Reviewed 1 January 2008
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Site Name: Love Country Living Site URL: http://lovecountryliving.blogspot.com/
Genre: Cooking and Craft |
Look and Feel:
Very attractive two column blog with nice earthy color tones. Header is also very appropriate. Very inviting landing page.
Content:
Very well put together articles on country fare including hand made gifts, recipes, craft patterns along with the day to day of country life style.
Ease of Use:
The blog starts of well with clean access to the posts and nice uncluttered sidebar. Each post has the appropriate info in the footer. I could not however, find any RSS subscription - there was a newsletter subscription form about half way down the page. Below the fold the sidebar became quite messy.
Suggestions:
The page is far to long. I noticed some advertising or link banners in the pages footer. I seriously doubt many visitors, particularly new visitors would make it that far. I suggest that either the number of posts on the front page be reduced or the use of the more command. This, by the way is best done a week or two after posting. Once the article is replaced by newer ones, you go back to that article and find a suitable place to insert the ‘read more’ command.
Below the fold the sidebar needs some serious work. First, move the newsletter subscription to a more prominent place on the page - closer to the top. I would consider culling some of the icons, either that or find a more appropriate place. Some of the smaller icons such as the technorati icon are hidden between the larger banners. I would recommend grouping all the smaller icons together.
The other issue with the sidebar is the clutter. As the banners and icons are different sizes, I suggest use of the <center> </center> command. This centers the icon/banner within the sidebar and makes for a much cleaner look. I would also include a <br> command between banners and icons where a tad more white space is required - some icons almost sit on top of each other.
Conclusion:
Whilst I may be critical of the tidyness of the sidebar (a problem with 90% of blogs - myself included) - the content and look and feel of the blog is great. The articles are well written and very informative. The use of graphics not overdone or misused. I enjoyed an hour or so reading through the articles. Well worth the visit and my first 9.5 for 2008. Rating 9.5/10
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