Comments on BlogCoach: Grow Your Blog: Critique This Blog #6: Mama Sparkles

Some good advice here already. I love the appeara...

2008-08-17T23:44:00.000-04:00

Some good advice here already. I love the appearance and layout. I did notice that it loaded a bit slowly for me too.

I've only been blogging for about 3.5 months so take my advice with a grain of salt, but I have found that the more I engage myself in other people's blogs by reading and leaving thoughtful comments, the more visitors that I get to my own site. I've just recently started receiving comments on my two blogs - all from people I don't know at all. It's been fun.

Even though I can see in Google Analytics that I'm getting traffic, without comments, I swear I hear crickets chirping.

I like the look of the site.. attractive.

2008-08-15T22:46:00.000-04:00
I like the look of the site.. attractive.

One thing I would do to get more comments is to simply try to engage readers more through your writing. Tell them what you want them to do, challenge them to do things, ask them questions. Think of your blog as a conversation rather than as a website.

Hello,

I popped over to your blog and here ...

2008-08-15T13:46:00.000-04:00

Hello,

I popped over to your blog and here are a few of my observations:

#1. I really liked the condiments post. I like posts done in this style. Someone that also does it really well is Scribbit. Here is an example:
http://scribbit.blogspot.com/2008/08/ridiculous-car-names.html

I am not including the example to say you should write like her but just to show you what I mean. It's just a recap of neat to know things. I LOVE stuff like that!

#2. While I LOVE the rich blue color of your header and little sidebar decorations. The patterned border and the busy-ness of the header hurt my eyes. It might be cleaner to use that colour as a solid somehow. But, I do realize the name of your blog is Mama SPARKLES so it does fit. Might be just a personal preference for me.

#3 I would also recommend losing Mr. Linky. I feel kind of bad for the lonely little Mr. Linky's with only 2 or 3 links. I would like to try a Mr. Linky, too, but I'm afraid I don't have enough traffic to make much of a go of it. Perhaps once you have a bit more traffic and you work out a great plan to publicize your Mr. Linky on other blogs.

Thanks for putting your blog up for a review!

Take care and best of luck to you:)

Trixie

Hi everyone, thanks for all your comments so far! ...

2008-08-15T11:43:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone, thanks for all your comments so far! I agree with the Mr.Linky thing. Thursday Thoughts is something I just started doing. I've been wondering if I should get rid of that since nobody really uses it. Thanks also for the advice on shortening paragraphs. Sometimes I get really excited about sharing something that I love and I'll start to ramble - like with the comic books. They are GREAT books for both kids and adults and ones that a lot of people have never heard of, but no point in writing about them if nobody's reading my review!

I've also just started playing around with the idea of assigned topics. For example Monday and Tuesday I've been doing product reviews/giveaways, then Wordless Wednesday, Thursday Thoughts and Fridays I keep free to post about whatever I want. Do you think it would be a good idea to write this schedule somewhere and let readers know about it?

Thanks again to everyone who commented. Keep it coming!

I love the main header, but I think your sidebar h...

2008-08-15T11:17:00.000-04:00

I love the main header, but I think your sidebar headers are a little big and take the eye away from the content in the middle. I would suggest going to one sidebar, perhaps having the sidebar headers on just one side and then the main post text wider would bring more attention to what you're writing.

I don't think you need archives and a categories list. I think the categories is much more useful, so maybe just keep that.

As for content, I agree with previous comments that suggest getting rid of the Mr. Linky for now. Tell readers that if they'd like to do a post of their own, they can link to it in the comments. If you start getting lots of people commenting with their own links, bring back Mr. Linky. I do think it's a good weekly feature to get people commenting, though. One way to keep people coming back might be to assign a posting topic to each day. Have one day dedicated to product reviews, another for household or parenting tips, and another free for all random day. This way readers would know what to expect and have a reason to come back.

I love your design!

I'm not sure that you...

2008-08-15T10:47:00.000-04:00

I love your design!

I'm not sure that your content matches your "about." From the "about" section, I'd think it was just another mommy blog, but from the content it seems that you have a pattern of postings--Wordless Wednesdays (which I'd keep truly wordless instead of adding a sentence about them, but that's just me); random thoughts (the description of that section seems long to me, but I like the random thoughts); comic book info; some really neat products for moms and babies; and some other things here and there. It's much more than a blog about you being a mom, IMO.

Other than that, I don't have a lot of suggestions. Be sure to put something in your "favorites" section--I hate seeing "under construction notices"-- and maybe add me to your blogroll? (Just kidding!)

I don't know why you're getting a lot of comments; it might just be that you're providing information that's useful but doesn't create a lot of controversy and/or discussion. I'd worry more about the return visitors than the comment counts. Do a lot of visitors come from your giveaways? I wonder if those would be a lot of your non-returning visitors. They're starting to list blog giveaways on sweepstakes listing sites so those will be some pretty fickle visitors.

Keep up the good work, keep your content high, and concentrate on enjoying what you're doing!

Hi Marissa,

I like the header and your colo...

2008-08-15T08:45:00.000-04:00

Hi Marissa,

I like the header and your color choices. It seems like you don't really see a lot of blogs with blues in them, so that sticks out for me.

You have your navigation bar with your about me, contact information, links, blogroll etc so I would lose those sections on the sidebars. Then you could make the main column wider which would make the readibility better. You also don't need to have the comments enabled for those areas, move them to the posts.

As for your posts, they're long, but that's not a bad thing. But you might want to think about bolding the important information and using shorter paragraphs so that the information sticks better. I know that I remember that you talked about three books in the ComCon post, but I don't really know what you said.

I would lose the Mr Linky feature. For example, I would leave a comment on the Thursday thoughts posts, but I would never post something on my own blog because it's not really something that fits in with my subject matter and because I have enough trouble sticking to my own niche as it is.

I had my blog critiqued last week, and I got so much out of it! Good luck, I hope (know) you'll find the same help.

I loved the Thursday thoughts, but would not use M...

2008-08-15T08:34:00.000-04:00

I loved the Thursday thoughts, but would not use Mr. Linky until you have a lot of readers participating. I would probably just ask readers to respond in the comments with their random thoughts and post the most random one the next week along with your new thought.

The first thing I noticed when I clicked over is t...

2008-08-15T08:28:00.000-04:00

The first thing I noticed when I clicked over is that the site took longer to load than most blogs. (I am using Firefox.)

Also, I just read the posts that are on your main page, but as far as why comments aren't left, you don't typically invite the comments. Except in your contests of course.

I just skimmed the ComicCon post, I started reading it, but felt it was too long for a subject that didn't interest me. That doesn't mean you shouldn't blog about it, but I'm not sure how much the average mommy blogger wants to know about comic book conventions.

I would recommend trying to have a discussion with your readers with each post. (I need to follow my own advice too!) Good luck!