It’s Makeover Monday — today we’re reviewing Mary Louise’s blog, MLCHgarden. I’ll give ML some suggestions for ways she 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.

Mary Louise writes:

I am a busy mother of 2 active teens, and budding entrepreneur (I’ve been budding for about 10 years!).  I started blogging last year mainly to keep a diary of my gardening pursuits. Since then my “site” has turned into my speaking calendar, workshops I provide, etc…

Here’s a screenshot of ML’s blog, www.mlchgarden.com:

ML is using Blogger’s new “Picture Window” theme, a lovely, contemporary, “see through” theme.

I’m so glad Blogger has FINALLY introduced some new themes, and it’s great you’re taking advantage of one of them, ML. Only one problem with this theme is immediately apparent: the picture of your herb demonstration overlaps into the sidebar, which makes your Events calendar nearly impossible to read.

I’m not sure why this picture is displaying in such gigantic proportions, especially since none of the images in your other posts are spilling over into the sidebar. I suggest resizing the image so it fits the width of your main content area. That will allow visitors to easily view your calendar…

…and it’s important that we see your calendar, as promoting events at which you speak is your ticket to fame and fortune (well, fame anyway!).  I did manage to click the FlowerCamp link and was routed to another page on your site that gives me excellent info about how to “cultivate” my creative perspective (love the way you work gardening terminology into your copy).

Let’s take a look at the FlowerCamp page, because it is a good example of some elements you can tweak throughout your site to make things look more consistent.

First, the sidebar link to FlowerCamp says: FlowerCamp (click here for information)

People who attended my blogging workshop last Friday should know the answer to this question: What does the phrase, “Click here” mean to a search engine?

Answer: Nothing.

Search engines need a keyword or phrase (we call it anchor text) so they’ll know how to index the hyperlink. So, you did the correct thing, ML, in hyperlinking from the keyword, FlowerCamp. Good for you! However, you don’t need to put “click here for information” in parenthesis. If your anchor text is in a different color than your other text (or perhaps, is underlined), people will recognize that it’s a hyperlink. We don’t have to be told twice…

…which brings me to the next issue: color. Your site is pretty, but it uses too many competing colors. In the sidebar calendar alone, I’m seeing gray, blue, green, burgundy, pink, black, orange, and a second shade of blue.

Your site’s background is blue and green. I recommend pulling those two shades into the text of your sidebar. Your headlines could be dark green, perhaps, with your hyperlinks in blue and the rest of the text in black. Readers are creatures of habit – if we have to guess what’s a headline and what’s a link, we’ll probably give up and go elsewhere (we’re so fickle!).

You can (and should) incorporate that same basic color scheme into the headlines, links, and text of your blog posts and pages. Choose two colors and stick with ‘em.

It’s also important to keep your font size and style consistent among your posts and pages.

• The FlowerCamp page uses two different fonts. Why?
• The byline, labels, and comments are  in a third font. Why?
• The text also appears to be written entirely in boldface. Why?

You incorporated several bullet points (good for readability), but the spacing between the bullets is somewhat haphazard, and one bullet has no text attached to it.

You have images on the page, which is great, but they’re too small (I especially want to see the picture of the FlowerCamp attendees much larger), and they’re placed in a way that breaks up the page, as opposed to creating a cohesive design.

As I’ve mentioned in others’ blog makeovers, it doesn’t matter where you put the pictures (left, right, center), as long as you put them in a consistent location in each post and make the images large enough that we can easily see them. Your images do enlarge to full size if I click the image itself, which is good. But not everyone will click your images, so make them a bit larger to begin with.

Do you have other static pages on your site, ML? If so, I recommend inserting a nav bar so visitors can easily navigate to and from every page on your site. In your email to me, you mentioned that you were going to put a professional picture of yourself on your site. Great idea, but I’m not able to locate it.

I love the way you’re sticking with a gardening theme in all your posts, and writing in a very personal, transparent style. I can tell you’re not afraid to experiment with different types of blog posts, and that’s fantastic! I love your Squash Ideas post in which you took a screenshot of your Facebook page and featured tips from several of your fans. I think I’m going to steal – er – cultivate that idea!

You invite visitors to subscribe right at the top of your site, which is excellent. If you have a Feedburner account, I suggest adding the “subscribe via email” option to your feed, as that gives people an additional way to find and follow your latest posts.

I think you’re very close to having a stellar blog, ML. If you simply tweak a few of the design elements to create a more consistent look and add a navigation system so people can easily find their way around, you’ll have a winner.

Readers, do you have any additional suggestions for ML?