It’s time for the first ProBlogger Community Blog Consulting Session. I’ve explained what this is in my last post and would ask you to read it before you leave a comment below.
The blog that we’re going to look at this week is Sourcebench. Thorsten is the blogger behind this blog and his email asking for help said this:
My latest addition to the blogosphere is http://www.sourcebench.com. I invested a lot of time and money in this blog – into its content and the design but somehow i cannot get it reach that I want. I am stuck with around 300 visitors per day. Could you give me a clue what i am doing wrong or how I could improve?
As I’ve written in my previous post – I now want to invite you, the ProBlogger community, to offer your advice, suggestions and constructive critique into the mix. I’ll then attempt to summarize our collective advice early next week.
To help you in your feedback – here are a few questions you might want to answer and some areas you might want to focus upon:
- What do you like about this blog?
- What could it do better?
Particularly – you might want to comment in these areas:
- Design – navigation, usability etc
- Content – including ideas for posts that might be worth writing that could go viral
- Promotion – what tips would you give this blogger for getting the word out there about this specific blog?
- SEO – could it be improved
- Monetization – what techniques might work better?
Try to keep your suggestions as constructive, practical and as specific to this blog as possible.
Looking forward to seeing your advice.
Socialize, socialize, socialize! Where are the social buttons? Make it easy for me to tell others about it. I’m lazy. Don’t make me have to do any work beyond clicking a button. :)
Hi All,
i just want to introduce myself. I am the lucky guy that Darren gave this opportunity to be the first in this series.
I am looking forward to your feedback no matter if good or bad. It will help me to make the page better.
Thorsten
From the design point of view: I would reduce the header. It doesn’t need that much space and it pushes content below the page fold.
Also I think you used to many whitespace. It’s cool to use some, but that’s to much.
The header looks like a big ole waste of space. If I have to scroll down past the fold to start reading content, I most likely won’t be returning. It’s almost as if the header acts as a permanent splash page.
The font size is also a bit small. Sure it looks clean, but I really don’t want to have to strain to read text. I think it’s time the internet embraces larger fonts.
Also, ‘You must be logged in to post a comment.’ Please, please, please disable this. I don’t want to have to register at every blog I would like to leave a comment on.
Ok – here’s my tid-bits.
Too much empty space in the header… (even with the pop-up txt when hovering over the nav)
The content is too far down.
The ‘Welcome to Sourcebench’ takes up too much space.
Overall, there’s too much empty space. The trick is to keep it full, but not busy. (unless you’re going for a minimalism layout – which it doesn’t appear that he is.)
An about page would be nice.
More focus on the content would be helpful as well.
When I first came to that site I saw a big logo and not much text. It looked kind of empty or deserted. The design of the top of the site is quite usual and unoriginal. The only “eye catcher” is the little picture on the logo. So, the first sight of this site isn’t very attractive.
To see the content of that site you have to scroll really down which is quite frustrating for a visitor. The middle area of the site looks pretty boring with only white and green colors. More variety in there!
The font in the site is quite small. It’s not too easy to read text in a small font.
Well, that’s all I wanted to say.
IMHO:
You don’t use your header space, to much space
I hate tag clouds, looks unprofessional for me (on every blog)
Content it to low
Overall, I don’t like how posts are managed. not to much space on homepage for them, On post page, I don’t like tittles on the left side
I don’t like payperpost :P
That’s what I would change.Sorry for not commenting about content and promotion, I’m really busy ATM
The writing needs to be fixed. At the moment there are a number of inconsistencies, and some sentences while they are understandable – unless you are Perez Hilton – the writing after just a few minutes would push me away, never to return again. Things that particularly need attention are: capital letters, spaces within parentheses, and just basic writing. Perhaps the idea of a ‘writing fresher course’ might be an idea that would be great to look at.
Also, and this is a particular bug of mine, I hate it when you are reading a blog about web design – and the blog looks basic, similar, and the same as many other blogs. Fontwise, and lookwise, the theme might as well be a Blogger theme ‘lifted’ to fit whatever platform is being used at the moment, so perhaps look at that. Because if you are the expert at webdesign – surely I should be able to see that in your blog, or else how do I believe that you are said expert?
My first impressions upon seeing the site:
1) What does this site do?
You’re met by a mostly blank screen. Simplicity is good, but I think you’ve taken it too far. First thing I need to see is a good reason to not hit [back].
2) Related to that last comment, you need to have some prominently displayed key content. Offer the reader more than a blog — offer them links to a few information packed articles about the topic that you have written. Even if they’re just blog posts, have direct links above the fold.
3) I’m not a fan of tag clouds, but the one on this site is unique — I’ve never seen a cloud where some words were too small to read. I advise against that.
4) I recommend moving your navigation up to the top or side. It shows a snippet of what you offer, so that might help catch people’s attention.
5) You’ve got a lot of white space at the top. You don’t want to clutter the site, but that’s valuable real estate; I’d recommend moving something up there.
I think this site needs little bit more of seo, and different type of topic names. Write something that isn’t there or in questionable way. Like How to, Free, Get ….
Make your Topics more consistence I notice at one topic you write all lower case letters then on other topic you put all first letter in capital. Stay on 1st letter capital always, this will improve your ranking.
I could go on and on about it, if you have any questions let me know.
Nice domain name though….
1) Your fonts are extremely painful to read. Use the same font and size that Darren uses.
2) The header takes up half the page. If I have to scroll to see the content, I won’t come back.
3) Widgets suck, Social buttons suck, Social sites suck.
4) Content is king, once you fix the first two items.
Should have mentioned above, I’m also in the tech space…
You are welcome to drop me a line, email is on my sidebar.
What I Love #1: The illustrations!
Quick Tip #1: Take the preview of the most recent post, and put it in the header area (beside the logo).
Quick Tip #2: Enlarge the text, even if only for the “welcome to” intro paragraph. You want to draw attention there.
1) The sidebar is too wide
2) I’m not mad of Trebuchet as a body font, it’s too busy
3) The blog generally looks like you’re doing it for the money. I know it’s important, but what makes blogs great is that they’re passionate experts writing about what they love. There’s no shortage of writers who are just putting in their time.
I haven’t read previous comments – intentionally. So sorry if I duplicate anyone. :-)
I took a look at this site and I immediately asked myself what the heck the site was about. It wasn’t clear until I took clicks around that this was a service-oriented site. YOU are providing services to a CLIENT. At first take, I wondered if this was a collaboration kind of site.
Secondly, I don’t really see cohesiveness about the content that is presented. At the very bottom of your Services page, you say:
Putting aside the fact that the copy sounds overly salesy, that is the entire site’s mission statement and it’s buried at the bottom of your Services page. This needs to be what is prominently stated (with better copy) on the front page and followed through in different ways on all the other pages. Emphasize, emphasize and re-emphasize what it is you do and why the reader/client should care.
Thirdly, I’d put some kind of case study “widget” somewhere prominent on the front page. In fact, as a site with not that many page, you should find a way to sectionalize the front page (smartly) so that content and “the message” of each one is conveyed at the front. Careful not to get busy or haphazard about it – simplicity is good.
All in all, my main advice is about cohesive message – bringing it all together. Remember you have about 3 seconds to sell a potential client on why you’re better than the next guy. It’s a hard industry, the field is saturated. Find a way to tie it altogether and you bring yourself lots of gold.
The RSS button kind of blends in to everything else and makes it hard to find if somebody wants to subscribe. I’d make it a different color then the rest of the links so it pops out more and move it to somewhere a little less hidden. Maybe up in the white space in the header. ALso, the green links are tough for me to read. They look a little too washed out.
I just noticed that when you mouseover the links in below the header a text description shows up in the whitespace of the header. I would stop that mouseover effect and put something more permanent in the header.
I’d get rid of the tag cloud but if you really want to keep it, I’d get rid of the html open/close brackets. It makes the tag cloud look more cluttered and sloppy.
Good luck making sorting through all of the feedback I’m sure you’ll get from this.
Three possibilities for improving your blog “above the fold” where it’s weakest.
1. Completely eliminate the header above the navigation.
2. Move the “Welcome to Sourcebench” material up into the right hand side of the header.
3. It looks like you’re design savvy enough to do this, though I am not. Put the headlines from your latest posts in the right hand side of the header so some actual content stands out. If you’re careful, I think you can do this without looking cluttered, which I think is what you were going for with your design, and still get some actual content into the attention grabbing space. Obviously this is my recommended suggestion as I spent the most time on it.
One other note. Yahoo said it couldn’t find your RSS the first time I tried to subscribe. This may be a downside to relying on Feedburner.
Design wise, I like the overall look. I don’t think it looks like a “rip off” as Samuel stated.
I do agree that the header is too big. And I had a hard time figuring out what the site was supposed to be. Initially it looks like it is just a blog.
If you want to offer code snippets, that needs to be more obvious.
Even going to “sourcebench,” it looked like it was just more of the blog.
The drop down menu selection to go to different content areas isn’t very user friendly to me. A submenu with the different selections would be easier.
The title and post text layout seems really awkward to me. Aesthetically it looks nice, but it’s hard to read.
Positive first impressions – a very neat and tidy blog. With a minimalist design (that’s always a plus point). Very easy on the eyes. With endearing glossy icons and images.
improvement areas:
White Space – Too much white space. Far too much space. But it’s more of a perception rather than factual. The rest of the blog’s white space ratio is actually… ok-ish.
Solution: This perception can be easily eliminated with a new header design. A new header with, not so much white space. As it’s the current header mostly giving a domino effect of a ‘too much space’ to the rest of the site. That’s the first perception the visitors pick up when they reach the site – too much white space (created by the header).
Font – Font is a bit too small.
Solution: Goes without saying. Increase the font size a little, that’s all.
Welcome speech – The welcome is speech is not really necessary. It’s taking up space, and adding even more ’white-space’ perception factor to the rest of the blog. A welcome speech is only relevant once (for new visitors only). It’s not really doing anything for returning visitors. They already know what your blog is about.
Solution: Create an ‘About’ page and put the Welcome Speech in there. By removing your ‘Welcome Speech’ in your homepage, you’ll be then introducing your returning loyal readers to the meaty point of the site – your content. And of course, it also eliminates the white space syndrome. Killing two birds with one welcome speech removal.
Overall, it’s a very smooth sleek site. Good luck with it.
It looks ok but like others have noted, the header is too big and wasteful.
I didn’t find it particularly easy to navigate either. Your homepage is wasted, put some current content there maybe latest posts, most read, most commented, etc… move all that intro stuff to an “About Us” page or something like that.
I am also not 100% sure what the site is about and who exactly you are targeting. Why should I come back?
Off to a great start keep working!
Few Comments:
Whitespace – dead horse, no need for me to beat it anymore.. fonts & layout need some love – compare yours to others that are successful and make changes.
Social – I have to quote from the movie “Rudy”.. “you’re 5 foot nothin.. ah hundred and nothin” basically you have no backlinks, not many deep links and no PR to speak of and you’re a new blog in a crowded space.. stop peeking at the numbers everyday and focus on content – tape the words “quality content everyday” on your monitor..
Content is king – ask yourself why you read the blogs you read? is it because they are pretty? probably not – pretty usually comes after they have coined some bank. I have to assume you are somewhat of an authority on the “source” topic or you would not have started a blog – if you are an authority then i would suggest that you start talking about code.. break down some real life code sources and make it easy for morons like me to understand.. wow me.. entertain me and make me want to come back. I already have a bahzillion feeds now so you better add value to get on my list.
BlogBuddies – Join forces with the other folks in the same space, post comments, become friends and have them review.
That’s all i got right now – my Starbuck’s Blackeye is empty and i cant focus anymore.. lol
I really like the overall aesthetics of the website. Its design is fresh and unique. The biggest issue I’ve got with the design is how much space the header takes up. It could be reduced by half or more and that would help bring the rest of the content up above the fold.
I also find that the tag cloud has some hard to read font colors.
This looks like a very good start to me. The style is loose and friendly, and the little construction guy is great.
Some specific changes I think you could make that’d help:
1. Put a featured post up in the header area. Just the first 20-30 words. That’ll let folks see what you’re about right away, and let them dig in.
2. Make your typeface about 2 points larger. Increase the size of the left-hand column. It should get more real estate than the right-hand column.
3. Move the ‘about us’ type text to a separate page. It’s not necessary, and it’s pushing the content that folks want to see further down.
4. Your search tool should show the first couple sentences of each search result (in my opinion).
5. For SEO: Pick a keyword or phrase that describes your organization and use it in the title tags throughout the site. It should go FIRST on the home page. So if Sourcebench is about web developer tools, it would be “Web Developer Tools – Sourcebench”. Deeper in the site, the article title should go first.
6. SEO, 2: Double the number of characters in your description meta tags.
7. A strategic point: I think mixing your business stuff together with the blog is fine, but this is a bit TOO mixed. It’s hard to realize that you’re a company I can hire. Somehow you need to organize the home page to better meld the blog and the business’ call to action. Sorry I can’t be more specific on this one, but somehow I have to look at the home page and say “Oh, cool, Sourcebench the company. And they have a blog!”
Hope this helps,
Ian
Even though I should probably be working on site development for actual paying clients right now, I couldn’t resist this opportunity.
Thorsten, I love your colors and I really like your logo. I like your use of whitespace, although I think it’s probably too much. The most useful piece of information on your homepage is where you say the site is “by web developers for web developers”. Fortunately, that’s near the top, but I would display it more prominently by putting the text in your header. That would probably also help you somewhat from an SEO standpoint. (Also, there should be a comma in there – by web developers, for web developers.) I really like what you said about surviving the day. I would change the text at the top to something like “Everything a web enthusiast needs to survive the day”. I struggled with this on my own site until I realized that the advice, tips, and tricks would be self-evident.
I couldn’t quite figure out if your site was primarily a sales vehicle or a blog. Traditionally, people can only really cope with one thing at once. I would either focus on the blog side and allow people to click on a “Hire Us” button, or focus on the sales side and have a link to your blog which would be secondary. Personally, I always prefer blogs as I like to know the people I’m hiring, especially when there’s little chance I’ll ever meet them.
On the blog issue, while the blogging community is getting bigger, it’s hardly big yet. Most people don’t even know what an RSS feed is. In my experience, it’s generally a good idea to follow somewhat of a traditional layout, at least when it comes to blog posts. I know you’re trying to be edgy, and I think it could work, but on your homepage you should probably at least list the dates or authors of your posts to make it clear that they’re posts and not random snippets of information.
A few more design issues:
I also hate tag clouds. Unless very well executed, they tend to look silly and certain topics are conspicuous by their over- or under-representation.
If you plan to make any money from your advertising, you’ll want to put something above the fold. If not, I would get rid of most of it.
Definitely display your categories more prominently. People don’t like to scroll, and you’re displaying your best stuff down there. I love the idea of the reviews but if I hadn’t scrolled way down, I wouldn’t have seen them.
When you click through to your archives and there is a long list of posts, the reading pane is very narrow. That’s not too big of a deal on the short posts, but in your CSS Tutorial Websites post, for example, there was a long time there when the reading pane was only a few inches across, and I’m on a 22″ monitor. Granted, if your readers are site developers they might all be sporting 30″, but for the average Joe, that’s going to be too narrow.
Overall, I like the site. Anything that looks like Collis Ta’eed’s stuff is alright by me. I think you have a strong foundation to work from and you’re incredibly brave to do open yourself up to this kind of scrutiny. best of luck!
A lot of the advice already has been right-on. It’s nice to see specific advice being offered, although it might make it hard to sort it all out.
I’ll take a different approach and give some general advice:
“If it walks like a blog, and talks like a blog, it must be a blog.”
When arriving at your site, I didn’t realize it was a blog. So I left. (This was when I visited previously, because I have.)
If you want interaction from the community, you want people to talk about the site, you want increased traffic then make it look like a blog.
Darren’s one of the few people I’ve seen go away from that with his home page design (to a degree). He’s able to do that because he’s pushing the blogging envelope. You don’t have to in order to have a successful blog.
I’m all for innovation, and I’m the biggest supporter of great design having an impact on the success of a blog, but what you have there…first time reaction of a visitor…isn’t a blog.
Header: Too much. Too big.
White: Too white. Clean but… difficult to read.
Font: C’mon buddy! You want to make me blind? Help me!
I was not able to get to the point soon. It took me too long to figure out what is the good stuff and where is it.
The idea is good.
Good luck.
I agree that the first thing I noticed was the fact that it seemed you were placing more focus on the tag cloud than the actual blog posts. I’d also tighten the header to include less whitespace.
OK, forgive me for being rough, but I think the best way to improve things like this is to just tell it like it is.
Well, the first thing I noticed is that the header seems way too big. The man navigation doesn’t even show up until halfway down the screen, and I’m on a 1024 resolution. I don’t even see any of your posts above the fold. I might not even know this was a blog if I just stumbled onto it without scrolling.
My suggestion would be putting the current nav bar where the blue bar at the top of the page is now and cutting out the header altogether. The only thing there is the logo anyway – just put that next to the about text (and even that could probably be condensed) and you’ve saved who knows how many pixels of space.
Also, on my screen, many of the words in the “50 most common keywords” just aren’t readable. The ones that are smaller and lighter just look white-on-white to me.
I think the content itself looks fine as far as I can tell. I might put a time stamp on the posts or something. Even with the list of entries, it’s hard to tell if it’s a blog or just a static list of articles to me. (yeah, i know it says “latest posts” but I think it’s easy to miss that)
You also seem to have an awful lot of wasted space – especially on the posts themselves. I’d suggest upping the font size a couple notches. Small font on white justs seems to hurt my eyes after a while.
I also think the ads are too low. The more prominent the ads, the more likely people will be willing to pay for them. The spots for ads are three screens (two clicks on the sidebar) down on the page for me. I’d think that’s an awfully low place to put ads.
I think in general the design looks fine. Perhaps a few lines or something though to separate things out (and why does only the common keywords have a sort-of divider next to it?)
First off, very cool design I love the little cartoon guy, but it does need some work.
Here’s a quick list of what I would change:
– Drop you current header and move up your ‘Welcome’ section’ as your new header
– Shorten your welcome to paragraph to 25 words MAX. Keep it short because you have exactly five seconds to convience me to stay and read more. Basically start off with the thought the most important thing I have to tell you about this blog is…
– Replace the tag cloud with a list of tags and keep the tag list to a maxium of 25 items. I should be able to nagivate quickly to see what your write about.
-Increase the wide of your post column and give me a larger preview of each post or better yet the full post.
-Change the colour of your feed button and just have the word ‘subscribe’ beside it. Also try adding an option to subscribe by email. You need these to stand out a bit.
I could go on, but I think you get the idea from most of the other comments so far.
By the way I also love the colour scheme.
Best of luck,
Tim
Hi Thorsten,
I’m reasonably new to the blogosphere (at least seriously), but thought I’d share a few thoughts.
1) Header: The header is a little on the large side. Looking at the mouseovers on the navigation page, its nice to have the information pop up, but could you also perhaps move the general intro info (the welcome paragraph below) as a default text in the same area? This would still leave some whitespace, but would bring some content above the fold.
2) Design: I like your colour scheme, but think the other layout could be tweaked a bit. The rule that I always try to follow is content is king. You can monetize, but the content should be given the place of honour.
3) Tag Cloud: I’m on the fence about tag clouds, I keep adding and removing mine to my site, but regardless of that debate, I’d put fewer tags there. I think with 50 some are being lost in the shuffle, especially since some are too small/light to be read. You focus a lot on some nice whitespace earlier, and then have an extremely cluttered tag cloud, it can send conflicting messages.
4) Navigation: I’d move this higher or to the side. I think it might get lost down at the bottom. Though, I think the black is a nice contrast, and that may need to change if you move it . . . (on a related note, I oddly enough just discovered that Darren has the same thing on his page . . . I’d never looked down that far before!)
5) Content: As I said before, I’m trying to work with the rule content is king. Make the posts a little easier to read, perhaps touch up the grammar just a touch. Also, if I didn’t click on one of the titles, I wouldn’t have known there was more. If you can drive people deeper into your site with a read more link, you get a better chance to keep them there. If all I see is just a short little blurb, and no visual sign that there is more to read, it looks like a lot of little paragraphs without a whole lot of content. You’ve put the time into writing it, make sure people know its there so they can read it! :)
6) Share on the web: Like mentioned above, I’d find a way to make the content easier to share socially. Doesn’t need to be obnoxious, but give the easy option for those who want to send it around.
As I’ve said, I’m still relatively new into the serious world of blogging, but these are a few thoughts I’ve had. All in all, I think you’ve got a great base to start from, it just needs to be tweaked a bit!
Good luck!
Adam
LiveWorkBalance
Just about everyone has said what I would say (header too big, purpose of site not obvious). But let me offer an example that is doing what Sourcebench should be doing (complete with cute cartoon characters): Freelance Switch. I think you guys could learn a lot by seeing what they do and applying it to your community. Also, look at what SitePoint has done. They are a huge, thriving community, and you can learn from their example.
Speaking of cartoon characters: real web developers come in a few more flavors than male and white. Perhaps your cartoon characters should, too.
You say you want Sourcebench to be a community of web developers, but I don’t see any obvious community tools or signs that a community exists. The words “hire us” are much more obvious than the fact that there are tools for people to use. You want to show people immediately that there is some benefit to staying on the site.
I love the name Sourcebench! It’s a fantastic name.
Okay, design-wise, I would say too little on the top part of the page. If you want to keep the welcome section at the top, use it in the header, if not, then slice down the header and use more real estate to help people know why they would want to read down.
The keywords take up too much space. If you want to do some sort of keyword thing, then reduce it to just a few keywords, like top 10 or something like that. It will help with trying to understand what the site is about. I like the subscribe button, very much right in front of you so that you know how to subscribe and what the feed is.
The content is almost secondary to the sidebar.
Decrease the real estate on the right side and thin it out. It is not your main focus, the content is. Thin out the sidebar and have less white space on the sides of the sidebar and content.
There is a lot of stuff going on in the whitespace at the bottom that would work better as links in the sidebar, or even in the nav section in the bottom.
The nav section is good on the bottom in the individual posts and pages, but for a less novice user, they wouldn’t know how to get from point a to point b on the main page.
You also might want to try just a shade darker green for the text. It is kind of fuzzy in with all of the white.
You have your 5 most recent posts on the main page, you may want a list of the 10 previous entries in a quick link section so people can see if there is other stuff they want to read.
I do really like the navigation and design of the blog page though, all except for the header size.
1. Font is too small, even with my bifocals it is really tough to read.
2. Tag cloud is impossible to read and is really irritating.
3. Double header seems to be a waste.
4. The light green on white is tough to read.
5. I do like the cartoon guy. Nice branding idea.
That’s my take on your site. Personally, I would probably not read it on a regular basis because the content doesn’t appeal to me.
Good job on starting the site – you are much further along than I am on my other endeavors!
One oddity is the homepage content is left and the side navigation is right. Then on the individual pages/blog posts the nav is left and the content is right. I’ve never seen that before. Minor, but it threw me off – wasn’t consistent.
The links could be darker, or bolder. I agree th font size needs to be larger too with good spacing.
My comments are about how this artifact functions as a communication’s device. I don’t say that to show off I want to place my comments in context so they can be understood. They will be different from the SEO and Web 2.0 types.
Overview: I like clean and uncluttered. This goes too far, so that the general impression on opening the landing page feels lost and unanchored; and the navigation bar cuts the screen in half so the header no longer looks like a header but an unfinished page. The text seems to have adequate contrast but the font weight and size is too small and too light.
Likes: Light background and dark text. While citrus green is not a personal favorite I think once you get the artistic proportion ironed out it will work well with the white/gray/soldier blue. I like that the sidebar is simple and not a bunch of flashers.
Dislikes: The caricatures have issues. The guy(s) have facial features reminiscent of gangsters in old movies but wear Mr. Rogers’ sweater and sneakers. The guy next to the welcome statement really looks unfriendly although they all could use a little tweaking. Also while I think the intent with the guys having their backs toward the viewer is to look like they are writing on a board, it would be more effective for them to face the viewer and hold pointers instead.
The footer is a bit heavy for the rest of the page. It leaves the reader wondering why more of the header and body couldn’t include some of these elements. Balance overall is something you should probably take a good look at from a design artistry point of view.
Personally I do not like tag clouds; I just don’t. That aside however, yours is a problem in that the higher weighted keywords are not strongly attached to the stated mission of your blog. The last thing you would want is to have a disconnect in messages on your landing page. I suggest you eliminate it until your keyword searches catch up and match what you say you are about.
My final comments are about the writing. I realize that this is a techie blog and not English literature. However, attention to detail is important in programming and one way to demonstrate that is through careful attention to grammar and usage in your text. You would do well to invest in a professional text editor to condense and clean the writing to give you a chance to get what is already published up to snuff. One other text issue is in your “contact” box. The last statement at the bottom of the box reads: “If this is something you want to do…” This is your sales pitch. You must not waffle or apologize when asking for the sale.
So I hope you read my input from the standpoint in which is it offered. Best of luck to you.
I am not an expert, but from a casual user it was way to hard to figure out what the site was about, and how it could benefit me.
The homepage should be able to quickly sell me on what you are offering and why it is worth time.
Even after reading the ‘into paragraph’ I still had no idea what I would really get out of the site.
Sell me.
I feel like I have the same problem on my site.
Being a designer and a fairly novice blogger, I think I’ll keep my comments to the design aspects.
Overall, the design is clean and accessible initially. The navigation is easy to find and read. The layout is intuitive. There’s a lot of positives, but there are a few things that got my attention from the start.
Header – The header is sparse to a fault I think. With so much extra white space, it almost looks like somethign is missing, like the image is slow to load.
Logo – Honestly, I don’t get it. For someone that has no idea what Sourcebench is about, the logo doesn’t help them, especially if they have no idea what means. Cartoon figures are becoming popular, but these seem a bit arbitrary.
Navigation – I would change HOME to BLOG. Also, the SOURCEBENCH link isn’t plainly obvious even after you roll over it. I honestly don’t know why I’m on the site because you don’t explain what you’re about. Maybe an About quote or page would be beneficial. This also affects the HIRE US button because why would I care about hiring Sourcebench when it’s not obvious what you do exactly. “Don’t Make Me Think” – Steven Krug.
Tag Cloud – Plain and simple, this is hard to read anything smaller than 3rd level strength. The sub H6 type in gray against white automatically lead people to read the larger black type, which is great if that’s the only subject(s) you want them to read about. Otherwise, I would change the type style on this to something more fluid, larger and not light gray.
Code Snippets – Under the Sourcebench link, you’ve got a few posts about coding options. I’m sure that programmers automatically understand what you’re referring to, but with no explanation, non-programmers have no idea what the point of these posts are. Maybe a simple explanation before you launch into the code.
I’m on the fence about the post headlines on the Sourcebench. I kind of like the fact that they’re off to the side, making them unique, but what you lose is the obvious break in the body copy from one post to the next. When you’ve got multiple posts on a page like this, the headlines serve not just as titles, but to break up the text to make things easier to read.
If you want to keep the headlines on the side, you could change that gray to white gradient behind the body copy to start gray at the top and move down to white instead of both directions. That would give the implied linebreak you need, I think.
Hope that wasn’t too harsh. I’m pretty critical when it comes to design and usability. I think you’ve got a unique idea here and could make this site really killer with a few minor changes.
First of all, a compliment: I love the domain name, and think the general site design idea is great.
That being said, here’s a few things to fix IMHO:
1) WAY too much header space. It’s very empty space, and you can’t actually tell there are posts unless you scroll.
2) Speaking of posts, make them more of a priority on your homepage. As a first time reader, I had to actually search for them.
3) I, like others, hate Tag Clouds. In your blog’s case, it’s not really a distraction for me, it’s just taking up a good chunk of space.
4) Indicate that there’s more to the post than just what you have on your homepage. At first site, it looks like the post is just one paragraph long.
5) Make your RSS button a bit more prominent. As it is now, it blends in well…too well.
6) As another commentator said, I can’t quite figure out if your blog is designed to advertise services you provide, is your personal blog, or is a community blog. If you’re looking to generate advertising, as it looks like you are, you’re probably going to need to move the ads above the fold. The placement in the footer is going to be an extremely, if not near impossible, sell.
But as stated, I like the idea of the design and think you’ve chosen an excellent domain and site name.
Best of luck in your blogging pursuit.
First think, I agree that the header could use some work, not so much the size of it(1900×1600 resolution at work and home) but that space doesn’t do much for me…
As I was scrolling down I noticed there was a “Whats new at source bench sticky post” I would move that to where the “Welcome to Sourcebench” is at and move that welcome message into the header.
Maybe some more graphical icons or something, I love the artwork, but it was very minimal and I almost thought it was another make money blog, but for a design/development blog I expect more graphics…
Overall look is clean and sophisticated, love those drawings :)
I would also try to put the archives and categories up higher somewhere, I thought that the guy only had made 5 posts or so…
About the footer, I thought it was a different site when I scrolled all the way down, the design flow from broken for me. The ad units looked like buttons for a different layout.
Once I figured out it was a web development resource I scanned his blog postings to look for “tutorials” Saw the CSS tutorial thats a plus, but wanted more posts on tutorials, best practices, SEO, dev tools, how to use dev tools, easy PHP tricks for non-php guys etc etc…
The next content I was looking for was archives and categories to find out what else I could get from this site, but that was all the way down in the footer.
Once I got into his posts my time on his site went up a bit more… exploring links etc etc… though I much prefer tutorials to be on the page I’m already at, instead of having to go to another external link to read up on a tutorial.
Hmm. It makes me feel like I’m using the wrong shape monitor and mine should be more portrait orientation.
The white space makes it feel empty, like its new there isn’t much going on yet.
I’m not in the target group, but the content didn’t seem very hook-y. Then again, I’m read blogs because I like to read as much as I want to know about the topic.
My first impressions are that the blog loads very slowly. Find some ways to reduce the number of images and image file sizes. Second, the header is way too large. I’d reduce the size of the logo in the header and reduce the height. Third, I’d either get rid of the ‘Welcome to Sourcebench’ block altogether or significantly reduce it’s height. You have way too much content below the page fold.
Some of your ’50 Most Common Keywords’ are colored too lightly and blend in with the page background. Take a look at these fonts and get them changed. I might consider moving the advertising block above the ‘Most Common Keywords’ block for additional advertiser exposure.
For your latest post, I would have it take up the entire content width as well as make the font larger than your previous posts. This is to give it a little more exposure than previous, older posts.
seriously good looking site! Designs good, I would even say it almost needs MORE ads, to make the place a little less sparse – maybe one more in the header. Also blog rush????
I am sure this post on problogger will knock it up a bit over 300 on its own tbh ;)
I didn’t read all of the comments… there’s a lot of ’em and they appear to be, for the more part, quite well thought out.
My $.02? If you’re going to use the cloud, get it balanced. could not read the small tags and the big tags were a little too prominent. Personally, I’d get rid of it… never liked ’em anyways.
Ditto everyone else on the header. Too open and too much ‘below the fold.’ I dislike the roll-over texts. There’s no need to tell me that the button labeled ‘contact’ will allow me to contact you.
The color scheme is nice. The icons are cute, if non-descript (without the thought bubbles) but I would consider using a wee bit more contrast throughout.
Firstly, I want to say that I really like the crisp color of the footer. My attention was immediately drawn to that as far as the entire page is concerned.
I don’t really care for the green, because there is so much of it. The color behind the header looks like it was made with the stripe generator. I would start off by changing the post title color to something a little brighter, not pastel, but something like a blue. It would contrast well with the green that’s going on.
I really like how open the blog looks. It’s very easy to read.
The navigation bar looks like Blogger, a lot. The header space is a little big for my tastes and makes me have to scroll down for the actual content. I’d put the little guy next to the Welcome intro, right into the header.
I see on the navigation menu, there’s a “hire us” link. I would put something on the main page that makes me want to hire you. Tell us why we should hire you and what you’d do for us. Are there any freebies as far as tools go? Is this site useful? These are questions I think of when looking for web design stuff.
In the keywords section, we all know it’s a tag cloud, I’d remove the “”s.
Nice utilization of the footer as advertising space.
Overall the site could use some minor tweaks and changes, but I like the cleanliness of it. I also really like the fact that the ads are all together in their respective spots, instead of cluttered all over the place.
There’s my two cents.
I am a graphic designer so most of my input is design related.
My initial response is that there is a lot of wasted real-estate at the top. I feel like the intro section and the header could easily be combined.
Second – what’s my call to action? Why is Whats (should be What’s) new at the bottom? The whole bottom section (categories, archives, etc) seams like an after though visually. If you are marketing towards designer’s & developers attention to detail is a must.
I don’t think monthly archives are important, that space should be used for most popular posts or our favorites. Why would I click on July 2007? I would click on a post topic that interests me.
I like your little illustration guys. Under latest posts could the guys represent categories – maybe only 5 different guys – design, development, etc.
Community friends – there is only 1 thing? That’s an odd title for that
Empty advertising space – I would check out how Young Go Getters handles the unused ad space – it’s much more attention grabbing then Advertise Here.
Don’t be afraid to use colored background to separate your sections. Everything is running together.
I didn’t know the text popped up on the header until I read that on the comments here.
Hi, I haven’t read through all the comments above, but I do agree on the size of the header comments I did read. It is too big. The snippet for what the site is about could be moved up.
Also, I can’t find a detailed what the site is about page. If I were to hire you then I’d want to know more about who I was hiring, what sort of work you had done, that sort of thing.
One last thing, write using proper capitalisation etc. The post where you mention that ProBlogger is commenting, you’ve used a small i instead of a big I. Just a small thing, but helps make the site look a lot more professional.
Last of all, good luck disseminating all this feedback and using it constructively.
I like the cartoon character designs, reminds me of freelance switch. However, the layout of the design isn’t all it could be. The size of the header and the strange placement of the welcome section makes it look like it’s not quite finished. Personally, I think I’d look at either moving the welcome text to the header, or doing something else to it so that the header of your most recent post title appears “above the fold”. It also looks like you haven’t quite decided whether you wanted to have a blog style, or a magazine style, so you’ve kind of got a mixture of both. The smallest text in your tag cloud is also far too small to actually read.
On the content, you seem to have a strange mixture of bery beginner orientated posts mixed with code snippets which aren’t documented and other random content. I’d suggest being a bot more focused and commenting your “code only” posts.
For what it’s worth, The little guy pointing to the individual post titles looks a little too uninviting. His back is to the readers.
You may want to turn him around so he looks friendly and is trying to help readers find your content.
But I do like the use of the character otherwise. Nice touch.
1. There is no content visible ‘above the fold’. The ‘Welcome to Sourcebench’ graphic and message could be moved into the header, alongside the logo. This would shift the content higher and engage new visitors.
2. The content is not given enough prominence. Headlines should be larger and more eye-catching. Posts should be dated, so visitors know the site is frequently updated. The writing man graphic could be removed to make the post area wider. At the moment it’s too narrow and would ensure a meaty post would be a few feet long.
3. A new blog shouldn’t require sign ups to comment. You want to make the process as easy as possible to start building up social proof for your site. Later on you can start to be picky. Looking at the main page, you wouldn’t even know that you *can* comment.
4. The 50 most common keywords is not what should be emphasized in the top of the sidebar. It’s a usability problem — most of the links are illegible and tiny. A list of categories wins over a tag cloud every time. There’s a perfectly good category list hiding in the footer that should be bought up to replace the common keywords cloud.
5. The first thing many new visitors will look for is an About page, which is not present at the moment. I’d suggest adding a link to an About page next to the ‘home’ button.
Overall: The main issue I have with the design is that the content is not what’s emphasized. Start emphasizing the content, make it easier to navigate and things will happen for you, Thorsten :)