We’re going to do something different with this week’s blog makeover. Our winner is Sharon Wright, blogger at Moms with Grace.

I took a close look at Sharon’s blog, which is hosted at WordPress.com (a free blogging service) and she is definitely doing things right, design-wise. So we’re going to use Sharon’s blog as an example of what to do.

Here’s a screenshot:

I like the way Sharon’s blog is cleanly designed:

She clearly identifies her blog’s title (and theme): Moms With Grace.

Her tagline is tiny, and a bit lengthy, but it lets us know “what’s in it for me” and promises a tongue-in-cheek, lighthearted approach to the foibles of motherhood.

Motherhood comes with mistakes, mysteries and moments of pure bliss. Explore them all while keeping your dignity firmly intact.

At the top, Sharon prominently includes a “search this blog” form, which is excellent, particularly for a “mommy” blog in which many topics are interrelated.

Her e-mail subscription form is “above the fold” (visible at-a-glance to anyone who lands on her site). I suggest adding an option for people to subscribe via their RSS feed reader, as not everyone likes to receive blog updates via e-mail.

Sharon includes a “Share” widget that includes the major social networks. She also includes a couple of her latest tweets – a good enticement for those who may want to follow her on Twitter.

She lets us know she’s a contributing blogger at Attachment Parenting International, which lends her credibility.

And Sharon includes something most bloggers neglect – she lists links to her three top posts. These “top posts” don’t necessarily have to be posts that are the most commented on or the most linked-to; they are simply posts YOU want your readers to pay attention to.

Just one suggestion regarding Categories: I’d get rid of the “Uncategorized” category (which is WordPress’s default category) and file the nine posts that currently reside there into their own categories. On a blog, Categories function like an index; they’re important for helping visitors find their way around and dig deeper into your archives.

BLOG POSTS

Sharon shares from her heart, and from her personal experiences. And while she is giving advice to other moms, she doesn’t come across as preachy.

Some of her paragraphs are lengthy, which is a common problem among bloggers. In school, we were taught to write detailed paragraphs. Blogging, however, is journalistic-style writing. Short paragraphs. One tiny idea per paragraph.

Here’s the opening paragraph of one of Sharon’s posts:

I spent the last nine days worrying and praying for my 19-year-old niece who was hospitalized again for a problem stemming from her kidney disease. Her strength and stamina are inspiring, her tears are gut-wrenching and her journey is still an uphill climb. One realization for all of us this week is that she can never live by the same rules enjoyed by her peers. While most collegians survive on pizza and experiment with alcohol, my niece can get sick from too little sleep and too much stress. It doesn’t take much to upset the delicate balance of keeping her body healthy. She must adhere to very different rules and regulations.

There’s nothing wrong with this paragraph. It expresses one complete thought. But blog readers are skimmers. We read more slowly on a computer monitor, but we subconsciously want to read at the same pace as we would read a book. So we give a blog post a 2-second once-over to see if any words or phrases jump out at us.

If we’re presented with four or five lengthy paragraphs, we tend to lose heart and stop reading.

So it’s important to format your posts for skimmers. Here’s how I’d break up the paragraph above:

I spent the last nine days worrying and praying for my 19-year-old niece who was hospitalized again for a problem stemming from her kidney disease. Her strength and stamina are inspiring, her tears are gut-wrenching and her journey is still an uphill climb.

One realization for all of us this week is that she can never live by the same rules enjoyed by her peers.

While most collegians survive on pizza and experiment with alcohol, my niece can get sick from too little sleep and too much stress.

It doesn’t take much to upset the delicate balance of keeping her body healthy.

She must adhere to very different rules and regulations.

-I put that final sentence by itself because it is the thesis of her article. Putting it on a line by itself calls attention to the thesis and gives readers a chance to pause and think about the words.

-Note that I structured the pizza and alcohol sentence as a block quote. That sentence contains phrases guaranteed to elicit an emotional response in readers. Setting it off in a larger font size adds visual variety to the post, as well as telling readers, “This is important. Pay attention!”

MOM DARE

I love the “Mom Dare” Sharon includes near the end of many of her posts. The Mom Dare is a practical, doable challenge that will help moms improve some aspect of their parenting.

Again, break long Mom Dares into short paragraphs (give each part of the dare its own paragraph).

The Mom Dare would be a great place to solicit reader comments. Share the “Dare” and then ask readers to report back on their progress, or invite them to share additional ideas that work for them.

BUILDING READERSHIP

Sharon writes:

I’m committed to blogging once a week, after realizing twice a week was overwhelming with my workload.

She asked where she can submit her blog posts so she can build her readership, and how to link to social media sites.

Since your posts are so informative and well-written, I suggest searching Technorati.com http://technorati.com for “mommy blogs” or “motherhood” blogs. You can also do a Google Blog Search for mommy blogs. The search results will give you a good idea of some of the popular mom blogs (and there are thousands of them!).

Check some of them out and find out whether they accept guest posts, or reprints of previously published posts (often, you can rework a post you’ve already published into something new and fresh and submit it to a blog that doesn’t accept reprints).

Guest posting on others’ blogs will attract new links (and new loyal readers) to your blog.

LINKING TO SOCIAL MEDIA SITES

You can automatically stream your blog posts into Facebook, Twitter, and/or LinkedIn (as well as many other social networks).

In addition to (or instead of) the automated links, I suggest crafting short “teasers” that entice people who follow you on Facebook or Twitter to click through to your blog posts. I wrote a guest post for the TwiTip blog that explains how to do this: http://www.twitip.com/get-more-mileage-out-of-your-blog-archives-with-twitter-teasers/

Readers, can you offer any additional suggestions to Sharon?

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.

Readers, can you offer additional suggestions to Eyes?

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?