Making a Blog that Doesn’t Suck Ass

Don't be this douche bag... Please!

CAP…4Luv 😉 – @cap4luv
RT @marybphoto: RT @Designrfix: Complete Guide to Creating a Blog Website Layout http://t.co/IZzZpZ0E

Not a bad start, if you ask me.

On occasion we're asked, by random people, what we think about their blog and such. We try to help out where we can of course. We're not experts, but we've been doing this for a few years and have had a small amount of success doing what we do. I figured I'd share an email I wrote, long ago, to a start up blogger who asked for some advice.

I should preface this by saying they were running their blog on Blogger and the site looked like what would happen if they were ib a date with Rosie O'Donell, ate split pea soup, ingested a Grateful Dead shirt and vomited. In other words, it wasn't pretty.

Hello there,

Thanks for reaching out to us at the Urban Dater and all that good stuff. I spent some time looking over your site and read some of your articles and I do have some constructive feedback for you.

First off, the content is very solid, very solid. I like it. I would say the one thing that is not a problem is your content. Keep it up, it's obvious the two of you play well with one another. I see good things coming, if you both can keep the momentum going. That you get a lot of comments is also great! =) So, really, you don't need a lot of help there.

I guess, if I had to give more constructive feedback it would be the layout of the site. These are just my opinions and certainly are not blogging “law.” Hopefully these suggestions are useful to you both as you establish yourselves. =)

• Not trying to be mean, but overall, I'm not a fan of the layout. The stark contrast of colors between the font and the black background feels like I'm getting a sharp stick in the eye.
• At the top of your site is your bio; that's fine, but I don't agree with it's placement. THe most important thing about your site is what? Your content! That's what people will keep coming back for. So if it's possible to push down the bio, below the content, or simply put it on another page and link to it from a navigation menuI know you're on blogger, so that may limit the themes that you have access to, but I would take a look for something that is easier on the eyes, if possible. One other note, is that the average visitor to any website focus their attention on the top 1/3rd of any given page they visit, thus it is important to place important content there.
• And as a general rule, I'm not a fan of dark backgrounds, if I didn't already make that clear. =) Examples of similar blogs I like, for design aesthetics: badonlinedates.tv, metanotherfrog.com and simonegrant.com/blog. One sight that is an exception to this rule is Memoirs of a Single Dad, what they do over there is pretty awesome.
• Is there any reason that you're not using another blogging platform such as wordpress.org, squarespace or typepad? Each of those solutions offers a more robust platform to blog on; each is highly configurable and provides a number of tools that can help you further build your audience. Many of these tools help you publish your content across many social networks automatically, many of which are not available through Blogger. If you're serious about this, look at the platforms I mentioned, yes some of them cost money, but your project is worth the investment.
• Get on Twitter. Seriously.

Again, thank you for reaching out. We're flattered that you would ask for our feedback and we appreciate your kind words. Truly