I have noticed lately that all of the WOW blogs look the same, at least they do to me. I am not really a gamer. The extent of my gaming is playing 007 on my game cube from 6 years ago. So I did some research on the top blogs in that field to see what others have done. But, web design is still web design, and the rules still apply.

My first impression, as I have said was “yet another WOW blog” because it looks the same to me. They all have the WOW seal and the same colors. Yellow, blue and black. You have the color scheme down though. You did not seem to over do it, but I think that you should do some more things that make it look more like a “special” blog. Something different than every other WOW blog.

I like what you did with the seal. The “fail” part falling off of it. How dead set are you at KEEPING that big shiny WOW seal/graphic thing? I know that it is the essence of your website, but can you create a graphic that is similar to that but in your own style. I would think that it being a “fail” blog, it might be funny to just create a sketchy drawing of it, or a crayon drawing.. Something that is satire of the actual graphic, but maintaining the feeling of it. If you do that, you can continue with that look through out the blog, using text headers that look like they were just scribbled on paper. Or if you don’t want to do that, maybe you can ditch the symbol all together and just use plain text that says “World Of Warcraft” and FAIL BLOG similar to what you have now. When I google “world of warcraft blog” the first blog on the list does not have that seal there.

Here is a link to a “world of warcraft” font that you can customize to make it look 3D

WOW FREE FONT

World Of Warcraft Paid Font

Those will make it easy for you to create a new graphic that will keep the style and the notability of “World Of Warcraft” while customizing it to fit your own.

Moving on from your website’s banner.. The overall top half is very busy. If i were you, I would choose the WOW Seal/graphic or the background, but not both. With those two together, it makes your site look “top heavy” and really, you want the banner to be memorable, but you want people ultimately look at the content. You top advertisement is also busy, and I think that if you loose the background graphic, it will look less busy. It is a good advertisement and it goes with your site. That is a good choice and decent placement.

Moving downwards, I now see the graphic that goes along the top of your content area. I think that is a nice graphic, and I’m sure it coinsides with the WOW look, and I think you should keep it. But I would only keep it if you tone down the rest of your header. I still like my idea of a crayon WOW graphic, but thats just me.

Then you have the top on your content. This looks like a mess. There is no separation of items in there. Have a look here at your site. Taking this picture without the rest of your site, you can really get a feel of how messy that area is right?

You should consider creating some padding around your main table elements. By doing so, you will see a border around your side bars and the center, and that will start you off in the right direction of organizing it. I am a big fan of separating sidebars from the main content. When there is no border or color change showing you that there are 3 separate elements in this main content, it looks cluttered.

That little graphic on the top left sidebar is redundant. Its the same picture as the header and there is no need for that little one there. I would remove it and move your EC widget up, or put something else there. That area is prime real estate, you should definitely use it to your advantage. Actually, a PERFECT idea and this will kill two birds with one stone.

In your jumbled center/top area, you have text that says “Remember to Submit your LOLs and Fails” You can remove that and instead, create a 125px x 150px graphic that says the same thing, but in a more fun way that is a LOT more eye Catching. Instead of using all that text, just use a graphic that says “SUBMIT YOUR FAILS HERE” You don’t really need to say “lols OR fails” People should understand what is worth submitting. You then link that picture to your submission page and there you have killed two birds. Removed some of the messy text and filled an empty space.

So other stuff up there can also be streamlined into something on your sidebars, or even put into your newer, cleaner header. For instance, an RSS graphic that says SUBSCRIBE HERE (in smallish print) in the header is a good thing. Having the subscribe in the header is good simply because people always go to the header when they get lost on a site and need to get back. They look at the header multiple times during one visit. You can even do a grid of the social bookmark graphics up there. Like a 2 x 2 square of 4 graphics total. (then you can also move that “share this” out of there)

You tell people to “submit” about 3 times within that one little paragraph. I think that having those things more strategically placed though out your site, you will get even MORE submissions. Use images and what I call “inner website advertising” Make a little image that urges people to submit, but create it as if you were going to put it on a blog that wasn’t yours. When you do this, you get a much better looking advertisement that gives the visitor all the information they need to know before clicking.

NOW ON TO THE POST’S PAGES (taken a long time to get here)

When you click on a post on the main page, obviously it will bring you to the post’s page where you can comment and read others comments. Its a typical blog layout. Your post’s layout is the same as your front page, it seems haphazard. You have the little social media bookmarking links kind of scattered.

On the top right you have Stumble, Reddit, and a few others, then at the bottom of the post, the “green share this” link and then recent posts and THEN another one for Digg.

You should decide what is more important, getting the visitor to another post of yours, or getting them to share it. If you ask me, getting them to click further into your site is more important. Sharing is great, but I have a feeling that because of your content, people will be sharing anyways. SO i would put your recent posts up higher, and stream line them a little. Have the post titles show in a row instead of a list. If they post side by side with a divider in between, i think it will fit more into the page. You can use a bullet point or ‘ | ‘ to separate. I like the use of the ‘ | ‘ to separate text on a page, i think it looks nice.

Once you have the recent posts in a row instead of a list, i would do another row of your social bookmarks. You can take ALL of the bookmarks from all over and put them in a neat little row for people to choose from. It will look a whole lot more organized and will actually invite more people to click on one, because they will be in the same spot. Its likely people miss the one’s up top because they typically are not there. I would also put a link to subscribe by either RSS or email or both in every post. You can either put it right above the comment box, or underneath your social bookmarking links.

Again, i think that you need some type of color change or outline from the sidebars to the main content. I am not usually a fan of sidebars that end up looking like they belong on the main page. A separator to make it look more neat and organized will help GREATLY in the overall look, and just about everything else will fall into place after that.

Now your FOOTER. WTF? haha. I’m just kidding, but seriously, did you give up a little? Its just a load of stuff tucked in there. Make your footer a place for people to go who want ALL of the information at once. I see that you have links to CONTACT, TERMS, and ADVERTISING down there.. I did not even realize that you accepted advertising from your website until  i clicked down there. I saw the little “you can be right here right now” but that took me to an advertising bidding site. If you take advertisements yourself, you should move that up a little. Or maybe consider getting something like OIO Publisher. I use it here and i LOVE it. Its cheap enough and super easy to integrate. Visitors can simple click on a BUY ADSPACE HERE NOW button and, choose where they want to advertise, and pay via paypal without EVER leaving your site. Pretty awesome. It also sends the advertising customer a weekly update of how their ad is doing, clicks, impressions, etc. Just a suggestion.

SO back to the footer. You have some links, but layout your footer a little differently because you have a LOT of stuff there. What I would do is something similar to what I have here. A row with 3 or 4 boxes inside that row. Then you can have one with all of your links to your contact, terms, submission, advertising, facebook, etc pages. Then in the other box you can shove all of those little graphics for the vaious websites in there. Then you last box can be something of a DIRECTORY LISTINGS or EXTERNAL LINKS and you can list all of the sites that you are listed on, or link exchange type things, affiliations..

So thats it. Overall, what I would do, is consider getting a magazine style theme. You website is SOO built on images, so why not get a theme that will show a load of images on the front page in an organized way? Then if someone lands on your main page, they can choose from a lot of funny pics or articles. Just a thought. Maybe if you build your blog more like a website, it will organize it more and bring you more advertisers and more readers?? Again, these are just my thoughts. I just think the basic blog layout is great for BLOGGING – journal entries and talking about life.. Things that, unless read in chronological order, would not make much sense. But for you, YOU can have a post from 10 months ago be one of the post popular post today if it still showed on your front page. Then that will get the reader interested and want to look further. Right now, your main page isnt a lot of “fails” like i have seen it in the past.. Thats fine, but having a layout that lets you stick a few “featured” items in there to show the people what you DO have, then you will get more NEW readers. A read who happened upon your blog today for the first time wouldnt nessecarily get “funny fail blog” on their first impression unless they clicked further.

So at first, before I even visted, i didn’t know what “WOW” was going to be about. Then I realized that it was a stupid question and World Of Warcraft is one of the most popular games out there. At least thats what my little sister tells me. Shes a big time gamer. Another hot chick geek in my family but thats another story.

So you have a nice theme on your site. The side by side small columns make your content look neat and organized and the look separates the advertisements from the content enough that they do not overwhelm the reader. HOWEVER, you have that ad right up top, and i think that even though that is a key place for advertising, its also a key place for your views to look. I’m not going to tell you to take that advertisement down, but I think that you should choose an IMAGE adsense ad instead of the text ones. OR you can replace it with an affiliate ad of your choice. If you want to learn more about affiliate ads, let me know. I am thinking about writing a tutorial on it since it seems to be unknown to make newbie bloggers. So if you take down that text ad and at minimum replace it with a long and narrow image ad, it will look better.

Just because they are ads does not mean that you shouldn’t trying and make them match the theme and look of your website as best as you possibly can. You may not be able to control the content using adsense, but you CAN make sure that you have the correct shape, and i think that a 234 x 60 ad or the 468 x 60 ad would be better than the small little text one.. and to me, the image ads always look better than the text ones. Thats just my opinion though. This will also close up the white space over there.

Then you have that white box with the EntreCard info in it.. Is entre card that important to you? I know its a great traffic generator, and its a great program that helps you get new viewers, but I think that you should move that card down a little on the sidebar and put something that you want ALL of your viewers to see when they visit your site. Just think about it. Not everyone who visits your blog is even going to KNOW what Entre Card is, so they are going to see it and maybe they will think its a link to a different part of your blog, or they will just think it’s some random ad. Either way, it does not enhance the reader’s experience.

I think you should put your RSS reader and your email subscribe in there. You want ALL people to subscribe right? And everyone who reads will at MINIMUM know what an email subscription is, right? If you don’t have an email subscription option, you should consider getting that option through FeedBurner.com. Lots of people still don’t know what an RSS feed is, so they wont use it, but a LOT of people know that when they subscribe to a blog using their email address, they will get email updates of your blog. By adding BOTH options, you are covering all of your bases with your readers and making it an easy, front and center option for them to use.

Also, i just found that clicking the “YouDrop I Follow” image brings me to photobucket. You should DEFINITELY just make that image an image and remove the link to photobucket. Its a simple HTML fix by removign the and then leave just the code. This just leaves the code for the image and removed the linking code.

SO if you add those things into your white box where the EC link was, and you have extra space, i would put a little “about me” link with an image that links to a page about yourself.

I also notice that you have no “PAGES” and you probably should. Pages are ways to give your readers consisten information that they do not have to search through page after page of posts to find. So if you get a lot of requests for the same information, make it into a page and get a link on the very top of your blog.. You also SHOULD have an “about me” page or an overall “about” page that tells the readers in a few paragraphs what the blog is about, why you started it, and some other fun facts. I like to have fun with my “ABOUT ME” page. You should also have a CONTACT page. People are more likely to follow a blog if they feel a connection to the writer. Its the internet age, and when you write about ANYTHING topic specific, you are competing with a million other people for the same readers. The only thing that makes you different is YOU. So you want to put YOURSELF front and center, and after the about me section is the contact. Make the contact form go to the email address you use the most so that the people who contact you dont feel left behind or forgotten about.

You should also make the HEADERS of your posts bigger. Since you have advertisements in between your post listings, the post titles do not stand out. If you make them larger, people will be able to see the different better. The color is fine, but the size can be a LOT bigger.

Then you have the BOTTOM of your blog. It almost looks like you gave up there, and thats NOT good because even though on the front page, the bottom of your blog is pretty far down, on your posts its right there with the comments. See, you have a bunch of stuff down there. A set of google ads, thottbot, recent views, some badges and text links. These are FINE to have in your footer, but you need to separate them from the content. Usually people use a completely different color background, or a table with a dark boarder. USE THIS TUTORIAL to create a single row table to put your content in.
Here is an example of what I am talking about:

And finally, YOUR HEADER IMAGE.

It could be really awesome, but it needs work. The black on black is impossible to read. The entire graphic in the center looks like it is behind a black sheet. It’s really “dim” and does not stand out. But then you have those “rivet” style round buttons on the corner that are really BRIGHT. If you can brighten the center stuff (the blog name and the graphic) then you will have a much more balanced graphic.

Overall, you chose a good theme for your blog. You need to prioritize, personalize, and then just change your image a little tiny bit.

SO your site looks like a mish-mash of styles that CAN be good if you chose just one.

Your header looks out of what because of the two blue-ish boxes. You have your large blue box that spans the entire width of your blog, and then you have the blue background of your blog’s title. AND they are both slightly different colors so it REALLY now looks like patchwork.

The sign of a nice design is consistency and flow. When your site starts to look like patchwork, that means you are getting away from a nice style and you should start to look at scaling things back.

You also chose to put an ad right above your blog title/banner. This is basically telling a lot of new visitors that you are more interested in showing your ads than your content. Whether that is correct or not does not matter because that is what you are displaying. If you want to have an add in the header, I would put your blog title in the top with the ad and align the blog title to the left, and the banner to the right. If you are willing to move that ad OUT of the header, you will get an even better reception. I would remove that second lower blue box completely, then put the content from that box in the header. Then, if you really want to, you can put the advertisement underneath the blue header but without a blue background.

This is all easy stuff to fix with some basic HTML and CSS.

The other thing is the design that you are using as your header. Its not really “right” but theres nothing overtly wrong with it. The issue is that you have, again, a few styles going on there and you need to cut it down to one consistent style.

You have the Big white text, the smaller tagline text, and then the really out of place purple and blue box with your name in it. DOn’t you agree that it is a little bit out of place? Why did you put that there? Did you make it and decide that you REALLY love it? Because if you do, you CAN use it, but you would have to scrap ALL of the greyish blue and turn it into something that matches better. It is also very “1990′s” with that text being 3D-ish and the colors. I think it would actually look really nice if you instead made an image of your signature. You can do this pretty easily if you have a photo editor and a scanner. OR if you can not use your actual signature, there are some GREAT signature fonts that look really good. I think it will add a nice and classy touch to your header.

Then you also have some very faint white design and a darker blue design in the background.. That is a LOT of stuff going on in that one little area. I think you would benefit more if you just removed that entirely and had your header information in your top blue box and a graphic with your signature. You can even do the signature in white to add a little flair.

So now it brings me to the rest of your blog, mainly the sidebars. They are pretty well organized, but i think you can benefit from moving them around a little bit. I like that you have the subscribe top and center, and then the about this blog directly underneath it. Those are some important things. Your copyright, not so important. I mean, if someone sees your content and is going to copy it – they will do it. With or without that logo. It’s a good thing to have on there, but you can move it lower and put more important things up top. It might even be more noticable if you created a small image that says “copyright reserved” and put it at the bottom of every one of your posts. You can even create a new page that explains the copyright along with a note saying that you have taken certain measures to avoid copying and to track it. (If you dont know what you can do to track copiers, let me know, i will give you some links).

So if you remove that from your sidebar, that will move your categories up which is a good thing. But your categories layout is not really the BEST looking thing I have seen. The red does not seem to suit your blog design. Unless you plan on using some red graphics elsewhere, I would switch the color to something that is more inline with the rest of your design. And DEFINITELY remove that little “luggage tag” graphic. You have SOO many categories that it just looks silly with all of those images. If you want something, a simple, normal sized bullet point would suffice and change the whole look of that area.

Same goes for your archives. The little stars arent really matching your theme. AND you seen to have been blogging for a long time and your list is just going to get longer and longer. Maybe there is a way that you can show only the years, and then have the months expand when you click on them. This will make the overall look of the archive links more compact but you will still be able to showcase the amount of time you have been adding content by showing the years. So instead you would just have
ARCHIVES:
2009
January
February
March
and so on…..
2008
2007
2006

This will, again, make more room in that sidebar.

Then you have “Joel’s Links” which aren’t really LINKS but actually links to PAGES On your website. People usually use the term “Links” when they are listing links to sites that you would feel your blog readers would find useful. So when I click on them, it brings me to “i guess” the main part of your website. But when I look at it, it makes me wonder why you even have that main part of your website.. You blog LOOKS a lot nicer, has a lot more information, and it is laid out in a more user-friendly way.

If i were to design this site, I would make your blog a real website. You can choose to have visitors land on a static page that is much like your main page, but it will have all of your sidebar content of your blog.. This will be good because people will land on your page and see your new book and little bit about you, and they will ALSO see that there is a lot of content there that is worth reading. Maybe they weren;t interested in the book, but after getting to know you through your blog, they bought it.. OR it could be the other way around. Maybe the person went there to specifically purchase your book, and they aren’t really a blog reader so they didn’t even bother to click on blog. HOWEVER, if they did click on blog, they might stay more active on your website and would be more apt to buy a SECOND book because your website will be in the front of their mind because they visit your blog often.

Is this making sense?? Its all a big marketing thing, and its a REALLY good thing.

Also, YOU DONT SAY HOW TO GET YOUR BOOK!!! The actual content on your website needs a complete overhaul. The wording is clunky and seems like it is trying too hard to be witty. I think that you should rework the content to be more “professional”

Is the reason for your blog to promote your website? Or did you write a book to promote your blog?? Just curious.. Either way, the site can be better used to promote BOTH aspects of your talent..

You can even sell your book on wordpress using the e-commerce plugin. You might be surprised how many people pick up the book if it is fairly priced. You can even offer contests and giveaway a copy of your book. ANYTHING to create buzz about your blog, book, or BOTH.

So yea, back to the “links” section. Remove it and create some “pages” tabs at the top. If you go to your theme’s home page, you can see what I am talking about. there are these tabs at the top where you should always have your CONTACT, ABOUT, ETC here.

Disciple Theme

So on to the second sidebar. Your calender is nice, and it shows that you post often. You do not need to move it, however if you get into the idea of selling your book from your blog, that would be better used to promote the sale of your book and then put your calender beneath it. The rest of that column is fine. Everything is organized well, you have the nice little images aligned properly and are not all over the place like with some people. You didn’t over do it with the ads either, which is refreshing.

So yea.. I think that even though your blog in particular does not have a lot of work that needs to be done.. You site as a whole can use a major overhaul to make things flow nicely. FLOW is what it is all about.

Let me know if you need help with this.. This is the stuff that I LOVE doing!!!

So i think that this is one of the sleekest blogs I have seen so far. I love it. I have to start from the top because its the only way I can make sure I catch everything.

Your header is very unique and you have a nice and memorable font with your blog name and a good illustration in which the style matches your site and it’s theme. The city, thirty-somethings.. PERFECT. Did you do that graphic yourself? Its a great graphic with enough detail to make it interesting but not too much to make it busy.

Your ABOUT ME – CONTACT – SUBSCRIBE – TWITTER links are VERY VERY hard to read. If you want to keep that same font, make them bigger or bolder, or both.. There is no reason they could not be bigger because you have enough “sky space” to do that.

There is something rather curious about your pages though..You have your ABOUT ME section which has a nice e-mail form to contact you with, which I think is a GREAT idea.. but your CONTACT page just has an email. You seem to be SOO good at giving information about how to find you on your main page in that little top box, and then you dropped the ball on the CONTACT page. Odd. Maybe you thought that people would have already found that information on your main page, but maybe they didnt!! Your CONTACT page should ALSO have a contact form, a link to your twitter, a link to your store, and then some. ANY way that you are publicly accessible, you should give it to your readers. Especially since you are sharing those things on the main page of your blog anyways. It might seem redundant, but these things are things that you don’t have to feel bad about repeating. They are things that people will WANT to find and will seek out if you don’t put it out there anyways.

I love that your advertisements match the look and feel of your blog, and the content is relevant to your blog as well. The amazon thing is a good idea!

You should add an email subscribe option to your SUBSCRIBE blog.. I, along with many others, prefer email subscriptions over RSS because we check out email way more than all the feed readers out there. I think it would be a good addition, FEEDBURNER has a bunch of information.

Now, you are yet ANOTHER person who feels that categories are not that important. Your categories are VERY VERY important. I can not tell you how many times I landed on a blog, read a post, and wanted more posts like that about that subject and could not find them. OR i land on a blog and see the main page with a few posts that are somewhat relevant but can not find the rest. Its good that you HAVE categories available, lots of people don’t, but you can probably put the categories above the SUBSCRIBE because when people choose to subscribe, they will have already looks through a lot of your website and will probably have see the subscribe many times before they actually did.

You can also move your PAGES down or get rid of it entirely. You can use the remaining spots for advertising or even just inner website advertising. For instance, if you do giveaways, or have a special post, make an advertisement for that particular thing that you REALLY want people to go to.

I also really like the “about this entry” box on the right. Its a very nice little touch!

Overall, VERY nice. You seem to have a great grasp of design and layout.

You site seems to have a LOT of colors happening. I know that a lot of it is not your choice because a lot of the colors are coming from your advertisements, but that just means that you have to organize better.

Your other issue is that you have WHITE text on BLACK background. This is a big problem for most people. Not just some, but at least 50% of people physically can not read it, and a little bit more just prefer not to. Now, black text on white is also considered a little bit too much of a contrast, and the idea readability is actually black text on beige or off white. The reason text on screen is different than text on paper is because of the lighting. When you look at text on paper, the light is coming over your shoulder and being reflected into your eyes. This is a much less harsh way of viewing highly reflective colors like white. HOWEVER, when you look at a screen, the light is coming from behind the screen, which means that it is going directly into your eyes and therefore putting more stress on the eyes. A white background can be painful over very long periods of time, and that is because of the constant bright light. The idea of using small words that have the same amount light being directed into the eye is just not a good one for a blog especially. Blogs are websites make for the specific use of writing and reading. When you choose white text on a black background, you are making it very difficult for a lot of your readers to be able to spend any amount of time reading. The small white letters create a lot of contrast and the amount of light glaring from those little letters makes it hard to really focus. Have you ever been in a dark room where there was a small crack of light coming through. That little crack of light looks like some type of spot light in the dark. That is what white text on black backgrounds are doing. The little letters are like pinholes in the wall that are letting the light through. It looks like its WAY brighter than it is.

So you have a couple of choices to try and fix this and make sure that ALL people who come to your website will feel comfortable.

You can change the black background to match the rest of your site’s background and keep the white.

You can do a simple black text on white background where just the inner background is white..

OR if you are dead set on the black, you can make your text grey instead of white. Or keep your text white and make the background a dark grey instead of black. Anything to offset the major contrast of white on black.

MY suggestion for your look would be the following. Make the outer background black (you will have to edit your banner then) and make the inner website white with black text. I think that they grey that you have in the outer background is clashing with your yellows in your theme. They are not colors that match in the design world. Having that grey is adding to the busy-ness of your website because the grey has no real purpose. You usually would pick your background color based on a color that existed on your main focus design OR black or white. Your header image is the main focus of your website right now, and that is ok. I think that the colors in your header a little light and by suggesting those colors to you to use would, i think, be telling you to change it TOO much. So I feel that if you created a black outer background, and a white inner background, you will have the same feel, but it will look cleaner, less cluttered and more readable to other readers. I also think that the gold in your text would look nice right on the black background.

Ok.. So i just deleted EVERYTHING I wrote after the comments about the text. I had a whole list of things you should do and then scrapped them. I am having a hard time helping you without having you revamp the layout of your site.

I can tell you to remove all of the ads except the ones that are really important to you, but I have a feeling that they are important to you, and that is why they are there. SO… If you want to keep those ads, but you want to make them look more organized (which i STRONGLY suggest) you should look at a different style template.
These are the styles that I suggest:
Lay Simples
Zine Press (with this one i would move the ABOUT ME to the top)
Green Valley
D’Black
Black Brown Art

If you are getting the idea, I am suggesting a theme that has the two columns side by side. This way you can set up ALL of your 125×125 ads and blog pictures side by side in a 2 x 4 cube. You have 8 images that would look VERY nice and organized, and then stragglers and be put on the lower single column.

IF you choose not to change your template and you are dead set on this one.

I would move the entre card widget down. When you think about it, WHAT is more important to your website?? Your readers first right? So you should put CATEGORIES in that place. Create a categories section or at minimum a tag cloud. Categories and tags are a great way to show a new visitor exactly what your site is about. With blogs, if you do not have those, and your first impression is your first few posts on your front page, you could be loosing a lot of readers simply because they did not know that you had a lot of other content. People who browse the web like instant gratification, and if your front page does not speak to them right away, they will likely leave not knowing that you have a post that would REALLY interest them from a month or two ago.

Archives are almost useless because even though the post is there in the archives, people don’t KNOW that they are there and they have to dig through a bunch that might not interest them to get to the few that DO interest them. Then, if you catch their interest with those posts, it can open their eyes to your other posts that before they would have passed over. So the archives should go lower on the side bar.

Then I would take the image that you created with the code box under it UP. You want that probably above your entre card box because you really want people to grab that code and help you advertise your blog. In the long run, other bloggers who blog about YOUR blog are going to get you more readers than EC. I would have the categories at the top, then YOUR image with the code, and THEN EC widget and the other ads underneath. Right now, the ads are spaced very far apart, and I am not entirely familiar with blogger, btu i would THINK that it is because they are each in their own little widget or box correct?

They would look SOO much better if they were actually right up against each other. Put ALL of the code inside of one box or widget and they will be right on top of each other and look more like a string of blogs and info than a bunch of randomly placed one. I would to the larger images on the top and the smaller ones beneath it.

Overall though, i think you need to prioritize. Make sure that ABOVE ALL your readers are taken care of.. Once you have enough resources for them to use and enjoy, THEN thing about advertising and make sure that the ads that you have on your site are accessable.. and THEN worry about your socializing and all of that. Those things are nice to have, but using them in valuable sidebar space does not need to be taken up by them

One thing you can do if you do not want to remove any of those is just choose the one that is the most important to you and leave that one. Then create a little link below that one that says “Click here for more social contacts by ME!” and link that to a new page that you created SPECIFICALLY for those social websites. There you can put AS MANY as you can possible want on there. Doing this gives the user the CHOICE to see all the rest of them and doesnt throw them their face, but it also doesn’t hide them on the farthest back page.

I do have a vision for your site, and it can be really beautiful, but you need to move away from the separate 3 column and grey background and get over to a side by side with a BLACK outer background with that beautiful image on top and that gold text on black.

I think you have potential because you have great content AND really neat graphics. You just need to reorganize. I would guess that you chose this template when you didn’t have soo may little 125 x 125 images. And now that you have them you didnt think that re-creating your blog with a new template was an option. In my opinion, its the BEST option… But I did give you a second option for you.

First impression is a good one. YOu have hit is spot on with organization and cleanliness. When I view your website, I do not feel overwhelmed with content, images, and ads, yet you do have a LOT of content, images and ads on the page.

I REALLY like the tabbed box at the top for search, categories, and archives, but it’s not very obvious that the function is there. It took me a minute to notice those links, at first I thought it was just a search box. Just being nit picky here, but the box around the SEARCH when clicked does not exactly match up with the box that contains the content for that box. Do you see what I am saying? There is about a 2 px indent on the background/border of the search link. Its something that should not be that way simply because the idea of those sorts of tabs is to make it LOOK like the search is a tabbed extension of the content. Again, i’m being nit picky, but why not right?

Maybe instead of trying to change the color to make it stand out more, you can make it default to the CATEGORIES instead of search. I notice myself repeating myself A LOT regarding categories. The great thing about having categories front and center on your blog is that you can show your new visitors a little outline of all of the topics that you cover in the blog. See, when someone visits your first page, the first 6 or so posts might not indicative of what your entire blog is about. If you default to the categories, people’s eyes will automatically go there and look to see what you have there. Then if they need it, they will probably already had noticed the search because they naturally looked there. I understand that you probably default to search because it’s a smaller box and it moves the advertisements up, but you have to decide what is more important. Giving your visitor a good synopsis of your website in hopes that they see something they like, or hoping that they click on ads. If you give the visitor what they want in content, they will click your ads. MAYBE you can make the list two columns of 7 to make it shorter and make more use of that space? Although you also have the categories listed beneath the ads. I’m not sure that you would need both if you make the changes to the top box. Then you open up more space for other content.

Maybe if you remove the SECOND list of categories, you can move your “deal of the day” up a little bit and maybe put your tag cloud up there. I had an Epiphany today that a tag could can be just as useful as a category list IF you use your tags wisely. See, i use my tags here haphazardly. If you tag your posts using more like category tags instead of a lot of descriptive words, you can ALMOST replace a category tree, and you can DEFINITELY replace your second category tree. So if you set the box at the top to default to categories in a two column format, and then remove the second category list and move the deal of the day up and the tag cloud up, you can have the same effect that you have now and free up some space.

You then have TWITTER and SITES OF INTEREST on top of each other but truthfully, they COULD be side by side. They are long and narrow things that when they are put on top of each other with nothing to fill that empty space next to it, they look awkward. If you put them next to each other, or fill the two spaces up with some tower ads or some other content, it would look better. Then the boxes at the bottom (the large ad box and recent visitor box) will also look better.

You only have two pages! There is no way to contact you through your website unless I want to follow you on twitter. Not everyone has twitter, so you should create a “contact” page with a contact form and you can also give your twitter info and any other social websites that you are active on. Make SURE that you only post things that you are active on, otherwise you can turn people off if you put a facebook page that you check once every three months.

You should also flesh out your “about” page. There is very little information there and not all that exciting reading. The idea of a blog is to get to know the web master. Even with tutorial blogs and stuff thats not technically a personal blog, you should add your own personality to it. Personality is what your site lacks. Adding an About page will help to start create a separation between you and the 10,000 other affiliate marketing blogs. You need to make a reason for visitors to stay at your site, if not, they will read the post that they came to via google, get the information they want, and leave. Make it personal, make it interesting.

You can also benefit from a logo of some sort. You have nothing that would make me remember you. The idea of having a logo and banner is so that when you decide to advertise or promote your blog, people will recognize your blog from the ad, or visa versa. A them that people will remember WILL help. It could be a very simple and streamlined logo that goes along with your simplistic theme, but you should have SOMETHING to make yourself recognizable in the world of affiliate marketing.

Your blog is a blog to make money AND teach people how to make money. Its a great thing, and you are upfront and honest about it. That is a good thing. You content is a very easy read which is refreshing, and you have a clean look that isn’t overwhelming, but start to add some personality to your design.

I hope all this helps and gives you a little push in a new direction. Again, these are my opinions and I am NOT saying anything personal about you or your site. Just some things to think about!!!

I really like your color scheme. Browns are my favorite combination and it looks REALLY good if you do it right. You did it right. You have a good combination of dark and light browns but did not overwhelm me with the dark color. Your font seems abnormally large. Can you change the size of your font to just a tad smaller? Large fonts make a website look cluttered.

I think that your tag line is a tad long. It reads:
“THE place to go for practical parenting tips and ideas, get answers to your parenting questions, or just have fun. **For specific suggestions regarding your child, or any other questions you may have, please contact Mom at aandsparenting@gmail.com**”

Remove the part about specific suggestions part. People are NOT going to decide to send you an email regarding their personal issues with their children right away. The information that you put in your header always should be content that you want people to know about your website right away. Take, for instance, this website. I did put that you can contact me for web design help in my header. I assume that if people like my writing, that they will see my contact page and realized that they CAN email me if they want help. I suggest that you do the same.

You should create a little graphic to put in your sidebar, or at the very top of your blog. I would push the Entre Card box down and put a “contact me” 125px x 125px graphic there. Something like “Your child care questions answered” But you can come up with your own too.

Also, don’t you feel that you Giveaways are more important than your entre card graphic? I do. I think that giveaways are what makes people bookmark and continue to come back to websites. People do not want to somehow miss out on something free. Even if they are not guaranteed to get it, they want a chance. Make another graphic, even if it’s just some fancy text, that says GIVEAWAYS!!!! and link that to your post about the giveaways.

Now you have the “How did I find you” section and THEN you ask “How did you find US?” It’s a tad bulky in the wording. What I would do is just keep a headline that says “How did you find us?” OR if youre really set on “How did I find you?” you can use that too. Theres nothing overly wrong with it. HOWEVER, all that text underneath is unnecessary. Just create a text link that says TELL US HERE and if they want to tell you, they will click on it if they WANT to tell you about how they landed there. The thing is, that sentence underneath is useless because people know what you are asking by the header, and it is taking up valuable sidebar space. Its a great addition, but you can make it more streamlined.

Now, under that you have “become a sponsor” which can stay, but you should create a small link underneath which will bring people to a page where you explain what being a sponsor entails, where the money goes to and so on. But its good to have in your sidebar because it will always be there and when someone reads a post and they say “Hey, she really knows what she’s talking about, and she’s going it for free!” They might decide to toss some money your way, but they want to know what it goes towards. Be as upfront as possible. That is something that I was thinking of adding to my blog as well.

Now you have an INSANELY long list of “sites to see” I do not know if you can create “pages” in a free blogger blog, but if you can, create a page called “sites to see” and leave your top 5 favorite sites in that list and then a little link that says “…more” that brings them to a page of many more sites. You can then sell the top 5 site spots at a fee to those blog owners, if they are interested.

For you, I would also make a CATEGORIES list to put at the VERY top of your sidebar. People might want to see your best craft projects, but not want to read about your recent time management fiasco. Categories are the BEST way to keep readers because your front page only has a few posts, and is not in any way a complete guide to what your content really is, and visitors are lazy. When they get on a site, if they don’t see exactly what they want within 2 clicks, they will leave. Categories will show a complete list of every topic that your blog covers. Again, i’m not familiar with the free blogger program, but I think you can add categories.

Once you have categories, you will have little need for archives, so you can choose to keep it or loose it.

The bottom of your blog is large, spacious, and haphazard. I LOVE the about me, but i am contemplating putting it right on the top. People like to see who the reader is, but its SOO big that it would push your posts down. MAYBE if you had the categories, it would not be so bad, of if you cut the paragraph down a sentences.. I don’t want to tell you to do it because I do not know how it would look, but it might just be some food for thought.

Why do you have the text GOOGLE ANALYTICS there? Remove it. It’s not doing you any good there right? Unless for some bizarre reason it NEEDS to be there, but I can not think of one.

Then, just see if you can put the “total blog directory” “Rate my blog” and the visitor count all on the same line. Instead of one on top of another making the blog even longer than it is.

Overall, you did a fantastic job a not killing your readers with ads and shiny graphics and such, but i feel that you are TOO bare!! You need to start adding graphics to posts. Graphics are eye catching and what make people click on things! Just look at the front of my page here!! Its loaded. You can check out deviantart.com for a bunch of free graphics that you can use in your blog. I love that site!!

So thats it. I hope that you can use most of my comments. The only other suggestion is add an actual contact page instead of just an email address if you can. All of this is tentative because you have the free blogger account and you do not have complete control. Do what you can to make it as user-friendly as possible.

I hope that this helps you, and if you need any help in making these changes, feel free to contact me. Its what i do.

Maybe you can take some of the donations you get and put it towards a hosted blog that you can completely customize on your own!

On my first impression, I noticed the black background. I typically do not like black backgrounds on websites in any way shape or form, but that is personal preference and does not reflect as a “bad design” I will just tell you why I personally do not like black backgrounds.

To me, a black background instantly makes a website look clutters. Much like if you were to paint your bedroom walls black, it makes it look dark and more cluttered, even if there is hardly anything there. You COULD have a black outter background, or a black background but put all of your content inside of grey or white boxes.

See these themes that are black or dark, but not cluttered looking:
darkblog
themebase blog

You can see that even creating a little bit of contrast can make a solid black blog look more organized. You can download free illustrator patters from deviantart.com that you can use as a tiled outer background, or you can use a solid color. I can see that you STARTED that way because you have some lines in the outer background, but maybe you can make them a little thicker, like in the other one. Then again, this is ALL just my personal preference. Also, having a black background makes those little social bookmarking chicklets look out of place, since they are made for white. Maybe you can put just those images inside of a table with a white background. Not entirely sure how that would look unless you added other white content or boxes, but it might make it look better.

I kind of like your gold on black look. Usually I would think it would look tacky, much like those giant Escalade Stretch Limo’s with gold spinners. But these colors match your theme, so I think that it works for you. But not for most

Your sidebar is pretty nice, however I would like to see the subscribe button stand out more. If you make it have a dark grey background, you would notice it more and be more inclined to click it. It has been proven that the act of making a button more appealing and more obvious will increase clicks on that particular button by about 30%. Thats a bunch of clicks!!

I think you should go into your CSS and change the color of links. The blue doesn’t match your them. Maybe change your CSS to yellow, or a darker version of yellow. Do not make it bright yellow, it will clash with the dark background. Maybe more of a yellowish brown to match your coin

On your sidebar, you should move the CONTACT ME above the entre card graphic, this way you have two 125x125px graphics next to each other and it will look more “even” Also, its nice to offer your email to your visitors, but it is an open door to spammers. Have you been getting a lot of spam in your email?

You have a LOT LOT LOT of text in your sidebar, between the latest posts and links, that’s a LOT to read. If you must keep all of that, i would align it left so it looks like a more organized list.

I would see if you can cut the number of recent posts to maybe 10. Top ten most recent entries is more than enough.

You have no categories. You absolutely need to separate your posts into categories. When someone visits your site and lands on you home page, you want them to be able to get to the content that they want to see within a click or two. Without categories, they reader needs to go through all of your pages. For instance, if someone came to your blog and wanted to read about your thoughts on Current Events, but they have to wade through all of your technical stuff about online storage and such.

What I am saying is, when I visit your site, I can’t really tell what it is about. Giving categories gives people a quick synopsis of what types of blog posts that you wrote. Personally, I am still not entirely sure what your blog is about because your title makes me think its about making money, but your posts are more like a person journal.

Finally, your footer can use some work. If you create a nice big boxed foot. Kind of like you see here.. You can keep that big sqaure advertisement you have there, and you can move your archives down there, and some other things so that you can make some space on your sidebar for other things.

I hope this helps you.. and Like i said. It is my opinion.

The overall theme of your site is nice and consistent. It matches with your content and can be easily recognized in advertisements and such. The design is nice and calming, and has good graphic quality.

The header is a very pretty image, but you should make it link to the home page. It is a habit for almost everyone to click a website’s banner to go back to the home page. I know I did it!! You do have a HOME link, but it’s not very obvious.

Which leads me to my next point. Those links in the widget in the right box for your pages:
Home
Forums
About
Contact
Would be better seen on the top bar right under the header. Unless you can think of a more creative way to show them. As of now, they blend in to your other sidebar content, and you kind of want your pages to look separate from your posts. Especially if you are trying to start a new community with a forum. If you can create a navigation bar under the header, that would be PERFECT. If you do not want to do that, maybe you can use some image or CSS buttons to make those links stand out more in that little side box that they are in now. BUT, people always look towards the top for pages, and to the right for categories.

Speaking of Categories. YOU DON’T HAVE ANY! You should consider a way to separate your posts into categories because this will make sure that your visitors only see what they are interested in, and don’t get a list of 10 posts that are unrelated to what they want, and one that is related, when in fact you have another 5 posts that they might like, but they are just pushed to page 6.

So when you add your categories, you should move them to the top. Or if you do not move your pages links, you can put the categories directly under the pages links.

I would maybe move the archives down and into your footer if you can. Or atleast you can move it further down the sidebar, but I would find it better in a footer because people don’t usually search your archives, they just search your categories.

Your links are kind of all over the place and you are using valuable sidebar space to post links to websites that are NOT yours. Unless they are making you money from clicks, or they are a website that you have traded links with, you might want to consolidate. For instance, your links to another blog that is very similar to yours. Why would you send people there? People are likely to go there and see all the activity on that well established blog, or yours that is new with a little activity. They might just choose to stay there. I would take out that link in particular.

I like your little welcome section on the top with your picture in it, however it looks like that is a larger picture crammed into a smaller space. Is it? See how it’s kind of not super clear, unless the picture looks that way full size, you should open the picture in a photo editor and resize it to be 125px x 125px. This way it will be a really nice picture of you.

Now I would also move your Subscription up a little. I think it’s important for people to see that, and it seems that it is kind of lost in the mix down there. Then again, you may not have to if you make the other changes. My subscription box on this website is kind of low on the list.

And you also have a LOAD of “friends” things and addons. I always think that when you have a lot of those, you are just desperate to show how popular you are. I think you are best off just adding the one that you use the most and get the most viewers from, and create a new web page called “My Friends/Visitors” and put the widgets that you remove on that page. This way people can see see them, but they are not taking up valuable space.

I would just keep the “recent viewers” and put everything else on the other page.

This way you also don;t have to confusion that is going on over the facebook widget. You have a heading that says COMMUNITY, then you see “already a member login” But i don’t know what I am logging in to because the facebook thing is right below it. I would create a little login to Lotus Essence graphic that makes it clear that they are logging is as a member of your website.

So I hope this helps. Again, these are my opinions, and you do NEED to do anything. They are just things that I find when I am personally surfing the net, and when i read feedback from other users on blogs and websites!!

My first impression is a good one. The site looks nice and clean and you have consistent colors and style through out. That means that when i see an image that has that style and color, I will think of you. And that includes advertisements, so you should make sure that your ads coincide with your colors and theme on your blog.

I like how the colors change when you click on the different categories, but you maintain consistency with the purple and design.

However, your navigation leaves a little to be desired. I commend you for not adding every widget on the plugins page, but i think you went almost TOO simple. I always look to the right for my categories, so it took me a minute to realize yours were on the top. But that’s ok, you do not have to change it. What you should consider is adding a featured post, most popular post, or some other list of your favorite posts on the side. Most people who land on a blog’s main page are going to scroll through your main page posts, and then if there’s nothing worth clicking, they will leave. But what if you have a blog that’s 2 weeks old that is AWESOME but got pushed off your main page? They will not be able to find it without going through all of the posts in that category, and chances are, they won’t know it’s there. So show off your good stuff!

Your writing is good, you need to get that across to people, and you really want them to see what you are capable of PAST your first page.

Ya know, I just had a thought. Keep your main categories on the top, but add a categories widget and allow it to show sub-categories. Then you can separate your content in each main category. Just from looking at your “computing” category, you have a LOT of good content, but it spreads SOO far across the different area of computing, that the category ends up useless. Create sub categories called “Windows OS” “Mac OS” “Fun Stuff” “Hardware” “Software” and do the same for the other categories. This way, people can choose and target directly where they want to go, and will be likely to see MORE articles that they want to read about. Maybe someone ONLY wants to read your posts based on windows, and they don’t really “get” the onion’s WHEEL video and they think it’s real. They click COMPUTING and there are 3 posts that are Windows based, and 5 that are Apple based. and the 2 that are windows based are something they aren’t interested. The one that they WANT to see is actually on page 4 of category “computing” The will not dig that far.

So I think with that addition, you will probably gain a lot interested readers that click further into your website than just the main page or main category page.

You can probably add one or two additional widgets of your choosing. Dont over do it though. Think about what is nessecary to keep readers. I would think that maybe a FEEDBURNER e-mail subscription widget (like I have here) would be a good addition. It helps your readers and does not clutter the screen in any way.

I would put your categories w/ sub categories on the top of the column, then the image ads, then your subscribe and then your adsense ads.

And you’re a computer VIXEN. Ever think of putting a little “About Me” page like I have here. When you are a girl and you like computers and are basically a self proclaimed “computer geek” then you should flaunt it. People like to see girls doing a typically “guy” thing. My sister is one of the hottest gamers i know, and the guys eat it up when she gets on Call of Duty and kicks the guy’s butts. If she told them that she had a blog, bet your BUT they would be on it. Add an “about me” page with some pictures. You can be a girl, flaunt it, AND still be taken seriously.

And ONE LAST THING you have NO contact page!! What if i wanted to contact you about one of your posts, or want to offer my services as a guest poster on your blog, or just want to contact you. You REALLY should have a contact page WITH an email form. I created a tutorial that you can use to create your own, or if you have wordpress, there is a good contact page plugin that I use on this blog.