Drive-by-Shooting Sunday: Yes to Me

“Water, water everywhere…” Harry chanted from time to time, longing for a drink but knowing the salt in the ocean wouldn’t help the dehydration he felt. And who knew how long they’d be adrift?

The ocean stretched for miles in every direction. After last week’s hit on the deserted island, there was nothing to look at but water and the sun beating down on their backs. The only thing the boys could do was stay under the shade of the tarp they’d rigged to the mast and pray the current brought them somewhere near civilization.

“Hey, what’s that?” James squinted at the horizon, shielding his eyes against the burning sun with one hand. The sun had bleached his hair so pale that he almost didn’t look like himself – and he needed a shave.

“Dunno,” Harry muttered, feeling sick from the motion of the waves, his skin peeling from days of sunburn. “Maybe you’re hallucinating.”

“No, seriously, I think it’s a ship!” The raft lurched as Jamie jumped to his feet, and with it lurched Harry’s empty stomach. James frantically waved his arms. “HEY! Ici, calisse!! We’re over here!”

Harry lifted his head, a wash of relief running over him at the site of the ship turning their way. It looked like paradise.

Today’s hit is for Yes to Me, the blog of Akashic record reader Akemi Gaines. Here’s what the site looked like when we drove by:

In less than an hour, the boys were rescued, safe, sound and living in luxury on some Japanese billionaire’s yacht, the Yes To Me. But for all that it was a sleek white and grey behemoth of the sea, the decks were cluttered. Everywhere you turned, there were signs, all clamoring for attention.

“I’m tired of reading.” James rubbed his eyes, disturbing the valet that was trying to shave off a scratchy beard. “I’m surprised the razor doesn’t have something written on it.”

“It does.” Harry grinned and pointed at the words carved into the mahogany handle. His teeth looked bright white against the deep tan he’d earned adrift. Even worse was the pale skin his freshly-shaven jaw showed off. “I thought you liked to read.”

“Hey.” James shot a dirty look Harry’s way. “Even I like a break.”

That clutter is hurting the site. What strikes us most is that there’s a great deal of text in various columns and blocks, and a very quick glance makes it difficult to know what this site is about.

The banner does have a tagline in it, but I think that it needs to be clearer why the site is called “yes to me”. What does that mean? Yes to whom? To you as a blog owner? To me as a reader? And why yes? What’s the relevance of that? Is it about gifting oneself? And if so, with what?

They’d expected vivid tropical drinks and people dressed in Hawaiian shirts, but the guests on the yacht seemed pale and wan. No one was tanned, and no one wore anything bright.

“There’s not a lot of color around here,” James eyed the décor. White, white and more white, punctuated by blue and the occasional grey.

“Yeah, no one seems splashy,” Harry eyed a woman passing by, her grey and white dress blending into the yacht’s color scheme perfectly. “I’ll be glad to get back home and paint the walls or something.”

Blending in seems to be what this site’s theme is, but it truly lacks color and impact to make it attractive. Give it some pizzaz, brighten up the banner. There isn’t a focal point for the eye to land on, and that makes it difficult to want to linger on the site.

The color scheme isn’t really working. There’s too much white and blue going on, which makes it difficult to know where to read next. The site comes off as too pale and bland. Give it some color punch to be more appealing.

The grey text also brings the site down and gives it a ghosty, quiet feeling. Make that a standard black to be easily readable and look more solid – you don’t want to come off as misty but rather authoritative.

The eye is drawn to the post picture and the picture of you – which is okay, but not really necessary, because it doesn’t really help the visitor orient on what the site offers. The tagline does help describe the site a little, but it’s not enough and you need some benefit-rich weight to it. What does this site give? Why is it here? What will visitors take away from it?

That text is good, though – it gives the reader a clearer purpose of what this site offers and what it’s about. We’d highlight it some way though, so that it’s more visible, perhaps by having a border around it. It may also be a good idea to have your picture beside the text instead of below it.

After drinks, a refreshing meal, and admiring the yacht owner’s photo hung on the wall, the boys went for a walk to wander around the yacht. James touched everything, opening cabin doors and poking his head in here and there.

“At least we can find our way around,” he mentioned, glancing into some anteroom off the starboard side. “Someone was smart enough to make sure we wouldn’t get lost.”

“It’s a little amazing we even found them,” Harry gazed around, just grateful to be off the raft.

Finding your site may be a challenge for site visitors, though. You do have meta data going on, thanks to the All-in-One SEO pack, but that could definitely be improved. The meta description could have a better, benefit-rich text to attract readers and the SEO keywords could be more targeted and less vague. You’re competing with a lot of blogs, remember, so be specific.

“Well, it’s hard to get lost here,” James winced at yet more text written on the wall.

“That’s for sure.” Harry looked around at the signs hung all over the place. He was so tired of reading he almost wanted to look away. At least there were clear labels on doors and they found their rooms easily – after walking by them twice.

The navigation bar is clear and visible, but it tends to be overlooked because of all the text going on – the title tags just looks like more text, really. If you cut down on some of the content happening and add some color focus, people will notice it more.

There’s also no “Contact” in your navigation, which may prevent people from getting in touch to hire you or share their stories. Contact information shouldn’t really be in the About section and should have its own place.

There was a library on board, which both men enjoyed, and they spent a while perusing books. A pamphlet for Akashic Readings on the table earned a glance, but neither man picked it up to read more.

The banner ad isn’t going to encourage click throughs. The text doesn’t tell people why they should click or what the ad offers. Make it personal and less general, and use the content to sell something, not just describe something.

A description won’t attract sales, but a sales pitch will. “Your Akashic Reading to Know Your Past Life” or “Discover Your Past and Enhance Your Future” or something like that would be best.

Also, if you want to sell your services, have a page in your navigation for it. Even though you have another site devoted to the readings (which people can find by clicking the banner ad), you should also promote the service on this blog. Don’t lose your chance at sales.

“Books.” James sniggered and pointed to the sign above the selection the library held.

Harry grinned back. “I know what you’re thinking… So what?”

So what, indeed. Having an “Ebooks” page is great, but have a better title that tells people what kind of ebooks. It’s clear as is, yes, but almost too clear and thus, boring. How about “Helpful Ebooks?” Just that one extra word punches it up for visitors. Also, switch page placement with “Resources” to give “Ebooks” more importance.

On your “Resources” page, you have helpful books chosen from Amazon, but if a visitor doesn’t bother to scroll down the page, he or she will never see them, and you lose opportunity. We’d put those books above the blogroll selection you have, specifically because these books seem more relevant and offer income-earning potential.

“This looks good.” Harry leafed through a magazine, reading some selections. “Too bad there isn’t a card to sign up for a subscription.”

“Yes there is.” James reached down to pick up the small piece of paper that had drifted to the ground when Harry opened the magazine. “You missed it, that’s all.”

It’s easy to miss that RSS button, small as it is and placed lower down in the sidebar. We’d move the RSS up and place it where the About You text in your sidebar is located.

Also in the sidebar, take a look at your Categories widget. Because your navigation doesn’t contain Archives or Categories, you need to place more prominence on your Categories, so move that up to be as close to above the fold as possible.

We’d move the Best Of and Recent Posts to the left sidebar versus the right so that the eye gives it more importance. Put the least important content far right. We’d also limit the number of links to 5, because otherwise there’s just too many links and text to bother with.

A small donations box near the door of the library gained a few coins from Harry, and he held out a hand for James to empty his pockets, too. Incredible that they still had money left after their voyage on the raft, but between the two of them, they’d managed to hang onto some of the loose change.

That’s when James noticed the poster asking for real life stories. “Hey! We should submit ours,” he leaned forward to read. “Castaways on a raft? No hope of rescue? People would love that.”

Harry just grunted. “I think Tom Hanks broke the bank with that one a few years back. Try again.” Yeah, it had been a long day, and all he wanted now was to get some sleep in a real bed.

The donation section in your sidebar is a nice touch. But the Share With Us should be above your commitment to pledge money. I believe from past communication that you want to attract attention and grow your blog, so offer people a chance to contribute and place that call to action in a location they’ll see it easily.

The little Web Hosting button can go, though. It doesn’t come off as a professional service, lacking a company name, and probably isn’t encouraging many click-throughs regardless. It’s also not really a relevant service to your blog, so save the screen space.

The sidebar selections are good. All you need is a little organization and it’ll present itself better. Change the font color overall to be black over grey, and add some color to give the site a bit more of a snazzy look. Quiet and peaceful is nice, but there is such a thing as too quiet.

And too quiet was what the yacht was that night, the sound of gentle lapping waves soothing both men to sleep. No killing today. Today was about survival and the future.

But tomorrow… it would be business as usual. And the guns were waiting.

Want more? You got it. Check out the lineup of upcoming hit jobs:

August 31 – LitGuides
September 7 – Miramar Mike 2.0
September 14 – Green Plan(t)
September 21 – Fawnskin Flyer
September 28 – Forty Plus Two
October 5 – The Enhance Life
October 12 – Creative Texture Tools
October 19 – Ulla Hennig’s Weblog
October 26 – Simplistic Thoughts
November 2 – Positioning Strategy
November 9 – Sushi Day
November 16 – The D Spot Redux
November 23 – The Antisocial Social Worker
November 30 – Writer Dad

Want your blog shot down? Sign up in the comment section for your free drive-by, and we’ll schedule you in. Or hit us up for a private drive-by via email. It’s only $30, and you’ll get your shoot-out within a week.

Come on. You know you wanna.

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