The Single Frudalton Website Review
Posted by Lindsayanng on February 24th, 2009
I will start from the top and work my way down. I know that you said that you can not do much about those ads. Is this because this is a FREE program? because if so, you should switch to wordpress or blogger. Those ads are insanely distracting and they do NOT need to be on a free blog. You can get a really nice, clean, and free wordpress blog without ANY ads. Here is an example of a free wordpress blog. Its my puppy 
So ignoring the ads (which is REALLY hard to do, i must admit)……
Your header image has nothing to do with your content. You should consider getting nice graphical header image instead of just a stretched picture across the top of the blog. What you can do is if you have an image editor, create a new image, pick a font that you like, and re-create what you have on your header now. The big text that says your blog name, and the smaller tag line text. THEN you can do some clipart searching. You can easily find a free graphic of a piggy bank, or something else that shows “saving money” here are some free clipart websites:
Free-Clipart
Deviant Art – my favorite
Free-Clip-Art
If you make your outer background pink and the inner background white, it would look nice -if you can do that. OR you can make your entire background white. That pink just seems to make your website not look as clean and organized as it should, and with all of those ads, you want to make things as clean as possible to avoid MORE clutter added from the advertisements.
Now, your top pages navigation is what is off. HOME | ABOUT | BLOG SERIES | CONTACT LAURA | MOST POPULAR POSTS are all aligned o the right, and you should atleast align them center to make them match up right now. They might be aligned in your browser, I dont know because I do not have IE, but in firefox, they are aligned left and look out of place.
Can you move where the ads are?? If so, i would put the categories and the top of the left column. If you can not, then put the categories as close to the top of that sidebar as you can. Move the entre card graphic down. People will find it if they are looking for it, so moving it lower in your sidebar is not a bad thing.
You sidebar should have the categories at the top, then your recent posts, and then your entre card OR sites like mine. The thing is, both the entre card graphic and the sites like mine links are going to take people away from your blog, and why would you want to do that. Sure, you want to share exciting content with your readers, but not at the expense of readers leaving your blog. You want to make links accessible, but not “in your face”
Your red and blue text makes it very hard to differentiate ads from your content. You want your content to be obviously different from your ads. Black, and a color really close to black like a really really dark blue would be ok if you want to stay in the blue family. See some color codes here.
I think that your posts have some GREAT content. Espeically the “Show you care, teach someone a skill” hehe. Right down my alley!
You contact page is perfect. Nice and complete AND it has the social bookmarks which is a great thing !!
Your BLOG SERIES is a tad confusing, and it’s probably because there’s an ad smack dab in the middle of it!!! And it’s not your fault, so I won’t berate you for that, I will just suggest a wordpress.com blog again. You have such good content and a good sense of what is important to people that its a shame that it is hidden by ads.
And finally, the BIGGEST OF BIGGEST ISSUES.. YOU HAVE TO BE A TODAY MEMBER TO COMMENT!!! Thats such a bad thing. Just think if here everyone had to sign up to comment on this post. I wouldn’t have HALF of the comments that I have.
Your design needs work, with the colors, the header, and the font color.. But the rest you can not do much about.
If you would like some ideas with your header, let me know. I do graphic design as a hobby, and web design as a freelance type thing. So I am ALWAYS willing to give pointers and I offer my services to subscribers.
Want to know who is offering this awesome content? Here it is! Someone who is relatively new to web design. I am new enough to still remember how absolutely frustrating it was to try and get anything done in this field, but have also been around long enough to be able to help those that are where I was a year ago.
Aside from web design, I run the office of my dad's engineering business, and do book keeping by trade.
I love my pets.. All 6 cats, 1 peg legged dogs, and 1 hedgehog. LOVE THEM!!
Oh yea, and my husband. He lets me chase my dreams and I let him do the same. We are happy people because of it. Read more from this author
