Please welcome today’s guest blogger, Melissa from Momcomm as she shares tips on critiquing your own blog. I’ve gotten to know Melissa over the past year or so because of  Facebook group we belong to. She is a wealth of marketing information and she rocks socks at making blogs better. Today she’s sharing some tips from her new e-book DIY Blog Critique.

I’m sure you love when people tell you how awesome your blog is. But deep down, you’re probably itching to be bigger and better… to sell more products, to work with more companies in social media or maybe to just make people laugh harder.

I’ve been editing and reviewing websites and marketing materials for over a decade now. So when I launched my blog Momcomm, it seemed like a natural fit to start critiquing blogs each week using that past experience. After a crazy-long queue of bloggers wanting critiques, I knew I could do more to help. So, I created the DIY Blog Critique so that bloggers could tackle improving their blogs with a virtual “fresh set of eyes.”

While my eBook covers 43 points in detail, here are five ways to critique your blog right this instant (hooray for instant gratification!):

1. What’s your blog about?

I love how Darren from Problogger puts it: “If you’re fuzzy on what your blog is about it’s unlikely that anyone else will have much of an idea either.”

So what IS your blog about? Can you sum it up in a sentence? Defining precisely what your blog is about will not only benefit your readers, it’ll benefit you too. When you can sum this up, your goals, content, design (okay, EVERYTHING) will become that much clearer.

If you worry that you don’t have a niche, then think of it this way: Are you blogging to inspire? Educate? Inform? Entertain? Don’t be afraid to define your blog that way either.

2. Do your colors match what your blog is about?

Colors visually set the tone for your blog. Overpowering colors may scare people away while sparse color may bore them to death.

Choose colors that compliment what your blog is about. For example, if you write a humor blog then subdued colors aren’t really the way to go. Learn what colors mean (like red can indicate strength) and build a palette that reinforces your message.

3. Are your social media profile buttons easy to find?

Do you have a Twitter account, Facebook page, LinkedIn profile or other important social media profile? Well, make sure your readers know it!

It isn’t enough just to have a widget of your latest tweets or a box showing off your Facebook fans. Use social media icons that link to each account and put them at the top of your sidebar or in your header. Make sure they’re all in the same place as well instead of scattered throughout your sidebars.

If you want to put them in your footer, then that’s great as it reminds people who may have scrolled through all your awesome posts that they should follow you. BUT they should still be at the top too.

4. Is your About page doing its job?

Your About page should be a reflection of three things: you, your expertise and your blog. As you write (or re-write) your page, tell your readers a bit about who you are.

Then give them a bit about why you know your stuff. Even for a lifestyle blog, this is important. For example, if you write about food but aren’t a chef, then maybe you grew up in the kitchen. Or you started creating your own recipes because you’re on a limited diet. Whatever it is, that’s your expertise.

Finally, tell your readers what your blog is about. Limit the use of “I” in this section; it should focus on what the reader will get out of reading your blog (tips, laughs, recipes, fun stories, etc).

While it doesn’t necessarily have to be in this order, these are the magical elements to a stellar About page.

5. Do you write compelling content?

What does compelling mean? To me, it means your content causes people to take action in some way: comment on your post, share your post with others, buy your product, donate to your cause, etc.

Writing great content that drives action may come naturally for some but not for most of us. But there are a few things you can ask yourself before you hit “publish.”

Does your content flow or do you randomly bounce around from one idea to another? Do you use photos in your posts? Can readers relate to the topic you’re writing about or can you spin it in a more interesting way? For example, a post running through what you did each day on your vacation may not be as interesting as a post about one particularly funny or sweet story from your trip.

Hello, awesome!

If you’re looking to make your blog even more awesome, grab a copy of my eBook, the DIY Blog Critique. It’ll guide you through improving your blog’s design, navigation and content and includes a spreadsheet to keep track of your progress.

Melissa Culbertson is a marketing communications consultant, blogger and author of the DIY Blog Critique, a 43-point guide to making blogs more awesome. You can find her on Twitter as @momcommblog and at her blog, Momcomm.

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How to Take a Screenshot with Your iPhone

While looking at the screen you want to capture, just click and hold the top power button and the round menu button simultaneously. Your phone will take a picture of the screen and store it in your Camera Roll. Now you can send it, text it, download it, etc.

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OK, now that we have that out of the way, let’s figure out this customized blockquote business.

1. Log in to Blogger.com
2. Go to Design > Edit HTML
3. Find this code in your HTML: blockquote {

The entire code string will look similar to (though probably not exactly like) this:

blockquote {
margin:.75em 0;
border:1px dotted #619644;
border-width:1px 0;
padding:5px 15px;
color: #000
}

In a blog post, the code above would tell your browser to display the blockquote between two green dotted lines:

Below are three different ideas for customizing your blockquotes. I show you how the blockquote will look, then I show you the code to use. To change your current blockquotes to one of the customized versions below, just copy the code from here and use it to replace the current blockquote code in your template.

Vertical Line Blockquote

Use this code for a vertical line beside your blockquote:
blockquote {
font: 14px normal helvetica, sans-serif;
margin-top: 10px;
margin-bottom: 10px;
margin-left: 50px;
padding-left: 15px;
border-left: 3px solid #619644;
}

Colored Background for Blockquote

Use this code for a colored background for your blockquote:
blockquote {
margin: 1em 3em;
padding: .5em 1em;
background-color: #b1d2a3;
}

To change the color to match your blog’s design, simply change the hex color.

Box Around Blockquote

Use this code to put a box around your blockquote:
blockquote {
margin:1em 20px;
border: 1px solid #619644;
padding: 10px;
}

Where it says “solid” you can change that to “dashed” or “dotted” (without the quotes) to see if you like that look better.

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Luckily, a few months ago I attended a local blogger meet up in my city and I won a door prize! The prize was an online presence photography session with a local photographer, Kenny Ruggiano (pronounced rue-JAN-oh), owner of KMR Photography. I wasn’t sure what an “online presence photography session” would entail, so I asked. Kenny suggested it would basically be a headshot — which is awesome if you don’t already have a headshot (but I do). So I suggested the Flavors.me angle and explained that I thought it would be a better option for me if he was game. He was and we brainstormed some ideas.

We met over coffee and discussed my personality (introverted and off-beat), my likes (retro), and my dislikes (fake extroversion). And what I mean by fake extroversion is that I love seeing all those pictures of families at the dinner table who are laughing and babies are crawling on the table and everyone looks loud and at ease. To stage a picture like that of my family would put me over the edge. If you came to dinner at our house, you’d see that it’s a pretty quiet affair and I would not be laughing or at ease with a baby on the table. It’s not me. However, I would be completely OK overdressing for the grocery store and giving you the stink eye while I cram pork rinds in my basket and peruse the organic food aisle. And Kenny got all of that. He talked with me and understood exactly what I was going for. Don’t you love when people get it? Kenny and I came up with this (click to enlarge):

We also took some pictures of me relaxing in my husband’s ’67 Camaro (which really is more my style, but who can resist the hilariousness of the overdressed housewife in the grocery store?):

I’m incredibly happy with how the photos turned out and, in turn, how my Flavors page looks. Kenny was great to work with.

I know I was lucky enough to win my session with KMR Photography, but I want to encourage you to invest some time and money in yourself and your blog as well. Having a good headshot gives you a more professional look than a simple snapshot your friend took. And you can always use a headshot: avatars/Gravatars, your About Me page, your bio for speaking gigs, etc. If nothing else, you’ll look uber-professional on Twitter and Facebook.

I know many of you are thinking you have a digital camera, maybe even a fancy dSLR that takes great shots. Awesome. But you know what? The shots you and I take just aren’t going to be as good as someone who has a degree in photography (did I mention Kenny has a degree in photography? Because he does.). A camera in my hands or my husband’s hands is not going to wield the same power as that camera in a professional’s hands. And a professional is going to be able to massage those photos to hide blemishes and enhance color. If you’re serious about your online image, I encourage you to invest the money in some good photos. A good photographer will sit down with you and talk to you about what you’re looking for and how best to achieve those goals.

If you’re ready to think outside the box, set up an appointment with a local photographer and ask him or her to help you develop an idea for a Flavors page or even your blog’s header. If you’re in Tulsa, you’re in luck! KMR Photography is local and Kenny is fun and easy to work with. I recommend him highly. Give him a call and ask him about his online presence photography and see what you two can come up with.

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Melanie’s Answer:

It doesn’t sound like you’re doing anything wrong. There just isn’t a great way to format some things without specific HTML (like that for a table, which I’ll show you in sec). Since you want to format the ingredients of recipes, I think you have a few choices.

1. Instead of trying to format the list with a bulleted list, you can simply type the amount of the ingredient, hit the space bar, then type your ingredient (which is how most recipe sites I’ve visited do it). Example:

10 roma tomatoes
1 yellow onion
1 lime
1 bunch fresh parsley
1 jalapeno pepper

2. If you like the simple typed list above, but want it indented, you can do that without a bulleted list. Just type your list, highlight it, then click the blockquote button in your editor. It looks like this: Your list will look like this:
   

   10 roma tomatoes
   1 yellow onion
   1 lime
   1 bunch fresh parsley
   1 jalapeno pepper

   It’s a very subtle difference from the list in #1 above, but you should notice it’s indented a little. NOTE: Your blockquotes will likely look different than mine because my template automatically adds the gray color to the text and the line to the left as part of the formatting. Your template will likely just indent your text.

3. If that’s not what you want, you can implement an HTML table. I’ll be honest with you: the method above is easier, especially if you don’t have experience with HTML. Putting a table together with HTML is easy, but you have to keep track of what you’re doing or the cells won’t line up properly. Here’s what your ingredients list might look like with a simple table:

1	can tomatoes
1	bunch parsley
1	yellow onion
1	lime
1	jalapeno pepper

The HTML for that table looks like this (notes in red just tell you what the HTML is doing and shouldn’t be used in the HTML you write for your table):

<table> signals the beginning of the table
<tr> signals the beginning of a table row
<td>1</td><td> cantomatoes</td> <td> signals the beginning of a table cell; </td> signals the end of that cell. You can have as many table cells (<td></td>) on a row as you like.

</tr> signals the end of that table row
<tr><td>1</td><td>bunch parsley</td></tr> (repeated from above)
<tr><td>1</td><td>yellow onion</td></tr>
<tr><td>1</td><td>lime</td></tr>
</table> signals the end of the table

As you can see, there’s not a lot of difference between a basic table and simply typing your ingredients. You can adjust the padding of each cell (the white space around the cell; it makes it appear there is more space around each table cell) to get the table to look just right, but it takes some tweaking and experimenting to figure out what works for you. To learn how to make an HTML table, please see the W3 Schools Tutorial on HTML Tables.

photo credit: Leo Reynolds

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