Blog: Disney with Toddlers

Blogger: Carrie

Page: PR/Media

Carrie is a Florida native, a mom of two toddlers and a Walt Disney World annual passholder. Disney for Toddlers is where she shares thoughts, reviews, and tips on rides, resorts, restaurants and more for parents traveling with toddlers. She wants to help parents plan their trip to Walt Disney World by sharing her travel tips on what works (and what doesn’t), share ideas for activities, and provide itineraries that families may not think about from the typical planning sites.

Carrie launched this blog back in April (she also blogs at Carrie with Children). Besides sharing my review posts and inserting affiliate links, she’s still trying to decide how she can align herself with brands. Because of this, she’s unsure what should be the prominent information on this page. She’d love to know whether she has enough information – or not enough. Also, since there’s a lot of talk in the blogging world about posting site stats/numbers on a PR/Media page, she wonders if she should include that too.

Visual:

• First off, I really love your blog design. It complements your other blog without being an exact replica. The colors are vivid and eye-popping, and I adore the little hints of The Mouse throughout your design
• From a design perspective, you’ve done a nice job keeping your content easy on the eyes: it’s short, broken into paragraphs and includes formatting to ease readability. Where I think you can improve is adding color to this page, either through images or design elements similar to the rest of your blog.
• For example, each section could be a subheading (like an h2 heading) versus just bolding. I imagine your other headings are pink like your blog post title headings which can add some color.
• Also, I think it would be great to show a picture of you and your family at Disney (a different one from your About page) or even just a more general Disney picture (without people in it). Use it, along with some corresponding text, to reinforce the idea that partnering with your blog can give a brand the opportunity to be a part of the magic for families headed to Disney.
• In the Review section, you could show thumbnails with links of review posts you’ve done. If you haven’t done any yet, consider reviewing a product you already have or use so you have an example to show potential partners.

Navigation:

• For places on your blog that link TO this page, you’ve got it covered for the most part. You have a link in your secondary navigation and in your sidebar. I would also add a link from your Advertising page, suggesting to check out your PR/Media page if they want to see more ways to get in front of your readers.
• Also, don’t forget that PR people look at About pages too (and often times before any other page). Cross reference this page by mentioning you offer opportunities to partner with brands.
• One thing missing from this page? Links to get a potential partner looking at your content. Most brands will want to see examples of the different opportunities. I know your blog is new so you may not have a lot of brand-related work yet. In that case, you could share an example from your other blog or just leave this part out until you have more examples.

Content:

• It’s great that your content isn’t really long! However, I do think it could provide more substance in parts. A lot of your content is very top-level. You don’t really get into too many specifics but I think you should (without getting too nitty gritty)! What do I mean by specifics? Examples of reviews, sponsored posts and sponsored videos you’ve done (if any) and focusing the content on how partnering with you can benefit the brand. You started doing this with Advertising and Reviews section start so that’s a start! I know it’s tough at this stage since your blog is so new but it can bring more opportunities to you faster. Getting into specifics will mean you’ll have to add more content but I also think you can re-work some of the content you already have.
• As I mentioned, part of offering more specifics means you need to explain the benefits to potential partners. For example, in the Sponsored Posts and Videos section, you say “I welcome the opportunity to work with brands on sponsored posts and videos.” If you list sponsored posts and videos as an offering, then you’re already telling them this is an offering. Instead, write the content to answer what a potential partner would like to know. If I were a potential partner, I may be new to blogger outreach and not know what sponsored content entails, so perhaps explain what a sponsored post or video would entail you doing. I would also want to know WHY I should partner with you rather than someone else. Can you bring me traffic to my online store? Generate product awareness? Are there any testimonials you could share from a brand who worked with you in the past? Could you link to some past posts as examples?
• Consider tweaking your About Disney with Toddlers section to focus more on your readers. After all, potential partners want to work with you in order to reach those readers. I imagine that for many people visiting Disney with Toddlers, this will be their toddler’s first Disney experience. Describe your reader in this section so a potential partner knows who they’re reaching.
• Also, consider offering up your media kit at the end of this page, not the beginning. Currently, you really don’t end with any call to action, telling the reader what to do next. Position the media kit as that next step in learning more and receiving rates from you.
• You asked whether or not you should include stats on this page. I think it’s up to you! I do NOT think you need to give readers every single stat you have though. Otherwise, you’re not creating an opportunity to enter a conversation with that brand. They see your stats, then may move on without ever interacting with you. However, there’s nothing wrong with offering some key stats to pique interest in learning more. They can then take that next step to contact you.
• You mentioned that you’re still deciding what direction to take your blog when it comes to working with brands. Have you considered special partnership opportunities for local Orlando companies? You could give them a special introductory rate. In addition, if any of your special pages get high traffic, you could even offer advertising on that page only, offering the partner a highly-targeted ad. For example, a restaurant near Disney World may want to advertise on the Where to Eat page. If you want to keep those special pages Disney-only, then that’s understandable. It just may be harder to come up with brand opportunities! One final idea here is to focus on partnering with companies whose products are great to BRING to Disney. You could even create a packing guide or something similar and offer special partnership opportunities in that. Even if these ideas don’t work, perhaps they can springboard you into coming up with ideas that will work!

Let me know your thoughts on the critique in the comments below. If you have an extra moment, head over to Disney with Toddlers and give Carrie some comment love.

Blog Page Critique: Disney with Toddlers is a post from: Momcomm

Excited

Exhausted

Yep, that about sums it up!

I’m done, y’all. I WROTE AN ENTIRE BOOK. An introduction, 18 chapters, online articles, the whole she-bang!

For the last eight months, I probably worked on Blog Design for Dummies every day but maybe five days. Even if I wasn’t writing, I was doing something book-related like finding blogs to feature or following up on emails to get permission to feature a blog. I lived and breathed this book. Blowing through some pages, getting stuck for an hour or two on others. I cried, I got frustrated, I got overwhelmed. But I also smiled, thought to myself “I nailed this part!” and found some really amazing blog designs.

As I went through the final editing process over this last month, I beamed as I saw the chapters I turned in little by little actually morph into a whole book. As I wrote the book, I would turn in a quarter of the book then erase it from my brain so I could concentrate on the next deadline. As I read through the book during this editing process (called Author Review) — looking at the editors’ (THREE editors) comments and edits then making changes and adjustments — I saw the bigger picture. The birds’ eye view and the little details all at once. And?  I AM DAMN PROUD OF THIS BOOK.

Thanks for bearing with me as I worked so hard to write this book. I know this blog slowed down, but I’m full of ideas and ready to ramp up again! BUT FIRST…

I’m going to the Disney Social Media Moms Conference at Disney World!

First, I’ll get to experience this conference and all its magic. Then my family and I will be staying longer to tack on a vacation at the end. A much needed vacation. I can’t even tell you how excited I am for this. Especially after literally finishing my book just this past Thursday.

I still have a blog page critique to share with you this Wednesday before I leave so don’t miss it!

When I get back I’ll be sure to fill you in on all the Disney-fied details, both here and on Adventuroo (my really, REALLY neglected personal blog). Thanks for ALL your support and I think you’ll be excited about the things I have in store for Momcomm!

How It Feels to Finish a Book is a post from: Momcomm

Blog: Living Life and Learning

Blogger: Monique

Page: About page

Visual:

• I know that you’re concerned about having images on your page. I do think it looks a little sparse without images but you made a good attempt at adding color with your Favorites headings!
• People love connecting with other people. Seeing a picture of someone feels more personal and makes it easier for readers to connect with you. I completely understand not having the family pictures on your blog but consider adding a picture of yourself to this page. I’ve even seen people hide their identity by taking a picture of themselves in a funny angle so it doesn’t truly reveal their identity but still shows that there’s a real person behind the blog.
• Another way to work in images is to add images alongside your popular posts by pulling a thumbnail from those posts. If those posts don’t have images (I saw that some didn’t), then go back and add at least one in. You can find free images at places like Stock Free Images and Flickr Creative Commons. Images within posts gives readers a place for their eye to land, grabbing their attention so try to have at least one image in the majority of your posts.
• Since your page title font is a thick script font, consider bumping up the size so your titles stand out more. The color and font are easy to read, just could be a bit larger.

Navigation:

• It’s great that your About page is the first thing on your nav menu. That’s where many people look for it so your page is easy to find.
• Your navigation menu font is a little hard to read though. You have a lot of tabs in your menu, making the scripty font hard to read. I’d either change the font or remove something from your menu so you can perhaps bump up the font size and/or increase the spacing between each tab. If you wonder which one to delete, Privacy Policy isn’t important enough to the reader to hold a place in your nav menu (in my opinion). Save that for your footer or as a link in your giveaways page.
• For personal blogs, I always recommend a little sidebar blurb about you that links to your About page. Think of it as a way to “greet” new visitors as if they were on your doorstep.
• You’re doing a good job linking to the topics you write about and including some favorite posts. Yay!
• Consider linking to other pages as well. For example, don’t forgot that brands may be considering your blog for a giveaway so they come to this page. So you could link to your giveaway page for more information on partnering.

Content:

• You do a good job telling readers who you are and giving them some details about your life that are a mix of informational and fun.
• What I feel is missing is that next piece of a comprehensive About page – more about your blog! You start to do this with a single sentence about what you blog about and by listing out some helpful posts regarding homeschooling. However, tell readers more. Give them a compelling reason to stick around your blog. What do you offer them? Tips? Advice? Musings? Opportunities to win giveaways? Dazzle them with great reasons to stick around by telling them more about your blog.
• I notice some inconsistency in your text that makes your page look a bit messy. For example, I see some spots where you have extra spaces (between “food” and “kids”, “life” and “who annoys,” and “a” and “princess”). Under your fave posts, you list two blogs: one post you write Title Case (like How to Raise Boys that Read), but the other you don’t have a main word capitalized (“Why keep Reading Aloud”). Finally, under your bullets most are lower case but some start with a capital letter. As someone who wants to attracts new clients, you want how you style your text to be consistent so it looks more professional. Sure you may looking for design clients but attention to detail is key to blog design too. Whether it’s content or design related, work on consistency. It will go a long way!
• I’m a little confused by your closing sentence: “If you want to follow us on our homeschool journey, sign up by email so you don’t miss out on any blogger opps or giveaways.” Are the blogger opps or giveaways homeschool related? If so, then spell that out more clearly in the second part of that sentence. If not, then I think you need to be clear on what they’re missing out on as it relates to homeschooling. Something like “… so you don’t miss out on curriculum suggestions, lesson plans, and other freebies.” (or something that’s more accurate if I’m way off). If you decide you want the call to action to focus on blogger opps and giveaways instead, then the entire statement should be focused on that. Switching gears from homeschool to opps confuses the message too much for readers.
• I feel like you need a statement before your contact form. Since it’s right below your Google + link, readers might not understand exactly what the form is for at first.
• Finally, if you’re trying to get your blog design business off the ground, don’t be shy about telling readers you do blog design, then link to your design page!

Let me know your thoughts on the critique in the comments below. If you have an extra moment, head over to Super Sweet Life and give Monique some comment love.

Blog Page Critique: Living Life and Learning is a post from: Momcomm

Blog: Super Sweet Life

Blogger: Laura

Page: Sweet Life Organizer

Laura’s blog is about making life sweeter and running more smoothly by sharing lots of organizing inspiration, recipes, time management, and self improvement. The goal of this page is to encourage people to purchase the set of organizing printables (and to pin the page as well). Laura says that her overall conversion rate (percentage of people purchasing after landing on the page) isn’t great. She struggles with knowing how to best showcase the product and how much detail to show. She said she plans to incorporate some actual photographs of the planner in use.

The majority of people (around 60 to 70%) land on the page from Pinterest. She links to it in her blog menu, and provides a link to the page in the welcome email when people subscribe to her email list. Laura occasionally links to the page in her posts when it fits in naturally, but would like to do more of that.

She said she tried offering special bonuses with the planner (a smaller version, editable PDF’s, promise of sending the new pages throughout the year), but I have a hard time knowing if that really made a difference. It also required some extra effort, so she’s not sure if it’s worth it.

Visual:

• First of all, I love that you start off with a nice image highlighting a few pages from your organizer. The pink background stands out and the images show the variety your organizer offers.
• While that image does capture my attention, the first thing I notice is the bright orange box offering free printables for subscribing. While that’s great to have on any other page, on this page — a page where you’re trying to make a sale — you’re leading people AWAY from a purchase. Think about it this way. If I’m selling you something for money yet I offer you a free product that sounds just the same, wouldn’t you take the free one? Your orange box offers a “free organizing printable set” for subscribing to email, which sounds very similar to your Sweet Life Organizer (even if they’re really not the same, it sounds this way). As someone visiting your page for the first time, I’d go for the free stuff first because there’s no risk. Definitely remove this box from this page so you can keep visitors focused on your product rather than encouraging them to leave the page as soon as they get there.
• I like that your Add to Cart button is really big! However, the color doesn’t contrast enough from the rest of the page. Try a bold color that you only use a little bit on this page. Two colors I notice are the red from your printables and the orange from your section titles. One of those colors would work. Also consider centering the button to stand out even more.
• You mention struggling with how much detail to show. My first impression is that you’re sharing way too many pictures. From a visual standpoint, it’s a heck of a lot to scroll through. From a sales standpoint, you’re basically showing a visitor everything in your organizer. The frugal reader will just see what you created and make their own. It’s less of an incentive to purchase a product if the reader sees everything. I suggest keeping that first image for sure. Then you could do a couple of things. One option is to create an image with every page fanned out so readers can see HOW many pages they get, but not WHAT they get (similar to how you fan out a deck of cards). Or you could create images by section, layering one page over the other in a straight line (similar to a deck of cards like this). That way it takes up less vertical space. Regardless of how you do it, stick with a handful of images instead of showing people everything in your organizer. Also fewer images may increase pins to Pinterest since there are fewer options to choose from (fewer options make choices easier to make)

Navigation:

• You mention the page is linked from the navigation menu but it’s called the 2013 Planner up there and the Sweet Life Organizer on the page. To me, a 2013 Planner sounds like a printable calendar (maybe with some bells and whistles) but not much more. An ORGANIZER sounds like something more detailed, which your organizer most definitely is! Consider keeping the language consist.
• I’d also add a button to the planner on your sidebar, like you did with the Free Printables. However, don’t just say “Sweet Life Organizer!” That doesn’t tell the reader much. Instead, acknowledge a struggle of theirs like “Want to FINALLY get your life organized?” with an image that perhaps includes a few pages from your organizer (again- fanned out, no need to see detail).
• You do a great job of placing the Add to Cart button throughout your page instead of just one spot. Many people forget to do that and it can really help make the sale.
• If your theme has a page template or page layout that doesn’t have a sidebar, ditch the sidebar. In Genesis, you can change the layout under Layout Settings on each page. Some themes may have a “no sidebar” template under Page Attributes, which you can find in the right sidebar when editing a page. Why don’t you want a sidebar? Because sidebars are meant to encourage readers to take action by doing things like navigating to more content. Remember you don’t want to lead people AWAY from this page- you want them focused on making a purchase!

Content:

• In your initial comments, you said that you feel like you have a low conversion rate. I’d consider a sales page like this a type of landing page, which typically have a 5-15% conversion rate (keep in mind this does vary per industry so it’s hard to say exactly). Instead of focusing on a rate though, try focusing on an INCREASE over the previous month. Are you selling more this month than last? Perhaps set some goals for yourself based on your past data so your goals are realistic.
• I really like that you asked questions to start off this page. It’s a good way to grab attention. However, I feel like the questions only focus on people ready to buy a planner (but looking for the right one) and not on questions geared towards a visitor who may be wondering how a planner can solve their problems. What do people struggle with in their daily lives that your planner can solve? Does their disorganization cause them to miss appointments, forget items at the grocery store, never have a clean house? Remind them of their struggles then spend the rest of your page convincing them that your planner can solve those struggles/challenges.
• Overall, the page layout confuses me a bit because the image for each section title and accompanying bullets are listed UNDER the image. However, I see a section title and assume what’s between that title and the next is all together. With whatever images you decide to keep, try placing them underneath a title instead of above it.
• One thing that’s missing from this page are testimonials! Credibility is so important, so find a few satisfied customers and have them provide you with a short testimonial, then sprinkle them throughout this page.
• While not necessarily related to content, consider promoting your page in other ways: the Hello Bar, create an affiliate program (using e-junkie or WP Affiliate), offer sales, etc. It’s great that you offer a bonus but like you said, it’s hard to tell if it’s working unless you do A/B testing (like send out two different versions of a newsletter and see if the one that mentions the bonus gets more clicks).

Let me know your thoughts on the critique in the comments below. If you have an extra moment, head over to Super Sweet Life and give Laura some comment love.

Blog Page Critique: Super Sweet Life is a post from: Momcomm

The plugin learns what to categorize as spam by what you and other WordPress users mark as spam. If you just delete it, Akismet can’t learn what’s spam as quickly. While Akismet can be great, it’s not perfect. Spam sneaks by, sometimes in large numbers. That means, along with your legitimate blog comments, your readers also see lovely gems like “I got what you intend, regards for posting” or “Thank you for the auspicious writeup.”

When Akismet lets you down, it’s time to break out some new tools to keep spam in its place. I want to share with you two plugins that come in handy so you don’t EVER have to succumb your readers to the dreaded CAPTCHA word verification.

Growmap

The Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin (sometimes called GASP for short) is a great plugin to catch spam from automated spam bots. Under the commenting fields on a blog post, this plugin adds a checkbox with a message to check that box to confirm the reader isn’t a spammer. Since spam bots can’t manually check a box, they can’t leave a comment. Of course, this plugin does nothing for human spammers, but it works beautifully for bots! (If you do happen to find spam bots getting past this plugin, you can slightly alter the Checkbox Name field so bots can’t automatically check the box.)

Below you can see my checkbox with my customized message:

I turn Growmap off and on anytime I notice an increase in spam that’s getting past Akismet. Why do I not just keep it on? Mainly because I like to make it as simple as possible for a blog visitor to comment. Checking a box is WAY less intrusive than doing something like word verification, but it is something people might miss the first time they’re on my site.

One thing I love about this plugin is that you can customize the message that displays beside the checkbox as well as the alert messages when someone doesn’t check the box. Below you can see how I added a little flair to customize all the messages.

WP Ban

Another spam-fighting plugin I keep around is WP Ban, which comes in handy if your spam perpetrators are coming from the same IP address or a range of IP addresses. With this plugin, you can ban those addresses so the spammers get a customizable message when they try to access your site. This plugin is best to use when you see multiple spam message coming from the same IP addresses, not for entering every single IP address for every single spam message.

If you ‘re wondering how to find the IP addresses to ban, go to your Comments section of WP Admin. On the page that displays your comments, the Author column not only shows the commenters name and URL, it also shows their IP address. Notice that the second and third comment below share the same IP address. That’s one I would ban.

How do you ban the IP address? Once you install the plugin, visit the settings by going to Settings > Ban from your dashboard. Enter any lame, spammy IP address in that first field, then save your settings. Use caution when using the wildcard functionality that bans IP addresses that start with the same numbers. I’ve accidentally banned legitimate people that way so I just avoid wildcards just to be safe!

To ban a range, enter the IP address range in the second field.

If you want more details on how to use this plugin, Gigi from Kludgy Mom has a great WP Ban tutorial.

 Do you get a lot of spam on your blog?

What to Do When Spam Gets Past Akismet is a post from: Momcomm

Readers, meet Unroll.me. They describes themselves like this:

Unroll.me is the free and easy way to end unwanted subscriptions and rollup the rest into an organized overview made just for you.

How Unroll.me Works

When you sign up, the app scans your email and decides which email subscriptions it thinks you’d want added to your rollup. The app currently works with Gmail, Google Apps, and Yahoo. They take security quite seriously and you can read about how it accesses your info on their security FAQ page.

Each day, you get an email from Unroll.me where they “rollup” emails from your subscriptions into ONE SINGLE EMAIL OF BRILLIANCE. Each daily email is organized into categories like Social, Financial, Lifestyle, Entertainment, Travel, Shopping, and more. When you sign up, you get to choose when your rollup is sent: morning, noon, or night. I have mine set to morning and it comes in around 8:30 – 9 am.

If you have a bunch of blogs you subscribe to via email, then this would be a great way to keep up with your favorite blogs without getting individual emails!

A typical daily email looks like this.

Reading an Email from Your Rollup

If you want to read a particular email, you just click the image or text to be directed to a page where you can read the email (and get a nice gallery below if you want to sift through a few emails while you’re there). The downside is that you have to actually click to read the email versus being able to read it within the rollup email.

If you prefer to look at your email the old school way, you can find all these emails within a folder called Unroll.me (If on Gmail, for example, just look in the left menu while on your Gmail homepage) where you can see all the emails if you’d like. OR you can also log into Unroll.me and see a nice gallery of all your emails.

When Unroll.me notices an email subscription not previously in your daily rollup, the app tells you it wants to add the subscription to your rollup. It gives you plenty of notice before it actually adds them and you can add all the subscriptions or pick and choose which ones to add.

If you’re wondering how it detects which emails count, it looks for emails in your inbox that have CAN-SPAM language at the bottom. (CAN-SPAM is a U.S. law that requires commercial email marketers to put certain elements in each email, like an unsubscribe link and physical mailing address.)

To adjust the subscriptions included in your rollup, log into the Rollup.me website and you’ll be taken to the Your Rollup page:

Under each email, you have three options:

• Unsubscribe: If you decide you no longer want to receive an email, then you can click unsubscribe to remove it from your rollup. IMPORTANT: While it says “unsubscribe,” if the email marketer has a simple unsubscribe feature, meaning you click Unsubscribe and it takes you to a page that says you’ve been unsubscribed, then Unroll.me actually unsubscribes you from that list. If the unsubscribe process requires you to log into an app or check/uncheck settings – such if you’re subscribed to many email lists from one company- then it merely removes that email from being “rolled up” and doesn’t technically unsubscribe. Because of this, I suggest manually unsubscribing the old fashioned way.
• Stop rolling up: Perhaps you want one of these emails to come like they always do: directly to your inbox. You can click Stop rolling up to remove it from the app, meaning all emails from that company or organization will come as a separate email again.
• Category: If the app put your email subscription into a wrong category (it happens!), then you can correct it by clickin the toolbox icon. (Notice in my daily email that I need to change my daily Spanish word to another category!)

From a marketing perspective, I was happy to learn that having emails within a rollup won’t negatively affect open rates (i.e. the percentage of people on an email list that open an email). When an email is included in a rollup, that counts as an open and if you click to view the email, that counts as another. That’s good news for bloggers too who receive those types of stats through email services like Mailchimp or AWeber.

Pros and Cons of Unroll.me

True story: I almost didn’t publish this post because I didn’t know if I could truly recommend this app after reading an article about the cons. However, my Facebook fans (looking at you, Laura) nudged me to present both the pros and cons and let readers decide. And since I don’t believe everything I read on the web anyway, I decided to ask Unroll.me myself to find some answers. I’m glad I did because the provided some valuable information that’s sprinkled throughout this post. I can say that I truly do recommend using Unroll.me!

Pros: 

• Easy to use
• Clean interface
• Really reduces the emails in your inbox
• Provides a nice smack in the face as to how much email you truly do subscribe to (which is a good nudge to unsubscribe to some of them)
• Doesn’t negatively affect open rates for email marketers

Cons:

• Unsubscribing through Unroll.me only works for simple, one-click unsubscribe processes (I recommend unsubscribing manually to be sure.)
• Can’t view full email within rollup email (limitation with technology I think but still results in having to click to the web page to read). If you tend to find you’re always reading an email, I suggest moving it out of your rollup and into your inbox.
• Only works for certain email platforms right now (Gmail, Google Apps, Yahoo)

Have you tried Unroll.me?

(Note: Some of the screenshots may look different than what you see when you sign up. They made changes yesterday but not everything has the same look yet. I’ll update the screenshots soon!)

How to Clean Up Your Email Inbox is a post from: Momcomm

What Types of Pages Can Be Critiqued?

In doing blog critiques I rarely got deeper into a blog to critique individual pages. Here some of the types of pages you can get critiqued:

• About page
• Services/Hire Me type of page
• Resources page
• Sales page (ebook, workshop, printables, etc.)
• Advertising page
• Sneeze page- this can be a page revolving around a topic you write about, a series you did or anything else special that you blog about

To be eligible for a critique:

• You must be blogging at least once a week on a consistent basis (if you aren’t now, that’s okay. You’ll need to be for your critique though).
• You must be female (not necessarily a mom despite my blog name)
• You cannot be a business (a blogger treating her site as a business is fine, but no full websites with a blog just as a component)
• You cannot have received one of my weekly blog critiques (here or on SITS). You CAN get a page critique if you already had a blog critique.

How Does the Critique Queue Work?

The critique queue works the same as it did last time. There are 26 spots in this next round: 13 people will be first-come, first-served and 13 will be randomly drawn.

The queue will remain open until Sunday at 7 pm Eastern. If you submit your blog, an email will be sent out late on Sunday with the full list of 26 bloggers who were selected. Then I’ll email the 26 bloggers separately to find out their top 3 choices of pages that will be critiqued. To have a nice balance, I will select one of the top 3 and then email the 26 bloggers out the final selection.

THE QUEUE IS NOW CLOSED! I’ll email everyone this week.

Blog Page Critique Queue Now CLOSED is a post from: Momcomm

Woohoo! It’s that time again! The queue is opening back up so be sure to read all the details then set your clocks.

What Types of Pages Can Be Critiqued?

Here some of the types of pages you can get critiqued:

• About page
• Services/Hire Me type of page
• Resources page
• Sales page (ebook, workshop, printables, etc.)
• Advertising page
• Sneeze page (if you don’t know what that is, read this post from Problogger)- this can be a page revolving around a topic you write about, a series you did or anything else special that you blog about

To be eligible for a critique:

• You must be blogging at least once a week on a consistent basis
• You must be female (not necessarily a mom despite my blog name)
• You cannot be a business (a blogger treating her site as a business is fine, but no full websites with a blog just as a component)
• If you’ve had a full blog critique from me before, you ARE eligible now

Remember that these are PUBLIC critiques. They’re published every Wednesday (just about) here on Momcomm. To see the critiques I’ve done, visit my critique page.

How Does the Critique Queue Work?

The critique queue will work similar to how it’s worked in the past. There will still be 26 spots in this next round: 13 people will be first-come, first-served and 13 will be randomly drawn. 

The queue will open at 9 pm Eastern on Wednesday, April 3. If you want a shot, the first 13 spots fill up fast so be here right at 9 pm! I’ll publish the form to the homepage so just fill it out and submit. The first 13 people will be announced on my Facebook page but it won’t necessarily dictate the order you’ll go in since I’ll have to ensure there’s a good variety of types of pages being critique (i.e. don’t want to critique five About pages in a row).

The queue will remain open until Sunday at 7 pm Eastern. If you submit your blog, an email will be sent out later that evening with the full list of 26 bloggers who were selected. Then I’ll email the 26 bloggers separately to find out their top 3 choices of pages that will be critiqued (PLEASE have more than one page in mind as I can’t critique mostly About pages. I know readers will appreciate the variety). To have a nice balance, I will select one of the top 3 choices and then email the 26 bloggers out the final selection.

Looking forward to having a new set of blog pages to critique! Let me know if you have any questions and please share this post to spread the word!

Blog Page Critique Queue Opens Next Week! is a post from: Momcomm

Blog: The Kennedy Adventures

Blogger: Dianna

Page: About page

Dianna is a Catholic homeschooling mother of five who writes about teaching her children, living her faith and trying to stay fit, all while managing a large family. She wants her About Me page to let people know what they’ll find on her blog and why they should stay. Dianna said that she’d like to showcase other places she writes for but wonders if she should be concerned about that. At some point in the future, she’d like for it to be a spot to showcase her best writing as a jumping off point for freelance work. She’s curious how to boil things down to a nutshell, and get folks to stay around. She’s had  humorous, tongue-in-cheek page for a long time, said she thinks it’s time for something new.

Visual:

• As I scroll through your page, I love that you share so many pictures of you that showcase the different sides of you! It shows through images that your blog covers plenty of different topics!
• I think you have a good amount of images that keep the text from being overwhelming, but you may want to crop the portrait ones so they don’t take up so much vertical space. Keeping photos a relatively consistent size also improves the look of any page.
• While your blog header doesn’t exactly have to do with the About page, it does affect the page. If you look at the screenshot above, that’s what I see on a 1200 x 800 resolution screen. Your first photo is so cute and speaks so much about your personality that it’d be great if someone could see it right away when they land on your page. Consider reducing the size of your blog header by either shrinking some of the elements or even just removing one of the four ribbons. More of your blog posts will show “above the fold” too (that area someone sees before they have to scroll down).
• I know I’m picky (I edited copy and design for many, many years so I had to be!) but the baptism photo is a different width and has a shadow behind it, unlike the other photos. Consider either adding a shadow on the others or adjusting this one to match the rest of them.
• The bottom part of this page starts looking a little link-heavy as you begin to list the social media networks you belong to and such. Consider using small versions of your social media buttons down here as a way to highlight these. By the time someone gets down to this part of the page, they won’t see your buttons at the top so you don’t have to worry about it looking repetitive.
• In similar fashion to the social media buttons, consider showing the blog buttons of the places you write.

Navigation:

• In your message to me you mentioned your About page is linked to from your navigation menu and your Twitter profile page. Both are great places to drive people to this page. For personal blogs, I’m of the mind that a nice About Me blurb in the sidebar is like greeting someone at your front door. While not everyone will visit an About page, they will see the sidebar. Consider adding a short blurb and a photo with a link to this page.
• I think you’ve done a great job weaving in posts that you’ve written into this page. Nice! Towards the end the links are a little much but I think making some of them visual like I mentioned in the Design section will solve that.
• I clicked on the links to the places you write and the Free Homeschool Deals link goes to an article about frugal meals that at first doesn’t appear to be written by you. The name at the top and the signature must be the blog owner and it took me scrolling through the page twice to see your bio at the end. My recommendation would be to link to an author page like you do in the first link. If this is all you’ve written there at this point, then change your wording to say “… or Free Homeschooling Deals, where I wrote about five frugal kid-friendly meals.” That way, it isn’t confusing. (and if you can, maybe that site will let you put a headshot beside your bio!)

Content:

• I love that you’ve done a great job weaving in small bits of content into this page. These bite-sized chunks makes your page easy to read through.
• I like how you’ve started a section of text ABOVE the photo then finish below it. However, adding subheadings may make each section obvious that it’s all together (heading, intro sentence(s), image, paragraph).
• Your previous page was a little more tongue-in-cheek as you mentioned. While I really do like your new content and how it’s organized, I don’t see as much humor as I did before. You always make me laugh so getting your About page reader to chuckle a few times is a good thing. Consider revealing a little more of your fun personality by making a few small tweaks to your content (ex. I liked the statement on your previous page that you homeschool because there’s no way you could get your kids up for school). Note that this doesn’t mean a huge change here– just funny lines here and here like the homeschool one.
• I know that you do some work with brands and you want to drive visibility to your writing for potential freelance work. It’s never too early to start planting the seed that you’re a good person to work with for freelancing. For the brand work, include a sentence that links to your advertising page. For your freelancing, are you actually wanting more writing opps NOW? If so, mention that! Instead of “if you’re looking for more of my writing,” change that to “I’m also a freelance writer….” and then end that section with perhaps a freelancing/hire me page (yes, I’m giving you more work to do) or even just a simple “contact me if you want to work with me” type statement.
• Finally, I’d like to suggest is to remove the ability to comment on your About page. Even if your content is fresh (and I know yours is ), having comments from 2010 does date the page a little. Plus, it’s one more place for spammers to find.

Let me know your thoughts on the critique in the comments below. If you have an extra moment, head over to The Kennedy Adventures and give Dianna some comment love.

Blog Page Critique: The Kennedy Adventures is a post from: Momcomm

With everything going on, it’s also the time where I wish I had more time to give you detailed posts on all of these changes. But I’m two weeks away from my 100% deadline (yep- the last quarter of my book is due!) and writing furiously to get this done. So, the next best thing is to give you one blog post with links to the details you need to know. I hope to cover some of these in the next couple of weeks in more detail but for now, here are plenty of resources.

Pinterest Analytics

On Tuesday, Pinterest announced the addition of analytics! Woohoo! If you aren’t seeing the option, you need to have a Pinterest business account and verify your site as well. All the details (with links to verification how-tos) are on the official announcement from the Pinterest blog.

Google Reader Going Away

First it was Google Friends Connect. Now Google Reader is going the way of the do-do bird too. There are already a gazillion (it seems) posts about there about the news so take your pick.

Official announcement from Google

Mashable’s post on Google Reader Going Away (lists some alternatives)

Search Engine Watch (also lists alternatives)

I know what you’re thinking. Does this mean Feedburner is going away too? Not yet (officially) but switching from Feedburner is high on my get-done-after-my-book-deadlines to-do list.

New FTC Changes Regarding Paid Tweets

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) just released new guidelines for how paid tweets have to be labeled. If you’re currently using #spon, that doesn’t cut it any longer. Nor does using nothing at all. Here are two articles about discussing what this change means:

FTC: Just Use ‘Ad:’ in Sponsored Tweets and You’ll Be Fine

Paid Tweeters Beware: The FTC Is Watching

Three Platforms Get Design Updates

Yes, platforms are getting a facelift. Some changes are bigger, some are small. Honestly, I haven’t been able to dig into the changes in detail (other than with Facebook for work purposes). So here are the platforms that are seeing changes coming soon (or already here):

Google Plus: [Major Update] New Profile and Page Experience (Google Plus Daily)

Facebook: Facebook’s Revamped News Feed Aspires To Be A Personalized Newspaper (All Facebook)

YouTube Channels: Introducing Your YouTube One Channel (YouTube)

Whew! Is your head spinning yet? Mine sure is. Bookmark this page as your landing place to learn about these updates– I doubt you’ll be able to get through it all in one sitting!

The Month the Internet Changed (News from Across Social Media) is a post from: Momcomm