Today we're critiquing the blog, Skip to My Lou. Since early 2007, blogger Cindy has been sharing her ideas for crafts, family celebrations, and memory-making.
Cindy has several great, specific questions for you:
- Do you find the site attractive and professional looking?
- Is the site easy to navigate?
- Can you think of something you would like to see on Skip to my Lou?
- Would you visit again? Why/Why not? What would bring you back again and again to Skip to my Lou?
- While the site has good traffic (over 2,000 hits per day) there not a large commenting community? What makes you want to leave a comment? Do you see this as a problem?
- Do you find the ads bothersome? Would you click on the ads?
- Would you be willing to pay $0.99 to download some of the patterns and templates. What is the most you would pay?
- Would you rather subscribe and pay a monthly/yearly fee to access all downloads?
- I would also love to hear your overall impression of my blog.
- Lay it one me, I am ready to move to the next level and would love to hear some constructive criticism to make Skip to my Lou the place you go to for inspiration, craft ideas, recipes, fun activities, sewing tutorials and holiday celebration ideas.
- Do you like giveaways? Which products are most enticing?
15 comments:
I'll take a crack at the one thing I'd like...
-- Feedburner! I'm not much on reading feeds. I personally want the update in my email.
-- Add a tagline to the header. Until I looked around I wasn't sure what the blog's niche was
-- I would have happily linked to you with a button but you didn't have one.
Clean, sleek, adorable site with inspiring ideas for just about anyone. The free downloads are a great help to those of us who want to work on a new project and just print the instructions. Great idea!
You have way more right than wrong or or out of place in my opinion.
Best of luck with continued success!
Ginger
I agree about having a tagline so that readers can immediately pick up on what the site's about.
Also agree that it's adorable.
As a graphic designer myself, i found it very pleasing to the eyes :) I get a "nice and happy" vibe from it all.
- The only thing i would suggest, besides the tagline one, is maybe highlighting the "contact", "about", etc links...they kinda look like adsense to me and i almost didn't even click on them. Enlarging them would help a bit, or even creating cool little icons for them.
- For creating more discussion on the site, maybe throw out some cool questions or ask for what people would like to see? That way they are brought into your world more :)
- I'm not too sure about giveaways, but i'd imagine it wouldn't hurt trying it out just once and then re-evaluating?
- the ads didn't bother me at all...in fact, i enjoyed seeing them! nicely designed and felt like a "real" blog/website if that makes sense?
SO yeah, i dig.
Me again.
I feel like the heirarchy of the sidebar is a little uncertain. The paid sponsors are disrupting the flow for me (although I understand the need to keep those ads front and center).
Maybe the "more ideas" list could be moved underneath the email sub form since that's VERY useful for your readers.
With regard to encouraging more comments, I find that I get great response when I ask a question directly to reader at the end of a post.
Do I find the ads annoying? Not at all. I do find that some of the more brightly-colored ones detract from your content since your color scheme is more muted. (ex. nvoke, better home interiors)
Pay for downloads? I think a pay-per-download system would work better than a subscription. That said, if I were going to pay, I'd want to be getting something I couldn't get from another source. Your downloads would need a little something extra!
Giveaways: I think giveaways of handmade stuff on your site would be awesome!
I LOVE your site- you manage to bring together a bunch of fantastic ideas.
I don't think the low comment rate is a problem; what are people really going to be saying- great pattern? Love the design? I didn't even miss it when looking at your site.
I found that the ads blended too well. I couldn't really tell what was an ad or what was just a button for a site that you like. I clicked on them all, and had fun bouncing around, but will probably never buy something from them. Maybe Google Ads? Or Google Search?
I don't know if I would pay for a download, but maybe if you put together a whole bunch of stuff in an ebook. I think people are reluctant to pay for stuff on the web, but once they break through that barrier and get out the credit card then the amount doesn't matter, within reason.
Your design is fun. I definitely agree though that you need a tagline as your title Skip to my Lou doesn't tell us what you blog about so a tagline might help that. As for the downloads, I love the idea that the previous commenter mentioned of an ebook. Maybe an ebook for each season/holiday that comes complete with projects, patterns and templates.
Anyway hope that helps!
Laura
I am not a big fan of link farms which is waht this site strikes me as,sorry! I would suggest putting the links to other blogs you traded with and blog promotion sites , on the end of the page of your blog! You need content to your site as is why I vist a page, not to find other sites I can visit! I would concentrate on your writing, as a blog really is supposed to be an online journal and a piece of literature! Good luck.
"as a blog really is supposed to be an online journal and a piece of literature!"
I'm afraid I have to disagree. The definition of "blog" is constantly in flux. Many of the great blogs out there deviate from the "online journal" format.
She needs to move up the "choice of holidays/events" section to the top above the advertisers.
She should only promote one advertiser per type (i.e. only one blog designer).
I like the scissors & dashes.
She needs a dividing line (vertical) between her column/blog posts and her side bar. This is only due to the fact that she has soo many pictures that my eyes don't stay focused.
Lovely header.
Nice jeans purse/wallet thing.
I am a frequent Skip to My Lou visitor. The ideas are great! If a button was available I'd post it on my site. I know Tip Junkie and SITS have them, but I thought they were ads there, so I didn't want to take one.
Definitely add a tag line.
If you have a "personal" blog, you should link to it.
The ads don't bother me at all, but you might want to consider making the font for your contents list larger so it stands out.
If you had a left hand sidebar, you could put ads in 1 and table of contents/blog stuff in the other.
I would be more apt to pay .99 for a download than I would pay 5.00 for a grouping. That's just me.
Maybe there aren't a lot of comments because people see this blog as more of a "busines", in that you are sharing ideas, but not necessarily looking for ideas. Maybe a poll asking why people visit your site would help, or a post asking what types of crafting ideas they'd like to see in the future.
Love the scissors & dotted line. Also the little icons in the table of contents.
Overall, this is a beautiful, easy to navigate blog! As I said, I am a frequent visitor!
Not looking at anyone's comments first, so pardon any duplication:
I can see why you'd love comments. You put a lot of time into doing (and photographing) your projects. Some feedback would be helpful! I've seen people "beg" for feedback on scrapbook download sites, but I don't know that that's the best way to go about it. I also don't think a lack of feedback means people don't find your work valuable. Most people just aren't consistent commenters.
I love your categories for different holidays. That is something that would keep me coming back to your site, but they're buried pretty far down the page so people might miss them amongst the ads. (Hey, did that just move while I was typing this?)
Do you have a tagline that describes what your blog is all about? It's not apparent from your title. That might help people as well.
Your site is very pleasing to look at. Nice colors, looks professional.
You have a LOT of ads. They seem to be relevant, but there are a lot of them. ;-) If I were a crafter, I'd probably click on some of them.
As far as paying for patterns, I don't know. For your sake, it would be great if people would pay, but can they find something similar for free elsewhere if they look hard enough? If you're charging and others aren't, it might actually lessen your traffic. Tough call. You deserve to be paid for your creativity.
I'm tired, and I'm sure you've gotten good comments already, so I'm going to stop now. I really do like the look of your site. Good luck with its future!
It looks like you have already made some changes! :) I really think your site is cute and I'm bookmarking it! If I need craft ideas it appears to be a good craft blog.
One suggestion, on your contact page, maybe put a contact form in there! If you have twitter, or any other social networking, add that there!
Not sure if I would pay for patterns, I like freebies! :)
Overall, a very nice site! :)
I like the site, and agree about the tag line, color, feel.
However, I have to disagree about the scissors and dashes. Though it fits with the crafty scheme, it made me wonder whether I should print the page and cut there. Perhaps something a little more graphic, such as the scissors actually in the page and making the bottom look like its peeling away.
I'd refer you to the book "Don't make me think" which is about usability, and would push you away from the current graphic which is ambiguous.
Also, on the different boxes you're displaying and linking to other sites, if its not coming from you, I'd put in "via Jane Craft" to keep it clear that users are getting the download from another site. That way they can decide whether they want to trust that site or not.
Overall, good marks.
I agree that the About, etc.tabs could use more pizazz; they do resemble Adsense links.
I love your fun masthead, especially the wagon and i really like the name of your blog.
As for comments, do you ask folks to let you know how the projects work for them? Maybe readers will come back after trying something you suggest.
Very fun site and solved a problem for me today: too many crayons in my life!!
What came to mind was how narrow it was and how the next post was too far to the left, but I am used to blogger I suppose.
I love the things that have been made.
I think doing something like the blog Little Jenny Wren may work. Little commentaries.
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