Review - NorthxEast Business Blog
Today I got an email from ReviewMe saying that someone had ordered a review to be displayed on this site. I immediately logged into my account and set off for the site to see what it was all about and stumbled upon NorthxEast - An Online Business Blog (feed).
First things first. The design of a blog can be that all important touch in drawing a visitor and making them subscribe to your RSS feed or comment on one of your articles. Collis, the owner of North x East, does this very nicely by having a neat and uncluttered theme with loads of white space. Whilst the content aspect of the design isn’t centerized in the page (which would be nice to see), there aren’t a lot of widgets, there are no ads and few distracting outgoing links - thus optimizing visitor satisfaction.
I also quite like the explanation behind the apparently odd name for the site:
The blog exists to help, guide and interest others on their web exploits. It is named for the direction that represents strong, steady growth and profit - a healthy Nor-easterly direction.
When I entered the site, the bold and well-written headlines also seemed to grab my attention - an example of this which I immediately encountered “9 ways to make your new blog seem more established”. As Brian from Copyblogger would say, a good headline makes for good content, which makes for a better website. An extremely relevant post which I also came across was “6 Things You Should Know About Selling a Website“. With the sale of Aaron Brazell’s Technosailer over at Sitepoint, there is a lot to learn and the topic is something which I’ll be having to research a lot more as I get closer to finishing the flip on some of my sites. More of these type of posts can be viewed on the Lists page.
To play the devil’s advocate - the big problem I had was finding Collis’ earlier posts. An archives page is an obvious thing which is missing, but this can be easily solved with the addition of the Extended Live Archives plugin I use here at Blogtrepreneur. Also, I wouldn’t completely rule out advertising. Links such as TLA and Adbrite can be worth the money and inobtrusive to visitors - every dollar you earn might just give you that encouragement to keep blogging away.
Finally and probably most importantly, I love the way Collis writes. His informal style of writing his blog posts really helps to engage the reader. I’ve seen quite a few blogs whilst browsing the internet where there is no voice and no personality behind the articles. For me, the whole point of a blog is to be yourself - the theory is useless without an image - fortunately Mr Ta’eed seems to have an enthusiastic way of posting.
To conclude the review, I’d like to congratulate Collis on a well-designed and well written weblog. It’s sure gonna go in my feedreader and drop me/him a comment if you feel he’s done a good job as well.
Thanks Adnan! Thought I’d take advantage of the ReviewMe.com 50% off sale (promo code i think is ‘trial’) and swing some people over to the site
I’ll definitely get that archives plugin in. On the topic of plugins i have to say I’ve been very impressed with Wordpress, their software is SO easy to use. Makes blogging a breeze!
Anyhow keep up the good work on this site!
No problem for the review Collis and glad to see you took advantage of the 50% offer - it makes perfect monetary sense compared to spending double that!
Yeah shoot me an email once you’ve got the Archives up and running cause they should look good with the cleanliness of your site design. Plugins are a lifesaver! I really don’t know what I’d do without them.
Thanks for the encouragement and the business mate.