Blog Makeover of the Week: Eyes For Lies

It’s Makeover Monday — today we’re reviewing the Eyes for Lies blog. I’ll give some suggestions for ways “Eyes” can improve her blog, and then it’s up to her to either:

1. make do-it-yourself improvements
2. 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)
3. do nothing. But that wouldn’t be right!

Join the fun — enter your your blog in the Monday Makeover Challenge.

I love the TV show, The Mentalist, in which the canny consultant, Patrick Jane (Simon Baker), uses his incredible powers of observation make his cohorts at the California Bureau of Investigation look like bumbling fools.

So when the author of the Eyes For Lies blog submitted her blog for review, I couldn’t resist. An expert at “deception detection.” How intriguing!

She writes:

“I have a webpage and a blog, and people get lost.  It all needs to be one!”

Here’s a screenshot of her blog:

My Review

Eyes, while your blog is hosted by Blogger.com, you have it neatly embedded as a page on your site. You use exactly the same design both places, so visitors don’t even notice they’re being routed to Blogger. So don’t fret about making it all one. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Header

The giant header image of the eye staring at me is certainly compelling, and the black page background lends your site a mysterious aura.

The first five times I looked at your site, I completely missed your tagline, which is in small, almost-invisible gray type below the eye.

“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” – Galileo

I’d change the color of the tagline so people don’t miss it.

Navigation

Your navigation buttons are visible at a glance, and they’re organized efficiently (however, I am wondering what “Labels” means. I’m also wondering what the difference between the “Tips” and “Suggestions” pages are, and I’m wondering why you need both a “What Others Say” and “Track Record” pages.) Once I click through to the pages your reasoning makes sense. But first-time visitors will likely be confused by the abundance of choices.

And you do have an abundance of information at your site. Wow! I feel as if I could read and watch videos for days!

But let’s focus on the blog, because that’s the point of this review.

Sidebar

Let’s begin with your sidebar, since it’s on the left. This placement is a bit unusual, although perfectly acceptable. The reason most bloggers put their sidebar on the right is because people read English from left to right, and our brains are conditioned to think in terms of “the important stuff” being first (on the left) and the “ads, filler, and less important stuff” on the right.

The first thing I notice is the “Users online” box. No one really cares how many users are at your site at the present moment (except you). And if only one user is currently reading your site, that doesn’t bode well for your popularity. I’d axe the button.

Next comes the Facebook and Twitter “follow me” icons. Good. If you are active at social networks, it’s a must to promote them on your website (and blog).

I had to scroll a bit to find your Feedburner “Subscribe to my blog” form. Why do you not include a way for readers to subscribe via their feed reader? I’d add that and then move the subscription box directly below the Facebook and Twitter icons. That way, all your “follow me” elements are adjacent to one another.

There are many other widgets, boxes, promos, lists, and teasers in your sidebar (in various shapes, sizes, and colors).  Oops, I just found the other Feedburner form – the one that lets you subscribe by feed reader AND email. You need to use either that widget or the larger form, but not both of them.

I recommend analyzing the remainder of your sidebar elements with a critical eye, and keeping only the elements you absolutely need.

Readers, if you had to choose ONE element Eye should keep in the sidebar, what would it be?

Content Area

You have an interesting variety of posts, all of which contain either an image or a video (makes sense, considering your subject matter). In general, it looks as if you are being careful to embed either public domain YouTube videos or other “sharable” images from picapp.com. http://picapp.com/

So the following advice is intended for others who are reading this review:

DO NOT STEAL COPYRIGHTED IMAGES OFF THE WEB!

Many bloggers assume they can do a Google image search and then just copy and paste any old image into their blog posts. Not so. Most of those images are copyrighted. The only images you’re legally allowed to use on your blog are royalty free stock images, images that are “creative commons” licensed, images you take with your own camera, and images that include a “share” invite or “embed” code.

Sharing

Below the text of each post, you’ve included sharing options. Waaay too many sharing options.  There’s a “Bookmark and Share” gadget, a “Google” gadget, and yet another line of sharing icons. Clean up that clutter by eliminating all but one gadget (my favorite is the line of icons that goes across the bottom of the post – that’s the current “hot” social media gadget).

Once you get rid of those extra gadgets, visitors to your blog will be able to find your Comments button , an hopefully, you’ll receive even more comments than you already do.

All-in-all, Eyes, your blog is definitely striking a chord with your readers. With a bit of de-cluttering, I think it will be even more appealing.

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