Drive-by-Shooting Sundays: Blog Badly

Silence. It was the only sound the two men heard. Not the ominous, alive silence that signified small animals hid or the coming of a crash. Not the silence of last week’s hit, that had been alive and was no more.

No, this silence was thick and dead. There was nothing alive here.

James toed the victim at his feet, giving it a nudge as if the creature would possibly rise and show life. But there was none. They were too late.

“It’s happening often,” he crouched, knees splayed and arms resting on his thighs so that his hands dangled. Observant eyes looked at the victim who lay there, aloofly picking out small clues – but no answers. “Too often,” he added.

“That’s the cycle of nature,” Harry stood looking down. He understood such things. “Maybe we’ll figure out why it happened this time if we take a closer look.”

Today’s drive-by consult is for Blog Badly, the blog of Max Miroff. Here’s a glance at the site at the time of the hit:

(click image to enlarge)

The last post of the site is April 19, so we’re not sure if this blog is active or not, and the site owner hasn’t replied to our contact yet. We hope everything’s okay, Max, and that you’ll be back. When you do come back, you’ll at least have something to read.

The banner of the site is okay. It’s plain, a little blurry and a little crowded. We’d like to see it cleaned up a little so that the definition is sharper and give everything a bit more space on the height to not come off so looking and jammed.

The banner has Adsense right in the visitor’s face, and that looks a little tacky. It could be an effective location, though, so if it’s working for you, leave the Adsense where it is. If you’re only getting a meal for two once a month, ditch it. Fast.

The tagline in the banner means something to us, sure. “Like Problogger, but Funny.” We know Problogger. Does your average site user? That’s debatable. If it’s meaningless, then it’s no good. Changing it to something like, “Advice for Probloggers, But Funny” might be okay. Not great, but okay.

The short “About Us” you have going on helps very much to identify what the site is about – a blog that educates about blogging in a humorous manner – but it’s written in damned small font and should be right justified.

The navigation looks fine with clear labels. Everyone knows where they’re going.

There’s a lot of crowded bling going on, and it’s degrading the visual quality of the site. Clashing colors, in-your-face images… There’s quite a bit you could rearrange and help yourself look better.

First of all, take away that blue background behind your advertisers and email opt-in. Keep the space white; your site needs it. Your advertisers will like you better, too, because their squares will be more visible.

We’d bring up that RSS button and stick that where it belongs: in the right-hand top corner. You could then move the email subscription opt-in down just a touch and have the About Us text appear only over that in a neat little square.

Since your RSS button would be gone, you could use the space for your Categories Widget. Even better, if you got rid of the Random Page button, you could effectively move up your Recent Posts widget, which is WAY down on the page and out of sight.

We hate Entrecard, so unless that’s working for you, push it way, way down the page or get rid of it completely. That’s just more cheap bling that you really don’t need.

At the time that we reviewed your blog, your Top Commentators widget was showing one commentator. Fix that to show more people, because the perception is that you don’t have a busy site.

Remove the Archives Widget and have an Archives in your navigation instead to make it easy to find and clear up some space on your blog.

Also, move your BlogRoll widget way down. Giving people links to keep them on the site is more important than giving them links to go somewhere else.

We have no idea what that BlogUpp widget is about. James had fun hovering back and forth over each image for about five minutes, and that was it. Ditch it. It’s a toy. You can also remove that “Rate my Blog” thingy, unless it gives you brownie points somewhere.

There’s Adsense again… *sigh*… But like we mentioned above, Adsense may be working for you. Keep if it is, ditch if it isn’t.

The News Feed is another thing that we’re not crazy about, but we understand that it may serve some purpose, so… yeah.

A suggestion we’ll make about the blog posts themselves is to keep the content up high and put the image lower down. When people hit the site, all they see are images. Give them something to read. Give them links. Give them a freakin’ reason to stay on your site, dude.

If you trim images to be smaller and tuck them in a corner of each post, you can feature some content above the fold. Alternatively, keep your first paragraph above the image and insert the image before your second paragraph. It breaks up the post but at least gives people something to read.

Basically, your blog needs a good cleanup and a rescue from the land of tacky. You’re tipping the scales in that direction, so remove some stuff and reorganize your widgets to give people content and links to read your blog.

“You know,” James spoke quietly, his tone thoughtful, “I think sometimes the dead come back to life.” He said nothing for a few seconds but then turned his head, looking up at his friend. “It’s a good thought, isn’t it?”

“Sure it is,” Harry answered just as quietly and just as seriously. Temporary hiatuses happened all the time. Real life kept people busy. “Come on. We’ve done our job. Other hits are waiting.”

Want more? You got it. Check out our upcoming hit jobs:

May 11 – Ghost Blogging

May 18 – Rhodester

May 25 – Technosyncrocity

June 1 – Book Club Classics

Update: Ghost Blogging has requested a pass, so all others in line move up a week. Surprise!

Is your blog next? Are you ready to see how many hits it takes? Sign up in the comment section for your free drive-by, and we’ll schedule you in.

Or maybe you can’t wait. Maybe you like private affairs. Hire us for your drive-by. For only 25$, you get your private consult shoot-out within five days via email. It’s fast, it’s easy, it’s objective and it’s dirt cheap.

Contact us. Come on. You know you want to.

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