It’s Makeover Monday — today we’re reviewing Ava Pennington’s Pen Station blog. I’ll give Ava some suggestions for ways she can improve her blog, and then it’s up to her to either:
- make do-it-yourself improvements
- hire the team at Blogging Bistro to do it for her (we have talented graphic designers and developers in our stable who work wonders on Web sites and blogs)
- do nothing. But that wouldn’t be right!
Join the fun — enter your your blog in the Monday Makeover Challenge.
Ava Pennington recently began blogging at WordPress.com, a free blog hosting service. I love the play on words she uses for her blog’s name — Pen Station — which is, appropriately, targeted for writers. Here’s a screenshot of her blog:
Tagline
The tagline reads, “Encouraging teachers and writers to savor the savior.” That phrase rolls off the tongue nicely and clues visitors in to who her target readership is and what they can expect from her writing. I’m instantly drawn in, because I happen to be both a teacher and a writer who can certainly use faith-based encouragement.
The tagline is too small, however. I suggest increasing it by a couple of sizes so readers’ eyes don’t slide right over it. The blue font also blends with the sky blue image behind it – if you increase the size, you’ll alleviate that problem.
About page
I’m glad you included an About page. All the major blog hosting services now offer the ability to create additional pages, but too few bloggers take advantage of this feature. Your bio tells me that you are a devotional author – congratulations on your upcoming devotional book, by the way – and everything you say in your bio reflects the faith-based encouragement theme you’ve already alerted me to in your tagline.
Blog posts and titles
Your posts are personal, personable, and thought-provoking. I can tell you’re a professional writer! You’re doing an excellent job of breaking in depth subject matter into small, easily digestible chunks. Your paragraphs are generally short, which makes it easy for readers to skim through your posts and pick out pertinent points.
You might try setting off some of your Bible verses with the “block quote” feature. This will enlarge the font and style it differently than the surrounding text, which will add even more visual appeal to your posts.
Your post titles are adequate, but could be ramped up slightly for better search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines will have trouble categorizing titles such as, “More than Called” and “Not my Father.” Think in terms of what a person would google in order to find your blog post, and use those keywords in the title.
I’m not thrilled with the small, squarish, clip-arty images that are centered at the top of several of your posts. It could just be my personal preference, but I prefer to see images that are twice as large as the ones you’re using, and I also like the text-wrapping effect, in which the text of your post wraps around the image. When an image is centered at the top of a post, it makes it feel disconnected from the article. Readers, what say you?
Sidebar
Your posts indicate that they are filed in categories (current events, daily life, suffering, etc), but I’m not seeing a Categories list in the sidebar. I suggest adding that widget, so readers can easily locate and read all posts within a particular category.
I’m also wondering about the mini calendar – “Blog posts by date.” Do people use this calendar feature? It was a must-have on blogs five years ago, but I rarely see it anymore (the calendar has largely been replaced by the Categories list or by an Archives page).
Your Blogroll is succinct enough that readers will likely check out the other blogs you recommend. You need to add Blogging Bistro to your Blogroll. Just kidding, of course…well, kind of!
The Search box is always helpful, particularly since you don’t have Categories showing.
And you’re offering both an RSS subscription AND e-mail subscription options – way to go!
Color Scheme
While your site is clean, uncluttered and easy to read, the abundance of white and gray tones makes me feel a little sleepy. But that could be because I’m reviewing your blog at 11:30 p.m.! I’d love to hear comments about your color scheme from other readers who may be more alert.
Overall, Ava, you’re off to a terrific start on your blog. Congratulations!
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