epursuit.net/blog

[pbradish]

I started up my blog, Paul Bradish: Internet Business for the Masses (http://www.epursuit.net/blog), back in early May. The main reason behind this blog is to start getting my name out there and networking within the industry. It's been through a couple of face lifts and I've decided to try and keep a minimalistic feel to it.

Constructive criticisms? Be gentle. :o

[Jelena]

Nice and clean layout you have there. Maybe too clean for my taste. There is too much white all over the place. If I were you, I would try to spice it up with more color. I suck at design so I can't give you advice how, but maybe somebody else would be able to tell you how.

I'm sure nobody would miss your rss feed! I think I haven't saw bigger icon for it before!! :)

[pbradish]

Jelena, thanks for the idea. Maybe the right hand sidebar should be a different color - I may play around with that.

Thanks again :)

[Jelena]

You are welcome. :)

And I'm sure you'll get more reviews from people around here, just wait few hours ;)

[shyflower]

I think the biggest problem with all the white is the amount of space in between the content and the sidebar. It looks okay at 1024 X 768, but at higher resolutions, your layout breaks. The elements also fold in on themselves at a screen width lower than 800px.

Consider putting your layout in a min-width of 800px and a max width of 1024.
If you want to keep it centered, change your body left & right margins to auto.

[Jeremy]

Looks really good, I like it. Just a few quick comments.

1. There is far too much white space between the content on the left and the sidebar. Now I realize with a fluid layout that this looks pretty good on 800x600 and even up to 1024, but I'm on a widescreen and there are 3+ inches of white space there at full screen, and even with a smaller browser window the gap doesn't narrow until you get down close to what an 800x600 would be. I'd like to see that tightened up.

2. For images you're using at the top of a post such as the phone and pad of paper, make the text wrap to the right of it. Placing it just at the top again creates a large void and requires scrolling to get past the image to the content. If it was integrated a bit better with the text it would have a better effect IMO.

3. This one is minor, but in the green nav bar at the very top of the page, in the far left where it says "EPURSUIT.NET BLOG", make that a link to the blog homepage. I realize you have a prominent link at the top of every page and that is perfect, but given the location of that little bit of text and being in the top left, I'm sure some users will attempt to click that in order to get back to the front page. I know I did when I was poking around. If the text is there, make it functional.

Otherwise, again I like it. Clean and crisp colors, very easy to read and overall just easy on the eyes. It is refreshing.

Oh, and I'd think about a footer to tie it all together. Right now there is just a brief mention on contacting and subscribing thrown in with what looks like it blends in with the content. Another nice green bar running across or something with a copyright, contact link, feed links, archive link, etc would be a nice finishing touch.

[ses5909]

I can't really add to anything here but everyone made some good points. I definitely agree on the white space thing. To do what Jeremy said with your images, simply add align="right" in your image tag.

Here is a screenshot from my resolution:

http://www.ilovecode.com/pics/epursuit.gif

[pbradish]

Thanks everyone for your critiques.

That whitespace on the right has always been a problem at higher resolutions (such as yours and mine) but I've been reluctant to touch it due to the 1024x768 crowd. I will certainly work on tightening this as everyone has mentioned ;).

Jeremy, I think that a footer is a great idea! I've also changed the "epursuit.net/blog" text in the top left to link back to the blog's homepage like you had suggested.

I will start wrapping text around the images. That is a solid idea that never even came to mind.

The blog breaks at 640x480? That is not good. I will take a look at the design and start to re-code like mentioned.

Thanks again guys, I really appreciate the help!

[goldfries]

nice content. you wrote all of them? :D

i like the clean and simple look with informative content.

the only thing I didn't like was that you're practically forcing your readers to view your entire post before seeing the other post.

since you're using WP blog engine then you should use the MORE tag just show a summary of your post (refer to my side on what the MORE does).

[smittenbite]

instead of using green text to indicate beginning and end of posts, i think you should make your lines a bolder color to separate the posts - they are too meshed together and since your articles are long this makes it hard for people to scroll quickly and find the next post.

personally i find it way too plain to keep my attention

[pbradish]

nice content. you wrote all of them? :D

i like the clean and simple look with informative content.

the only thing I didn't like was that you're practically forcing your readers to view your entire post before seeing the other post.

since you're using WP blog engine then you should use the MORE tag just show a summary of your post (refer to my side on what the MORE does).

Thanks for the kind words. I do write all of the content myself. I'm no journalist and I've never taken any sort of writing class, but feel that I have a lot to share.

That's a great idea. I've love to get that [more] option working. When I try to enable it under my wordpress I choose: Admin -> Options -> Reading

and then I click on summary, but nothing happens. Any ideas?

Thanks again guys.

[BlogEx]

I'm sure nobody would miss your rss feed! I think I haven't saw bigger icon for it before!! :)Mine's bigger :D :eek:



That's a great idea. I've love to get that [more] option working. When I try to enable it under my wordpress I choose: Admin -> Options -> Reading

and then I click on summary, but nothing happens. Any ideas?

I believe that's just your RSS feed you're changing there. To use the more tag in your posts you have to (as far as I know) use the actual tag wherever you want it.

Personally I'm not a big fan of using it but plenty of people do. I just would rather to be able to read your entire post once I start, not have to stop and click through to the next page.

[goldfries]

Thanks for the kind words. I do write all of the content myself. I'm no journalist and I've never taken any sort of writing class, but feel that I have a lot to share.

That's a great idea. I've love to get that [more] option working. When I try to enable it under my wordpress I choose: Admin -> Options -> Reading

and then I click on summary, but nothing happens. Any ideas?

Thanks again guys.

great to hear that! i love well written posts.

anyway about the MORE thing is that even after you checked that SUMMARY part, you still have to implement the code in your posts or WP will not know where to cut it off.

if you look at my site, it's all using the MORE function.

if you're using the WYSIWIG editor - then click on the icon that looks like 2 papers joining. i think it's next to the image icon.

if you're using the CODE editor - then just click on the MORE icon or use <!--more--> at the portion of your text which you wish to have it cut off.

[pbradish]

I see, well I will sit on it and see what I'd like to do. I hear people going both ways on the subject. Maybe I should poll the readers?

Smitten - thanks for the honest feedback. I'll make the lines darker during the next round of updates :).

[Bloggeries]

Hi,

Are you on a widescreen? It loads up perfect fine here. 17" standard with 1024X768 :)

Nice Site!

I can't really add to anything here but everyone made some good points. I definitely agree on the white space thing. To do what Jeremy said with your images, simply add align="right" in your image tag.

Here is a screenshot from my resolution:

http://www.ilovecode.com/pics/epursuit.gif

[ses5909]

Hi,
Are you on a widescreen? It loads up perfect fine here. 17" standard with

Yes, I either use 1660x1000(or something) or 1900x1280. I like a lot of real estate on my desktop :D

[pbradish]

Thanks Bloggeries. I'm still working on implementing all of these ideas.

Business has really picked up lately so I've had less time to work on the blog's design. Normally when I'm logging in these days it's to create a post of respond to comments!

Next on the list is to darken the horizontal rules per smitten's suggestion.

[pbradish]

Totally re-designed the blog (http://www.epursuit.net/blog/) to fix all of those issues. I decided to just start over from scratch. What do you guys think?

Now that I'm a seriously full time SEO/SEM, I don't have as much time to create posts, but should get back into the swing of things and have 2 or 3 posts per week.

[deronsizemore]

Very nice redesign Paul. Very clean.

I can't say much more than that. :)

[Bloggeries]

Very clean. I used to love 3 column but now I'm going more towards the 2 columns. Great navigation as well. Looks great and thanks for your comment on Homebiz...

[SunsetSue]

I am just a rookie, but I like your blog. It is easy to read and find your way around. Well done!

[pbradish]

Cool, thanks guys :).

Further above (months ago now) Goldfries brought up the issue of the more tag. I found out that the more tag brings on many duplicate content issues. Just a friendly heads up.

[freediver]

wow nice layout.. But you are wasting too much space on the sides. Looks like your theme s meant to work on 800x600. Expand it freely to 1000 :)

[shyflower]

Be Gentle? Not a chance! :p

I like your blog from header to footer except for one thing. Your font size is just too small to make reading comfortable. (Hope that doesn't pinch too much! )

[hozkara]

Very nice design.