Increasing PR Ratings & Marketing

Hi Roxanne

I really admire what you're trying to do here. However, I really struggle to see how a blog like this is ever going to achieve much success.

I can understand what you're attempting with the design, but it just isn't working. Whilst pa-pier maché and crayons works with kids in the real world - on the internet ithey're best avoided, even for a site like this.

The header is not the worst part, though it does occupy too much space. The bit I hate most is the nav bar, which is poorly illustrated and not well assembled. It doesn't tell me when I'm on a button, if I've clicked a button - there are no states whatsoever. It's critical that your navigation bar has states.

Your colour scheme and layout is where you really fall down hardest. This is a shade of green that is just outrageously ugly, and it's a colour that should never be used as a background colour. Green is probably in my opinion the hardest colour to work with for web design, it's extremely difficult to work with and can end up dragging a whole design down and making it look very amateur.

I would seriously consider using a more subdued, basic colour for the background, such as a very slightly off-white, and using a different shade of green (to the current one) as highlights. Your highlights are generally headers, links, and elements you want to draw particular attention to. Your links should use a separate colour and all links must be the same colour.

Generally speaking, I usually advise a colour scheme of no more than 6 colours, with 1/2 used as highlights, 1 used for links, 2 used for background and shading, 1 used for copy and another colour for general use. Remember, your text colour should be a contrasting colour to the background to make it as easy and pleasurable to read as possible.

Your blog also has desperate problems relating to structure. Your sidebars and main content are difficult to separate. I'd advise giving ALL your content it's own background colour separate from the page background. That way your background colour shows through between different content areas and acts as a border, making it easy to distinguish between what is the sidebar and what is the main content.

You should also think about consistency and continuity. For example, on your sponsors section, all the pics are different sizes. Resize them to the same size and arrange them in a way that makes them engaging and interesting to look at. Just throwing random lists of pictures together looks messy - and it's nothing that a quick bit of photoshop work can't improve by 10000%.

You should also think about replacing your header images. They're quite ugly, and again don't fit in with the rest of the page.

Good luck!

Hi Roxanne,

As a blog owner, i believe you should start from writing and publishing lots of quality content, this is basic if you want to get more visitors and links - as a result your PR will grow as well but my advice is, pagerank shouldn't be your goal. Think about how you can enrich your readers, and give them information (mostly content because you're running a blog) that they cannot find anywhere else. Always try to get into the internal conversation that goes in your customer's (or target audience in your case) mind.

Nowadays it is very easy to improve design and to use a system that does all the graphics for you. The first thing that pops to my head when i see your site is the design - and the good news is that blogging services like worpress for example can provide you with the best free tools out there to help you focus on the content and leave the design and site's structure to them. Moving to Wordpress or something similar should be fast and easy.

The concept is quite nice, but most people won't get into it because they will leave your site before.

Besides writing good content, you can try and start building links to your site - as you probably know this is the factor that affect your search engine rankings the most.

Good luck!

I'm more a CD and marketeer than a designer, so my comments come from that perspective:

If I stumbled upon your blog, I wouldn't know what it was about. Actually, I'm still not sure I know what it is about. Based on the title, it is about learning from one's children. I do think we do that (having raised several). Of course, the journey does end when they are no longer children.

Your link bar is, well, bad. Just regular old links would be fine and not detract from everything else. Maybe have those links that change from yellow to burgundy when moused over. In text links, I'd make black with an underline that went away when moused over.

Clouds don't live on the ground. Don't use them. How about a fence rail....

I feel there is enough contrast between the black type and green background, but not with the blue type. If you want to stay green, then stay black. BTW, remember that many color-blind people will not be able to see the difference between the green background and the burgundy type.

It seems that your home page is really really long. I am not sure if there isn't some way to create an index or table of contents to that is meaningful and will allow someone to review whatever they might find interesting or of value. I mean something other than one of those silly blog indexes that are just dates.

Ok, that is the main input that I have that others haven't already covered for you. I did look up SAHM and had to laugh when I found it stood for Sexy And Hot Mama.

I think your request for feedback falls a little outside the scope of ConceptFeedback. You want to increase visitors to your site - and increase PageRank - while most people here are focused on design.

But ok, I work with Search Engine Optimization and ConceptFeedback does encourage marketing/business feedback on concepts, so let's go.

First of all, what's the name of your site? Children Teaching Mama... or Stinkermama? Choose one and don't leave any doubt about what the name is. You don't want visitors being in doubt about the name - that will make them forget it.

You should probably start thinking about getting your own domain - better for branding and better for a longer term SEO strategy.

Also thinking about having a very clear purpose with the site. I don't know what "children teaching mama - a never-ending journey"means. That needs to be very clear. I also don't understand what product reviews and give-aways have to do with children teaching mama. The clearer your purpose and the stronger the identity, the easier people will remember you. That will make them link to you and come back to you.

If you want to rank higher on Google then you need to get links. This is the most important thing you have to focus on. So start getting as many, and as diverse, links as possible. So the number 1 recommendation is to create content that people want to link to.

Think "link bait". Creating content that is made specifically to attract links. That might be some free content that isn't easily available anywhere else. It might be something very original.

The "grab my button"is a good idea because it gets fans to link to your blog.

The giveaways are also a great idea. You can really take this a lot further. How about counting one link as a double-entry to the competition? Or telling visitors that tweeting about the competition will also allow them to enter.

Those are a few ideas. Good luck!

/Jens

I actually quite like the design concept, not so much the implementation though. The menu seems thrown in at the end and the clouds as titles are too distracting.

As far as increasing readership, focus on making your readers happy. Write great articles, give aways of some sort are almost a must, and then just keep doing what works. If you're not increasing numbers, try something different. Once you have the followers, the bigger clients will come.

Good evening Roxanne, hope all is well! :)

I have some thoughts on your blog that may help your viewers get more engaged in the site from a designer perspective, but in terms of Google's page rank, very little of that rating has to do with visuals. Page rank, to my knowledge is largely based off of a loose set of parameters set up by Google that asses the validity of your site from internal and external links, authentication of content and other content based rules.

That being said, design can most definitely help or hinder that, but don't let Google's page rank be your end- all-be-all.

Some design comments:

The page wrinkles are too much. You can add a texture to your site, but don't go overboard. It should be enhancing your content, not overwhelming it.

Illustration & page title. For starters, its probably good practice to have the page title on the left side of the page, the top corner, where users (English reading users) most often start reading. Also, based on your description, it takes me a minute to make a connection to your illustration. You may want to consider some of the imagery that comes up when you do a Google search for images on terms such as "natural parenting" and other words in your description. Making an instant connection with out copy is the high value add for illustrations.

Little cloud things with bees. If these are all images, they are not helping your PR at all, PR screens mostly text or alt tags. Also, the navigation, well it looks kinda cheesy. You need to convey to viewers you have serious value to add if they read your content. To do that, you have to convince them that your site comes across the way your content does. Bettering parenting. Betterment of family.

Readability and colors. Consider your blue and black and purple text on this very dark green background. If you keep this illustration and visual theme, consider lightening the background to make it easier on the eyes.

Graphics. Try to have high quality, more professionally present imagery. iStockphoto.com offers high quality professionally taken, royalty free stock photos for just a few dollars each.

Hope those comments help!

Hi Roxanne

Have to back up what one of the other reviewers said about wordpress.

For those of us who are not necessarily that hot on graphic design wordpress does an awful lot for you in terms of creating clear simple designs based on pre-set themes. It is open source so is entirely free. Wordpress.com is the starter version. Have a look at these two that I created at wordpress.com (completely free without any hosting). http://phonicbooks.wordpress.com/ http://makemb.wordpress.com/

If you are prepared to pay for hosting you can use wordpress.org and then you can also pay for your own personal awe-inspiring theme from a theme supplier. Have a look at themeforest for some amazing and very affordable options. The key is that your website can look a lot more professional without necessarily looking "businessy".

You should be able move all your blogspot data across to wordpress. I have taught a class of 10 year olds to use wordpress so it is not difficult! What is more it is developing all the time.

Your blog at the moment is not well structured. The break in the background next to the top-level tab buttons looks very messy. The mixture of fonts is a problems. Too many fonts and colours. Red on yellow is a poor choice of colour.

All the best with it Lisa

I'll start by saying that I like the thought behind the header as well as the effort behind your design. However, the navigation, sidebars and main content just don't work well.

There should be flow throughout the whole site and the blocks of navigation options coupled with the "break" in the wrinkled image simply cut up the flow too much. At the very least, the navigation options should not stick out so much with that white background.

There should be a separation between the main content and sidebars that is distinguishable. A line, shadow, etc. something that let's the user know where one starts and another begins. The blue links also are very hard to read and should be a different color, something that pops on the green background.

The same is true for the main content with the black text. White text could work, however it may still be hard to read with the color green that was chosen for the background. A darker green could give the site as a whole a better feel.

I think it was a good effort and once some of the suggestions provided are added, I believe it will make a big difference! Good luck with the rest of your work!

I did a real quick mock-up to give you additional ideas. I know you like the girl on the swing, so I used her in my mock-up.

Hi, in your target audience you are looking to attract parents, not their kids. Will they pleasurably be able to read your blog? An application like this: http://snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html can tell you if the font/background color combinations you are using are to be avoided. The problem is also in a fact that you place all the images/buttons "just there", without distinguishing them from the rest or making them look like buttons. Why do you use clouds for buttons and headings? Is a bee going to convey to me I can click (and the result will probably sting ;)? There are enough free/cheap themes out there in the category you are building, just browse through Themeforest et al. and focus on page copy only.

I like your concept that this is a piece of paper, but unfortunately think that the navigation, headings and content are all poorly placed. They currently give the design a feel like they were put together in Microsoft Publisher or FrontPage, and therefore don't give the website any integrity, or build any trust with the visitor.

A lot more work should be spent on creating a navigation that looks like it's part of the website, particularly avoid the white-box background.

For the 3 columns, I'd suggest putting them in a div, with a semi-transparent background so that they allow the text to be more readable.

Finally, I'd look at the font-colour and font-face.

My general rule is to stick to 5 complimenting colours througout the design, and for consistency between fonts, there doesn't appear to be any here.

I do like the header and paper background that is part of the heading, but the other items distract from this at the moment, so if it's a little unfortunate at the moment, but with a bit of work, I think you could make something work from this.

Good luck!

• Kurt

Overall you have worked hard that shows, but if you need promotion then you must better work out for internet marketing techniques.

Hello! sorry but .... Title?? (Ratings Increasing PR & Marketing), perhaps I understood too well .. => You do not have a problem if your blog has been 70 years today is 2010 and the good eye takes a lot to if .. Hello in shape! !

I thnk that you should try using wordpress also. The navigation bar is a bit 'odd' looking