Any chance of some honest opinions?

[ITMDB]

Hi Guys/Gals,

Could you take a look at my blog itmanagerstoolbox.com.

Can you let me know your initial thoughts when you visit my blog and also anything you would like to see changed?

*The blog is only a week or 2 old so I only have 7 or 8 posts.

Thanks in advance
John

 

[PTTed]

I like the domain name. I like the layout of the site. I like the overall look of the site.

To offer higher quality advice on your situation, I would first have to know exactly what you are trying to accomplish with the site, who your specific target audience is and what benefit you are trying to offer that person.

But as it sits right now, I think you are off to an excellent start and just need a lot more high quality content to add to the good content you already have on there.

 

[rwsorensen]

Nice website, looks clean and professional!

I would like to have your logo bolder and make it bigger a bit. Seem you have used more cyan color on your website, adding some other colors, it's more attractive.

 

[ITMDB]

ITMDB

Okay, I see what you mean about the logo. Ill have a play with the CSS. Do you mean other shades or other colors all together?

 

[ITMDB]

Thanks PTTed. I think I still need to come up with the exact path im taking with the blog. I know my target audience is IT Administrator and IT professionals. Im trying to get 2 posts published a week.

 

[wppluginspack]

You have typo in your right column. IT MANGERS TOOLBOX TAGS

I like the layout and color. Looks like you have a menu autopopulating your categories. You might want to remove "Uncategorized" from the top.

 

[ITMDB]

Ah yes good spot, sort those now.

Thanks for that wpplugunspack

 

[vishwa]

I like your site and design. The only one suggestion is to make your logo little bigger and if possible make your post little bit more longer. Wish you good luck with your new venture.

 

[HBAndrei]

I like it, the theme is nice and content seems good.

One thing though, there's a lot of empty space right under the top menu for some reason: http://i.imgur.com/gTLEfch.png

 

[ITMDB]

ITMDB

Yeah Im not really sure what to stick up there to be honest. Originally the theme had the categories up there, but I didn't really like it like that.

I think its a little small to stick a banner up there.

 

[HBAndrei]

HBAndrei

At least center the menu, so it won't seem so empty... add this to your css:

.secondary-navigation {
margin-top: 30px;
}

It'll then look like this: http://i.imgur.com/jt0t87y.png

 

[ITMDB]

ITMDB

Excellent, thanks very much!

Looks far better now, I also added a margin to the right.

Thanks again.

 

[HypnPro]

I'm a consumer not an IT or web design specialist so my opinion comes from that perspective. If you put this site up to generate revenues from AdSense or similar then all the ads makes sense but as an end user it's to the point of "ill tolerate it only if the info is really good."
I really don't like pop-ups that interrupt my reading of the site so that is a negative. I almost always click off the pop-up and often leave as a result.

Other than that, the site is clean and well laid out as far as subject matter is concerned which makes it easy for me to browse the articles for something of interest.

Well.. you asked for honest didn't you?

 

[ITMDB]

ITMDB

Yes, thankyou for giving your thoughts. I have been experimenting with the email subscription popup, its definitely increased the amount of email subscriptions I have been receiving. But I dont want it to put off people of returning to my site. I have it set to appear after 30 seconds, would you be happier if this was longer?

Although it would popup again for the same person until 7 days have passed

 

[HypnPro]

HypnPro

I have struggled with this in the past when considering putting pop ups on other sites I have worked with... to increase response at the risk of offending others. To answer your question about duration... I think the pop-up is only valuable for the amount of time it takes me (or anyone else) to either start typing or to click it off. I would guess that would be about 10-15 seconds. If it disappeared on it's own before I moved to click it away, then it wouldn't bother me nearly as much.

 

[bebetsizo1]

its a good blog mate, keep going.

write some more articles.

 

[SIG]

Review:
Overall I like the site. And love the domain name.

There is room for improvement, and here are my suggestions:

• get rid of the tags in the sidebar, they are not good at all in terms of SEO.
• gather or write new unique and relevant articles and put 4-6 (6 would be great, 3 on top of other 3) on the homepage. This will give you link juice to those pages. - a side note: each of your pages on your site is a sales page, make the best out of it. -
• get rid of the categories from the sidebar, again, not good in terms of SEO, because you have duplicated links pointing to categories.
• write more content, preferably daily. As much as you can. Detailed, informative, write what your visitors would like to read.
• on your blog posts, add more social media share buttons, so people will have more options to share your content.

Hope this helps.

 

[Adam Yunker]

Hey there,

I really like everything about the site.. Can I ask why are you wondering about the design? Is it because of conversions or something?

To me the site is great! It seems to me now all you need is to build a community to keep them coming back to the blog. Try just creating a solo squeeze page that you can drive traffic to and also create something to give them completely free for signing up.

It's super hard to get subscribers when they are just joining an email list for a newsletter. Give them something in immediate return for them signing up now. Like: Signup Now to get My _____!"

Also make it stand out it wasn't till quite a few seconds that I saw the subscription box because it blends in with the ads. So make it stand out, which is why a good single paged opt-in form that really draws the attention to the fact that they need to signup for your email list. That way as I'm sure you know you can stay in touch and keep bringing them back for every article you write.

Sorry for not being more design focused, but I think the design/layout of the site is phenomenal (nothing to be changed), but definitely focus more on your opt-in box because your email list is where most of your profit will come from.

I've made this reference before, but YouTubers are constantly begging people to subscribe to their YouTube channels because that is where the core of their views come from because their subscribers get updated overtime they post. The views they get by ranking high in YouTube is just a bonus, but the core of their views is from their subscribers.

Same goes with blogging.. Beg (don't beg, but you know what I mean ) people to subscribe and build that base. The people coming to your site from you just ranking high for certain keywords is just an added bonus. So BUILD THAT BASE!!

Sorry, can't stress it enough.. Really want to see you succeed

Hope this was somewhat helpful in a different kind of way

Talk soon,

Adam

 

[Broccoli]

This seems like a really good blog which definitely has potential. There is room for improvement though.

- Update your blog frequently. 1-2 times daily. However, don't overdo it and update 1-2 times every 30 minutes.
- If you can, add a Like button, if the article helped, instead of having them comment. Commenting would be useful if they're having issues.

You have an amazing blog, 9/10 overall rating. I hope everything goes well!

 

[tdadkins]

The layout is great! Easy to read with lots of useful information. your organization is very good! Its very easy to find what your looking for and the categories are clear and concise. It looks like since you posted this you have added more and more content! That is very important, as content is always king! Your articles are up to date too, people hate reading about old news! Keep it up, it looks like you have some good side bar ads too.

 

[ulterios]

The site looks good but I didn't find a Terms of Use/Service, Privacy Policy or Disclosure Statement that Google and most of the others require, so you should definitely add those to comply with their policies/rules.

Other than that, it looks good.