When we first had the idea for this, we weren’t quite aware of the amount of response that we were going to receive, it’s been overwhelming to say the least. Since going through roughly 100 website, it’s clear to me from the wide variety of sites, that we already have a bunch of tutorials written that will help people, so we will try to link you where possible. Going through the list provided some great insights, and took a while to complete, but hopefully the selection that I’ve chosen will help you, even if I haven’t chosen your website.
The Good – Get Nonprofit Status
There were quite a few well thought out websites that were submitted to us, and of them, this was one of the clearest and easiest to use. When you open the website, you know immediately what it’s about (if you couldn’t work it out from the name), as you can see non-profit written five times without even having to scroll down. You can also see a clear colour scheme, which is subtle, with just the right about detailing. There are also two opt-ins available, and I’m not sure how much success they’re having, but I don’t find them intrusive at all, but that can also be part of the problem. It might be worth considering installing PopUp Domination if they’d like proven, increased results.
One thing they need to watch out for is what their website looks like when someone is using an adblocker. When I turn AdBlock on, the link to watch the training videos is removed, even though it links within the website. I can’t say for sure how this happened, but I would always recommend having a look at how your website appears to someone who is using AdBlock, because I imagine it’s quite common, and you’ll be losing valuable traffic.
The overall layout of the featured slider, the blog posts, the featured images, sidebar and tags, has been very well thought out and looks very professional, and that’s largely down to choosing a good theme in the first place. A lot of the websites that were submitted to us were just using terrible themes, that really messed up their websites. When you open up an individual post on this site, they seems to be quite short, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, although their layout could do with some work. By using headings (h1, h2, h3), not only do you clean up the layout, but you actually help with search engine optimisation too, by telling the search engines which are the most important parts, and filling up your posts with keywords.
Here is what I would change:
- Make the links in the header more prominent
- Fix the ad that disappears
- Use custom post excepts to remove ‘[...]‘
- Install SEO Smart Links to start linking between posts.
Read these posts:
- 10 Tasks For Your Brand New Blog
- 10 Best WordPress Plugins To Get More Traffic
- 6 Steps To Writing The Ultimate Top List
- 7 Traffic Tips For First Time Bloggers
The Bad - The Great Gordino
Choosing the right sites so that everyone would learn something, wasn’t the easiest to do, but I think this first one is a good choice. The website comes from Gordon Bryan (otherwise known as ‘The Great Gordino‘), and it was primarily his header that made me take an interest into his site.
When choosing a website URL, you should always try to find one which includes one of your keywords, such as money, or photography. The Great Gordino doesn’t have this, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be a problem, although it will struggle slightly more with Google search terms. Seeing as I don’t know what his website is about in his URL name, I look for it in his header, and that’s where I see one of the most common mistakes of them all – it doesn’t tell me anything about what his site is about. The only clues are in the bar below the header, which seem to suggest the website has something to do with reaching your goals. The line under my temporary logo on Expert Photography says ‘Professional Photography Tips’, but even without that, you can tell what my website is about. This is the very first things that needs to be changed about this site. 
The only information that could tell us something about the website is in the top right hand corner, where it says ‘newsletter and other bits!’, which again, is rather ambiguous. Also, the double title does nothing to add to the header of the website, I would personally remove it as it’s a little bit distracting. Finally, there’s the image. It’s nice to see a personal photo, rather than a boring stock photo which is seen on countless other websites, but it still takes me back to the fact that it tells me nothing about the website. It doesn’t necessarily have to, it can just be a photo of himself, but if it is, then it should be one that doesn’t confuse the visitor about what the website is about.
The second point that comes to mind is that when you arrive on the homepage, you’re taken straight to the about page. Not explaining what the website is about in the header, starts to make a little bit more sense, but I still don’t agree with the choice, and the About section isn’t that informative. I would suggest rewriting it because it doesn’t tend to reflect what the black bar under the header suggests, that the website is about achieving your goals. Using your about section as a landing page, and calling it ‘Home’ is not a good idea in my books, because it’s not displaying your best content, and if someone were to return to the site, they wouldn’t see new content, which they may be interested in, chances are that they would just close the page and move on.
Thirdly, the comments in the about section have been approved, because he hasn’t realised that they’re actually spam. This isn’t that unusual because if you’re new to blogging, it can be a little bit hard to spot, but as I’ve sifted through so many spam comments on Income Diary that I know how to spot them easily. Firstly, if the comment is ambiguous, and not really saying anything about the post it’s on, then it will likely be spam. Ask yourself, ‘could this comment apply to the majority of my posts?’. You’ll also want to check the names, and whether they link to a website – a name like ‘meg43tr44gi joe’ is not a person, and the comment above links to a website which appears to be particularly spammy. Next, check the spelling and punctuation, as the people who run these spam comments aren’t typically English, so when you see a sentence like ‘sit up for in quest of more of your excellent post’, it’s a pretty good sign that something’s up. When you get comments saying things like ‘I have shared your site in my social networks’, ‘your site loads up fast!’, and ‘will love to have more of this’, then they’re usually spam too.
Here are some changes that I would suggest you make:
- Design a new header
- Change your landing page to the blog, and rename Home to About
- Set all your comments to be approved first
- Start using images in your posts
- Use the Facebook like plugin, rather than just your profile image
- Install PopUp Domination if you want to grow your email list
- Add some colour to your website
Read these tutorials:
- 10 Design Elements All Big Blogs Have In Common
- 10 Blog Customizations To Make Your Blog Perform Better
- 10 Tasks For Your Brand New Blog
- How To Use Photos In Your Blog To Make It More Interesting
The Ugly - The MarketSecrets Blog
I’ve chosen this website as my third blog because it’s a complete contrast to the first two websites that I critiqued. Instead of being plain and simple, with very little information or plugins, this is one of the messiest websites out of over 100 that I looked at. Just on first glance, Michael could see five or six plugins that have been used, that really shouldn’t be used. Everywhere you look, there’s a new offer, or piece of information that is distracting to any potential reader. If there’s one thing I know about this site, it’s that it needs to go on a diet.
First of all, while it’s good to have elements of colour in a blog, there is too much on this website, and too much of the same colour. The background is orange, so is the logo, and the title highlight, and the categories. Overall, there is just way too much going on in the website. Not only is is hard to read, but while writing this (bearing in mind I’m only in the second paragraph), I nearly gave up and chose a different website. This is because every time I go to open up the tab again, I’m taken to one of the most annoying popups of a video on autoplay, advertising something on another website. If you’re really serious about wanting to make money on your own website, then this sort of thing has to stop.
Without a doubt, the biggest problem on this website is the excessive number of plugins, the majority of which are not contributing to the site at all, they’re merely just taking up space. The plugin which shows the most popular Google search terms that took visitors to the site is completely irrelevant to everyone, other than the person who runs the site. There’s also plugins further up the page, with options to Google search the internet (not the website). All of these plugins are slowing the website down, frustrating the readers, and losing their attention. The beauty of WordPress is that you can do all of this yourself, without having to spend money on a web developer to do it for you. Here’s what I think you should do:
- Uninstall ALL of your plugins, there are better alternatives to what you’re using
- Use less of the orange colour, and introduce more neutral colours
- Get rid of that video that pops up
- Install PopUp Domination, instead of the multiple opt-ins you currently have.
Read these posts:
- 10 Design Elements All Big Blogs Have In Common
- 10 Blog Customizations To Make Your Blog Perform Better
- 10 Tasks For Your Brand New Blog
That’s all for now, but we will likely be doing this again in a month or so, come over and Like us on Facebook if you want to submit your website in the future.
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