Dennis Edell, owner of DirectSalesWebmarketing.com is giving away $100 split 3 ways for the Best “Blog Improvement Review”. A normal blog review, with extra emphasis on what needs improving. The man WANTS to know what’s WRONG with his blog and made it a contest! Nuts, huh? Click the link to find out why after you read my review below .

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Dennis Edell Online Marketing

I read a lot of blogs every day — mostly they’re about online marketing in one form or another. Why do I do this? I think there are a lot of useful pieces of information out there that can help website owners, regardless of the brand or point of the site, in any number of ways. Increasing traffic, getting better rankings in the search engines, making the site look more polished and professional. Reading blogs on these subjects seems to be the best way to do this, maybe because the industry is small, accessible and because information is constantly in flux in the space.

That being said, I read Dennis Edell’s blog nearly every day — it’s called Direct Sales Web Marketing, and though I don’t do any direct sales online, I do think about my personal brand, Matty Byloos as writer and painter, as a type of online sale — after all, I’m “selling” information on me, “selling” my own site as the single best place for an audience to find information on me.

So Dennis runs a variety of excellent and attractive contests, which I will add to the top of the list that includes the things that really really work about his site. Getting traffic without pandering is an art form, and Dennis employs the tactic of contest to the fullest extreme, in a positive sense. The sponsors are great, the prizes are great, you can easily find the contest information on his site, and most importantly — the contests are consistent. At any given time, you can show up on the site, a new reader or someone returning after a hiatus, and you can find a new contest to inspire and benefit you, personally or professionally.

Other things that work? Interlinking between relevant articles is sound, SEO fundamentals are consistently addressed throughout, and the site is clearly organized. I like sites that push the top-read or most valuable articles into a clear, off-set section. At the top of the page, you can easily click over to read Dennis’s “Most Popular Articles” and get a clear sense of what is most valuable about the brand he is creating — it’s like a synopsis of the entire site. Similarly, the top-level navigation, while buried a little bit near the very top, shows his audience how to get to other important sections of the site. Want to learn about guest blogging or need to contact Dennis? One click away. Very helpful.

Most of my criticism (all constructive, mind you) has to do with visual components, so let me break down a brief list.

1 The color scheme is not exciting. At all. As an artist and a predominantly visual person first and foremost, I tend to look at the aesthetics of a site. I don’t need excitement, but I do need to see that colors have been picked with care and that they work in a general scheme. I’m bored with the colors here; they are bland and don’t make the content sing the way it could — they remind me of old computers. Like a warehouse of defunct old PCs or something.
2 Thought I mentioned that the information in the header is super valuable, I think the real estate allocated to the header is too great or otherwise not taken complete advantage of. The middle column, for example, is supposed to be the principle call to action for a site like this — get the audience’s information and email, get them to subscribe and make regular visitors out of them. I think that if a site is about online marketing, the site itself should be the boldest, clearest example — a shining star of its own message. I don’t feel the call to action here, visually. Bland “subscribe” button, no luster. The far right header column isn’t being maximized either. It’s marketing. How about a linked in profile link? Let’s network!
3 I think of this site as a place where I can learn about things — which makes me think the most valuable of the three main site columns is the post / content column at far left. It’s not big enough, the font size doesn’t stand out enough, doesn’t ask me to pay enough attention to it. It competes too much with the two columns at right — the “ad” space.
4 The ad space, let’s talk about the two right columns. At the top, I think it’s upsetting to not see well organized ad tiles. The four 125X125 pixel ads aren’t clean looking at all. Not centered, not visually organized. Not sure that they match the overall point of the blog itself as much as they could. Moving down the columns, I like the contest link there too — but how about another, longer ad tile to really highlight an important feature of the site? It directly or indirectly makes Dennis money, so why not advertise it there? Recent posts are great. I don’t think we need to see more than 5 or 7 — if the article titles are compelling, the audience will dig deeper and find what they are looking for.

Top commenters are great and compel readers to be active and involved. Spread the middle column a bit wider, though, so these users are contained in one line, not in two — they look distracting the way they are laid out now.

Recent comments and tips list both work but could maybe have a little more visual appeal to them. The “Categories” of any blog, to me, are an essential way of discovering exactly what’s being focused on in any blog. I HATE the idea of them being in a dropdown menu — just one more bit of work I don’t want to have to do in order to find out what a blogger is dealing with.

Other Cool Stuff section is full of great widgets and things that are nice to see on a blog. However, the title of that section isn’t entirely professional sounding, and doesn’t engage what those widgets are really about. They’re about why the blog is great, how valuable the information is there, and why you should feel compelled to be an active participant in this blog community. Again, the widgets are visually unappealing. They aren’t centered, they’re all different sizes and poorly organized.

In individual posts, I think it’s great to have access to the Social Networks in one click, but I don’t want to see too many of them there. Seems like pandering. There are 14 now. I think less than 10 are to be considered can’t-do-without social networks. If someone is on the 2nd or 3rd tier of the networks, they’ll have their own shortcut to bookmark the site. Related posts are great — would 5 be enough? Dennis’s comment feedback and participation is among the very best that I have seen — he really knows how to inspire feedback and engage his audience. Don’t stop!

For some reason, having more than 6 or 7 posts on the home page is starting to bother me, mostly visually, with blogs. Dennis has ten. You have to scroll very far down the page to get to what might be important details in the places like the footer, or deeper into the sidebars.

The footer isn’t being taken advantage of at all. Like Danny’s over at Linker’s Blog — it’s a place where we can get shortcuts to knowing the blogger better. Social network links, top posts, most commented on posts, all great ideas. I like to see a synopsis of what the site is about — 2-4 sentences telling me exactly what is going on, and maybe even a shortcut to a contact button/email button.