What Sucks Most About My Blog Contest
December 22, 2006
Hurray! I’ve finally launched a new look to Money Smart Life! I know you readers spend hours a day staring at personal finance blogs so you know the ropes.
The Rules
Let me know what sucks most about my blog by leaving a comment. I’ll turn the comments into constructive criticism by making changes so it doesn’t suck (as bad)! Whichever suggestion or comment leads to the biggest improvement, according to me, will win Quicken 2006 Premier Home & Business personal finance software. I’ll announce the winner next Saturday, 12/30.
About the Prize
The extra CD of this software I purchased on eBay by accident six months ago is sitting in my desk drawer. Why not put it to good use? It is the CD only, no instruction manual or box. I look forward to hearing what sucks most 
When your site comes up, there is a huge blank area where there article should be. Once you scroll down, you can see the article. Also, the colors are bland - too much white and the orange & blue at the top look tacky. There is the white column on the left side and gray on the right…this gives an unbalanced look to the site. Best wishes on a new look!
I’m using Safari right now to view your site, and the “Ask Questions. Be an Entrepreneur.” is under the line.
As a reader, I would like to see the categories up higher. Perhaps above the discussion section. Right now, though, the categories are not coming up (just the category).
You have a nice about page. It’s shows your vision with your blog and let’s readers know a little bit more about you.
The “What’s New” section has a different font size than the rest of the sections. I actually like the smaller font - it’s cleaner.
Right sidebar has some gray behind it. I would match that background to the left sidebar.
Overall, thinking about what I read in the about page, I do not feel your template matches you very well. The template is sort of blah, but your about page has lots of energy. I don’t feel that energy when looking at your site design. It’s a hard thing to really describe, so I hope you understand where I’m getting at with this
Are you Ukranian in descent? I was a big follower of the Orange Revolution there and thus I became very familiar with the colors of the Ukranian flag… which almost perfectly match your chosen colors of orange and blue.
Don’t be surprised if some visitors believe you are a Ukranian blogger, because I’ve seen almost identically colored headers on Ukranian political blogs.
I see a few issues:
First and foremost, your related posts error. If you have access to phpMySQLAdmin (through your webhost or what not) then you will need to apply the following sql query to your database (Note that you should DEFINATELY back up your database before running this!):
ALTER TABLE `wp_posts` ADD FULLTEXT `post_related` (`post_name` , `post_content`)That will create your full text index that it needs to do its matches.
Second, there is no seperation between your RSS button and your search box areas. You have “Daily Updates”, the button, and then “Find it Fast”, which all seem like they are related to one another. Then you have the search box. It took me a moment to recognize that find it fast applied to the search box. You might want to throw a horizontal rule or a little bit of white space between them so that a new visitor to your site taht is not really internet or computer savvy won’t be confused.
Third, I really like the look. Your title at the top, “Money $mart Life”, links to your home page which is good. However, your subtitle, “Enjoy Life. Build Wealth. Start Today!” does not link to anything. I would apply a style to keep it the same exact look as it has now, but make it link either to your home page or to an article that is exactly about that very concept or has an introduction to the blog or your website. It would make a great organic link to a pillar article, and it looks like it should be clickable already.
Great placement for the ad at the top to get people to this post. That’s a good example of what I am talking about for point 3 there.
Fourth point, I would make your link in the footer next to your copyright notice point to either your terms of usage page (if you have one) or to your contact page (which I know you have). You do not really need a link to the home page there, and it could serve as a useful way to get to something relevant that somebody reading your copyright notice would want to get at.
My 8 cents. All in all, I like the look.
I have one more thing to add to the list, and this really bugged the hell out of me:
When posting a comment, I was asked to fill in a captcha. The captcha was on a blank white page with nothing else. I would rather see at least the colors from your site to know that I was not moved off site to somewhere else.
The worst thing, though, was that after filling it out, I am given a message that my comment was approved, but I am not given any way to return to your site. Hitting the back button means I see my comment in the text boxes and not in the article, and I would rather have something to click than to have to come back. Normally on sites like that I just close the window and stop browsing.
Thanks for the comments so far, very helpful! Tricia, thanks for mentioning what browser you’re using, very useful. No I’m not Ukranian, I guess just a coincidence.
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I’ve got an Amazon gift certificate burning holes in my pocket,
and I want to get the most bang for my buck.
Enter the Secret Amazon Web Pages:
http://bargains-hunter.blogspot.com/2007/10/how-to-find-bargains-at-amazons-secret.html
Amazon Secret Web Pages
This is where you’re going to find the “latest sales, rebates, and limited-time offers” from
Amazon, and you can score some pretty deep discounts if you’re a savvy shopper.
Next, there’s the special Sale link. This is open every Friday, and ONLY on Fridays.
You can find the same good discounts here as you would in hidden Deals, although some
Fridays you can really get lucky and make off like an Amazon bandit - I’ve seen discounts
there as low as 75% off sticker price.
Everything is fine. Don’t listen to those who says it’s bad)))