I want this to happen but at the same time I’m not sure I want to hear what you folks really think about this blog!
Do I honestly want to know what you think or am I happy to live on in blissful ignorance? Being the person I am I’ve opted for the latter and am grateful to Paul at OurChurch.com for giving me the opportunity to be reviewed by my fellow bloggers on the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge.
So onwards then.
To give some idea, I’d really appreciate feedback on the following items (one, many or all), but do feel free to throw any brickbats my way no matter how trivial they may seem to you.
So, layout and design first:
- General layout, font size, width of the text (I want it wider – do you agree?) or blog, readability, etc …
- Colour / graphic elements. Is it too blue? What about the header – I know I need a graphic / specific ChurchTechy logo but I’m grappling with lack of ideas – can you suggest something or better yet design me one?
- Sidebar elements. Is there too much, too little? If so, what should change?
- Would you prefer the “alternative layout” (see bottom of the post for an image and the bigfoot bit would become a CT image)?
- Advertising – I’ve been an avowed anti-adverts person partially because I don’t want to get into the battle of trying to understand them and integrating them but mostly because I’ve not taken the blog that seriously. But if I included adverts would you care? Would you click through if relevant?
- The “more tag” – until recently I’ve been a regular user of the more tag so as to keep the homepage down to size, but of recent have stopped that as most folks land directly on the post page anyway. But I really want to know if you click through when you see the “read more here” tags or not?
- Does the blog display well in your browser of choice? If not, what’s wrong / missing / broken?
- Is it easy enough to find other content?
- Have you noticed the Skribit tab on the right hand side? Would you ever use it? Or should I dump it?
And now some thoughts about the content:
- Are my posts too technical or too dumbed down?
- Do I come over as patronising?
- Am I covering the topics that interest you?
- If not, what’s missing?
- Do you like my use of graphics? I decided about 6 to 8 months ago to start using them in every post – should I do more, less?
- I know this is a technically aimed blog but of the posts you’ve read are they aimed right for you? Would you care if I included off-topic posts? Please also tell me if you are a technical or non-technical person?
- Are my posts too long? Or should I offset those by including shorter ones?
And a final area of thoughts comes under other:
- Does the site load quickly?
- Do you like the use of the IntenseDebate plugin?
- Would you like more options to register for commenting?
- What about my ‘About‘ and ‘Vision’ (EDIT: no longer present)pages – are they useful? Do you ever read these things? Are they missing anything or do they have too much/ little in them?
- If I didn’t have a tag line (mine’s “Where Tech meets Church”) would it matter?
- Anything, and I mean anything else?
- Click for larger version
Thanks for taking the time to read this request for a review and I do hope you take the time to consider and answer as many of my queries as possible.
If you only have the time or patience to answer just one point then that too would be as useful as answering all the points. Finally, if you want to address any of the points in greater length then do feel free to use my contact me form.
Layout and Design:
I think it works, the double sidebar is a bit of a waste since there is so much space available in the first one.
The Alternate Layout seems to magaziny, it could work but it will give the blog a completely different feel.
Adverts work different for everyone, I have been trying them out and have not earned a cent.
As for the moreTag, I prefer it because it lets people seem more posts (in preview form) on the from page. Besides – it helps to reduce bounce rate (theoretically)
Skirbit, he he, I noticed it and made an effort to add a suggestion. I am interested in how that works for you.
Pages:
Vision – wow, very long
Contact me – have you heard of cforms, that is what I use in my contact page. Love the PGP key, so techy ;)
About me : love the disclaimer – I note this because not many people have considered it. Something needed when talking about products and solution – that will be inevitable on tech blogs.
Tagline: I think you should keep it. Have to read the blog by Jon Alcuff: about starting a Christian blog:http://stuffchristianslike.net/2010/05/2966/ "Make your blog the “intersection” of two things" just as you have in your title and tag line ;) although come to think of it, its a duplication.
Otherwise, love your blog, looks good, loads well :)
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Thanks Phillip.
I've long felt the vision page is too long, but I more or less copied it word for word as presented to my pastor. Perhaps I should just give the highlights version.
No – cforms is new to me as I use "Contact Form 7" – I haven't yet worked out how to get my PGP key to flow nicely though so will definitely take a look at cforms.
The double sidebar is just something this theme does … one day I'll have my own but when my son gets home from Uni I'm going to get him to edit the theme and make the blog wider and drop the 2nd sidebar – he's a code monkey and I'm the hardware head.
Thanks for the Skribit suggestion – I did wonder if it was you :) and appreciate your honesty. Will look at the other bits when time allows. For now I have to go sand a bench!
The page load time is quick.
I am not a fan of Intense Debate comments and DISQUS and all those because you lose all your comments to their clouds when you stop using the service, plus those systems are not set up for mobile browers, making it difficult for me to leave a simple comment from my phone.
I like tag lines if the blogger gives us a fun insight to his personality with it. Yours is fine, but you may want to use it to set your blog apart from similar ones.
I’m glad Phillip gave me a heads up about the long vision statement. I knew to skip it…haha…blogs should avoid heavy text. Short summaries work better.
I am a fan of the two sidebar design, but as Phillip kinda already said, use the space wisely. If you can’t fill them both, use one.
Thanks for opening up your space! I hope this was helpful. Have a great weekend.
Thanks Erica.
Would more options to comment be better? Or would getting ID to be more mobiel friendly an answer? Hmmm. I understand your fear of losing the comments to ID – but you can export them in XML format and re-import them to WP i fnecessary.
OK, I did wonder about the vision page and thus my question – for those that come after "it's gone" and will return in a much precised format.
Again my thanks for your time and I''m saving others by not having to read the vision page ;) and yes, very helpful ….
Hey Stuart. As far as layout, I agree that you want to watch how you use your space. Some ads wouldn’t bother me, but i don’t click on them unless it’s something I’m already actively looking for.
I would recommend trying to get your blog column, the one that has the actual posts, wider. I’m not a fan at all of narrow columns of text, I think it really makes it harder to read.
Not going to lie, most of your content just flies right over my head but I’m not much of a tech person myself. I asked someone who was a tech person and he said that your content looks great and wants to sub to your blog though :)
For the logo, I have some experience doing design stuff, I’ll e-mail it to you when I have some ideas done and see if you like any of them :)
Great blog!
I agree about the narrow text column – which is one of the erasons I asked for feedback on it. If nobody minded then leave well enough alone – but so far I think everyone has said change it. So change I will.
Thanks for getting someone else to lookover the blog and I look forward to their joining in down the line – and finally, as far as the logo goes then thank you, that would be great if you could. If it helps I can tell you what I definitely don't like in an email?
def let me know what you DON'T want lol. I'm going to take a little while b/c the person I normally work with on logo stuff is out of town, but let me know what you don't want for sure. (sageswashbuckler [at] hotmail [dot] com)
Well I'm in no rush. The blog is 2yrs old next month and it's been like this for most of that so a few more weeks or months will make no difference.
Will get thoughts together and chuck you an email – again, my thanks.
I think a wider space for blogging would be good, not sure if you're using wordpress or blogger though. I like the colors too. The blue on blue.
It's WordPress I'm using and I agree that the text area should be wider – I've realised it for a while now and just never did anything about it. My son does PHP coding though so he can hack it for me.
Thanks for your time and comments.
How did you get the comment page? Like what system, plugin, or did you make it yourself? I'm trying to get one on my blog so I have a way people can contact me but don't know what to use. I like that and the about About page of your blog too.
The comments (this thing I'm typing) is teh IntenseDebate plugin but the contact form is a plugin called "Contact Form 7" for WordPress. Phillip suggets looking at "cforms" as well – I don't know the benefits of that, perhaps Phillip can say if he sees this?
Stuart, I like the colors, blue is just me. The two sidebars don't bother me but maybe your post area could be wider if you put it all in one sidebar. I like the Top commenters widget.
I also like the related posts section of your post. I guess you'd have to be a real techy to know what the PGP key is on the contact page–I was lost there.
I would like to see you group your posts into different areas of church tech, like -website, -audio/sound, security, etc. You might could do that with a drop down menu item in your tabs.
–Richard
Thanks Richard. Funny thing is, I thouught I had categories on the sidebar – so nice spot that they've disappeared. That would have sorted your different areas – but I've been trying to concentrate on Tags more as they're supposed to be more SEO friendly.
PGP is so cool – I can see a series of posts where I introduce it and what it can be used for and why you might use it.
I, too, would like the text wider. The side bars, two in a row, make me not look at them–just my reaction. I would rather have them on either side, or one of them at the bottom–if you really need all that information up there.
Maybe you could make a special page for some of the content that interested people could go to–like for some of your links, maybe? I agree with you and Sage that the text looks better (and the articles shorter) if it's wider.
I think your colors are fine. Everyone likes something different. Me, I like more complex stuff, but that's my generation. Clean and simple is the thing now, and you've got that. Plus it suits your subject.
I'm conflicted on the whole advertising thing. I never click on them unless it's someone I already know. I would put advertisements on my pottery/art blog or any other business blog, but I would not put them on my spiritual blog unless it were for something of benefit to my readers–example: relevant books (and most of the authors I would link don't take a profit from their books). So that's just me, and my blog is different from yours, which is more on technical aspects and it might be of benefit to your readers if you included advertisements to relevant products.
I very seldom click through on the "more" tabs. The hook line has to be really, really good to get me to do that. Not sure why–it's just my reaction.
Graphics are good. You can have too many of them, but you should always have at least one. People like pictures.
Most of your blog is about things I'm not, well, doing. Twitter doesn't appeal to me, I don't have (or want) an i-phone, and I'm seriously not qualified to train wannabe techies. (Those were the three I looked at.) I could be a trainee–but I'm afraid the teacher would keep sighing and rolling his/her eyes. :lol:
To my mind, your blog has its personality. I like your personal blog, btw, and I signed up to follow it. But I can't see those posts on this blog. Or deep spiritual life posts, either. I think you're doing just right for what the personality of this blog is.
Blessings, Cindy
Cindy – many many thanks but I think you do yourself an injustice as I'm pretty sure you and I are in the same geneartion – or at least very close!
That said – I do like simple and bold colours though. If I could make yellow work on a computer screen then watch out :)
I appreciate your insights and will be considering all you've said, along with the others very carefully – certainly the width thing is an issue I want to address and that way I can drop a sidebar. Comp Sci Uni sons are good for something at least.
And thanks for teh follow on my "personal" blog – it's meant to keep my disparate family in touch with our happennings so I trust it doesn't bore you too much – but I'm inclined to agree that spiritual posts aren't for this blog.
Stuart,
Like everyone else has said–I like the blue color. I also think you could widen the text column by having only one side column. I also do not click on the "read more" tabs. In this busy world, if it isn't all out there for me to read, I skip it.
I like the "high tech" feel of your blog.
Janis
Thanks Janis – I think I get the message now that my 'read' column needs to be wider :)
Interesting about the 'read more' – I ran a poll on this a while back and it came out as 55% to 45% in favour of those who would click on the read more button – so I'm not sure what to do anymore.
I like my homepage (and others) to be short and sweet but also have enough that one or more posts might drag you in.
Let me ask this then.
If you landed on a blog (any blog) and the current post was there in all its glory but subsequent posts had an intro and then the read more – would you be more likely or not to click through? The presumption is that you are there because you like what they write or hope to.
Looks better than the previous design…great questions for evaluation too, maybe I should do this for my blog too, thanks!
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Thanks Victor – though I take no credit for the initial idea as that comes from ProBloggers "30 Days to Better Blogging".