chrisg.com

First victim customer of my blog critiques is Not Just Cricket

Initial Impressions

• Nice template. Tiny font. Does look pretty but people with not great eyesight would appreciate a larger font size?
• “Not Just Cricket” … sports blog?
• No “about”? No “Author” … no name listed that I could find …
• Looking down the categories, quite a mix. Personal blog?
• Posts on the homepage seem to be currently about template changes in the main
• No popular posts but there are archives going back to February 2005
• No pager link to navigate to older posts from the homepage
• RSS button tucked away in bottom left navigation

My advice

• Orient the reader - within seconds you need to tell the reader where they are, what it is about, who you are, what they should be reading and how it will benefit/entertain them.
• Encourage subscription - don’t hide your RSS button away, put it up where it can be seen and give them the option of email signup (easy done with copy and paste code from feedburner)
• Show off your good stuff - Give new readers a sample of what they can expect from your blog. If you don’t have any representative articles create some. You need some flagship content
• Get out, connect and mingle - Open up the blog to be more outward facing, the more you link out and open up the more links you will get in. Encourage and welcome comments. Start discussions.
• Consider spinning-off blogs - I realise there are diverse interests represented, which has an appeal, but I think there are topics that could be given their own blog, Cricket especially. Focus helps attract audience.

I think that is enough to be going on with. In summary I found it a nicely written blog with some very interesting directions it could be taken, like many personal blogs, perhaps too many topics. In particular I think the cricket content could be expanded and attract a sizeable audience.