Please crit my blog

[nancy sv]

OK - I am TOTALLY new to this blogging stuff. On our last bike journey aroung North America we kept a daily journal, but it was at someone else's site. We had no control over anything except the content. So - we've set up a new blog and think we have it set up OK. Would you look it over and let me know if we are missing anything? We will be posting daily and want people to be able to navigate through it easily. Thanks for whatever suggestions you can give!

www.familyonbikes.org/blog (http://www.familyonbikes.org/blog)

[Talia]

i like the header picture but the box above it with the blog title??? is a little confusing

i like the photos down the rhs

personally i prefer multiple posts to appear on the first page, perhaps with a preview and then click to read the full post but others may like the single page format

you've got a lot of advertising relative to the content lol.

is it a wordpress blog? the theme looks the same as a wordpress theme a friend uses

[nancy sv]

Thanks Talia! You are right that the posts are short relative to everything else. We chose one post per page because once we hit the road we will be writing 500 - 1500 words/day and posting three or four photos. With two or three posts per page it would be very unwieldy. If it isn't too hard to change, we might set it for a bunch of posts per page for now and hten change it when we get ready to leave.

I'm also kind of uncertain about the photo/title, but my husband really loves that - so I guess it stays!

Those photos along the right side are pretty cool eh?? My husband programmed those so that they change every time you reload the page. It's kind of fun to sit there clicking refresh and seeing new photos! (The main photo on the top does the same thing).

Yes, this is a WordPress theme. I didn't look at them all - my husband picked it out while I was at school.

[veinglory]

Very nice overall but I agree that it would be better with more than one post on the front page.

[nancy sv]

I tend to agree - for now. Once our posts are long with lots of photos we will need only one. But for now, I think three or four posts would be better. I'll get that changed.

[nancy02664]

I like that there are several posts up there. I think that, even once your posts become longer and include photos, you should still display 2 or 3 posts on the first page -- it's just what blog readers expect to see on a blog. :)

I like those photos on the right, but I agree with Talia about the header(s). I'm a little confused why so much space is being taken up. I would get rid of that "A Wayward Journey" box, move the other header up, and then just add the content of the "Wayward Journey" box below the more colorful header as a text tagline. (And then below that, have the nav bar.)

How would a reader contact you? It's always a good thing to have a "how to contact us" link/button somewhere very visible. (Even if you have to add a "we might be too busy to send you a personal response, but we'd still love to hear from you" sort of disclaimer somewhere.)

Might be nice if the ads blended in a bit more -- color-wise, I'm thinking. They sort of distract me from the actual content.

Finally, you could change "no comments" to "make a comment," to put a more positive spin on the comment-less status of certain posts. :)

[nancy sv]

Thanks for your suggestions! I don't like that top bar either, but for some reason my husband really likes it. Maybe I'll show him this thread and see if he might we willing to budge a little bit there.

He orginally had the background color as while (until I bugged him enough about it) so the ads were white to blend with that. He hasn't changed the color of the ads yet, but will eventually.

I like you suggestion of a "contact us" button. We have that on our website, but I didn't even think about putting it on our clog too. We'll get that up.

And - you are just full of great ideas! I like the "make a comment" spin rather than the no comments part. I'll talk to John and have him gett he changes made....

[rejectME]

I think you have a lot of great things going on with this blog. It first caught my eye on Linkreferral and it's only gotten better, as has your whole site. I think the daily updates are a great way to share your journey with the rest of us and the literary references are cool. Your pictures are great and show the progress along with the writing. It sounds as though you are on the perfect journey and I'm glad you are sharing with the rest of us. Keep up the good work. Best, Jerry

[nancy sv]

Thanks Jerry! It's been fun writing about the preparations for the trip. Orginally I wasn't going to write anything until we left, but then I thought - what the heck! I don't have a lot of readers right now, but I'm having fun writing anyway!!