Be easy on me!

[CompiledMonkey]

CompiledMonkey.com (http://www.compiledmonkey.com)

[ses5909]

Look and feel is just fine... but where in the world is your RSS Feed? Also, you need an "about" me page. It helps to let your audience relate to you a little better as well as gives you another chance to show your personality and demonstrate your expertise. An About page is a necessity I believe.

[shyflower]

First impression -- I know what a tech monkey is, but my brain didn't make that connection on entering your site. Here's what happened.

I'm thinking of a monkey pyramid at first and then scanning down, the next thing I see is subversion forums. So, I'm thinking there's either a riot at the zoo or that your site is hooked up to one of the anarchy sites.

I have a picture of a bunch of over-crowded primates shaking the bars of their cage. My eyes scroll down and see online branding. Now I know what branding is tech-speak, but my first impression is hard to shake. I'm pretty well convinced that these monkeys have a good reason to be subversive. At this point, I begin to wonder if I really want to explore your site.

My eyes float back up to the top of your sidebar. I see "hire me", "kill the desktop" and again, "subversion forums". I'm wondering if you are a great white hunter or what :eek:. I'm beginning to feel like Goldilocks and I'm waiting for the bears to come home and catch me snooping.

Now, I know that those three sidebar widgets are meant to promote your business, but they are also a clear invitation to leave your site for greener pastures. However, at this point, I'm not so sure I want to get to know you any better. :(

My suggestions are to:

1. Change the black header for a dark blue one. It will lighten up the 'feel' of your site.
2. Make your tagline more prevalent so that a noob (like me) immediately understands your main focus.
3. Put a search bar and your recent posts to the top of your side bar, and like Sara suggested, get your feed closer to the top as well. I would also change your recent posts number to a max of five. After that let your vistors find what they want through using your categories.
4. Speaking of categories, you have way too many. Organize those with few posts with a broader category heading. Think about what your visitors want to know from you. Mac, Microsoft, Coding, Personal.

[CompiledMonkey]

Greatly appreciate the feedback! I've made a few changes. What do you think now?

I totally agree I should change my tag line, but I'm stuck on what it should read. As soon as I come up with something decent I'll report back! :D

[ses5909]

I actually like the dark blue, but I think that is just my taste! I just made a comment on your blog and when I did I noticed some weird alignment with your related posts. Maybe it was intentional but just in case I figured I'd show you.

http://www.ilovecode.com/images/cmscreen.gif

Oh...and thank you SO much for your last post. I'm glad you are enjoying it here!

[shyflower]

Greatly appreciate the feedback! I've made a few changes. What do you think now?

I totally agree I should change my tag line, but I'm stuck on what it should read. As soon as I come up with something decent I'll report back! :D

Your blog looks a whole lot better to me now! I didn't mean that you should change your tagline. I actually think it describes your blog well. What I meant is that you should make it more prominent.

Readers generally scan down, so positioned on the right, your tagline is easy to miss, especially because of the green and the small type doesn't make it stand out. I would either change the color to make it stand out some more, bump up the text size a notch, and/or move it under your blog title.