Newbie -Help Needed | Help Desk | Yakezie Forums

I just found this forum this morning (Thanks to The Finance Blogger). Thanks a lot it has wealth of information !!!. I have my blog for 8 months and love to hear reviews on how I can improve. I know I have to get my own domain and also learn some technical stuff.

http://www.canadianaccountantt…..gspot.com/

Thanks in advance for your comments.

Post edited 9:00 am – May 7, 2011 by WealthArtisan

Welcome! Now, I did a fairly thorough review because you asked me to. Please do not be offended in any way. This is meant purely as constructive criticism. I'm sure I could better implement many of these ideas on our blog as well!

-The Colors are nice, but the overall theme is a bit boring. Maybe doing a more engaging header font, or making a professional banner.

-A better tagline, something more catchy but conveys what you're tring to do. Probably shorter as well.

-I see you're using zemanta, maybe take advantage of it to add images to your blog. Pictures make things more engaging.

-I like that you use lists. That is a great thing to do, but your should include other things to make your posts more scannable. Scannable is a very important thing. Make use of the h1, the h2, and the h3 headings to let us know what some of the various blocks of text are about. You don't have to put a heading before each paragraph, but every couple of paragraphs would be good. Be sure to have keywords in these headings as it will help google know what your site is about and rank you better.

-That brings us to the next point. The articles I looked over were very short.

-Many of your articles don't link keywords or phrases to explanatory resources. For example, I'm a regular joe American who knows very little about Canadian investment vehicles. I don't know what an RESP, a T4A, or a t4RSP is. I know I'm not a part of your target audience, but I know someone in your audience will have the same problems. One solution is to right basic "definition" articles about these topics so you can link to them in your other articles. This has the added benefit of making your articles more "sticky." You would most likely see a decrease in bounce rate from people leaving your site to find out what a T4A is. From what I've read, google apparently loves self-linking.

-Bold some keyphrases, especially some of those terms that you'll be linking to definition posts. This will help people with scanning, and help google know what is really important in your articles. Someone looking for info about T4A's will be much more likely to find it if it is bolded. Try a side by side comparison. Take your article as is, make a screenshot of it, then make one with the most important keyphrases bolded (only the most important, not too many), then take a screenshot and put them side by side.

-Consistency is key to success. For over a year, I have posted monday, wednesday, friday without fail. You don't need to post this frequently I suppose, but I see that you have some months with only 1 post and others with 6 and 15. You want people to know that they can come back next week and get new information. If someone subscribes to your RSS feed, then sees that you haven't posted anything new for the last month, they may think your blog is abandoned and cancel the subscription.

-Good job on the popular posts widget, I've been meaning to add that for my blog.

-Beef up your "About Me" page. I'm sure you want to remain anonymous which is fine, but you can definitely provide more information. Give us a piece of your personality. Who is the person that we're getting information from? Are you funny and enjoy teaching, or are you extremely serious and passionate. What is your mission statement for this blog? There is a reason that you made it. You could possibly add a list of things that you personally hope each reader walks away with.

Like I said, I could probably use some of these tips as well, but I wanted to provide you with some real information you could sink your teeth into. I hope it helps!

Thanks,

Timothy

Thanks for all the honest reviews. I greatly appreciates it. I am open to negative comments because I want to improve.

My Personal Finance Journey said:

Welcome Canadian Accountant Tips! I subscribed to your Rss feed via email. 

As far as your site goes, let me know if you have any questions, as I use Blogger as well. You can indeed remove the NavBar pretty easily.

I would recommend adding some more tabs at the top with info about guest posting, advertising, etc. However, that can wait until your blog gets more developed. No rush. 

Jacob, I didn't know you were on Blogger platform as well!  Great job on it not looking like a blogger blog! :)

Hunter Montgomery said:

Welcome Canadian Accountant. Wow! Great feedback from some experienced bloggers here. It's true what they say about the Yakezie. Selflessly helping others.

Hey Hunter,

This group is second to none when it comes to helping each other. This group has made a massive difference with our blog, and I think many in this group would have a lot of similar things to say as well!  Welcome! :)

Thanks Tim! I've tried to get rid of some of the faults of Blogger! What interface do you use? Your blog template looks a little like Financial Samurai's.

___________

WealthArtisan said:

My Personal Finance Journey said:

Welcome Canadian Accountant Tips! I subscribed to your Rss feed via email. 

As far as your site goes, let me know if you have any questions, as I use Blogger as well. You can indeed remove the NavBar pretty easily.

I would recommend adding some more tabs at the top with info about guest posting, advertising, etc. However, that can wait until your blog gets more developed. No rush. 

Jacob, I didn't know you were on Blogger platform as well!  Great job on it not looking like a blogger blog! :)

Nice! Rock on Tim!