemap is such an important function, to be present right in the most important menu, near About; I’d put the sitemap in the footer menu;
2. I lack to see the importance of the Meta box; if I were you, I’d remove it, it’s not useful to the users;
Usability
+I like the RSS box in the upper-right corner; As expected, I also can find the search box around that area;
1. I saw that the monthly archives don’t list the number of blog posts in each month; why is that?
2. Regarding the search box – if I click on the search field, the text “Search” disappears, and I’m not very sure what I’m supposed to do; I’d put the text “Search” as a label, not as a disappearing text;
The logo
+The motto uses a font which can be easily replicated on printed materials and online documents;
1. I can’t see how the FBI-looking guy in the logo is about only words; I don’t get the idea behind it;
2. The vertical text, “www.” and “.ro” is hard to read;
3. I don’t see why you write your blog URL two times in the header;
4. The handwritten font is a bit hard to read;
5. I’m not sure I’m very fond of a web site which is proudly promoting “Gossip” as a category of information;
6. I don’t see how marketing has any corresponding press releases, so to me “sfera marketingului” and “comunicatele de presă aferente” makes little sense;
7. It’s interesting to see “Only words”, which is a two-word affirmation, is united into a one-word affirmation:
“onlywords”;
8. Only words? What’s that? What do you mean by only words? This is not very clear;
Email subscription service
+I like that you use FeedBurner, it’s a very good service by Google;
1. Instead of using all that screen estate to display the email subscription box, I’d only put a link to email subscription; when clicking the link, I’d make the browser open the email subscription box from FeedBurner;
2. I’d give some assurances on the page – how often you will email me, how will I unsubscribe, what will you do with my email subscription; applying for Data Protection is a good idea;
3. I’d also put a link to some demonstrative previous newsletters, it would help me get a better understanding of what I’m about to get from you;
A random blog post
+I like the fact that others can recommend your blog posts via Facebook;
1. I’d use an external service such as AddThis.com for recommending a blog post to others; details;
2. For the comments field:
a. I’d also specify that the email will not be published on the web site;
b. I’d specify that “*” means that the field is mandatory;
c. I’d name the comment title “Leave a comment”, instead of “Leave a Reply”;
3. The blog posts has tags, yet you don’t have a tag cloud or a similar function on your blog; why use tags, then, if I can’t reach the blog posts via tags?
4. I’d put an option for RSS subscription for the comments of each blog post; if I wish to see what do others comment on a blog post, I would like to have this option; details;
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Bottom line: I like the work done by the author of “Only words” blog. I hope to revisit the blog to find even more great pieces of content such as the current ones.