I think one of the first things you will see about MsDanielle.com is that it is more than Just another ego blog site. She has decided to start a Back Link Promotion involving blogger reviews of her site. I know Danielle is very active in the blogging community and I am happy to review her site. Blogging and Site reviews is something that I feel may be a great strong point of this site in the future, after all, I’m honest.
The Good:
Her site has a great appearance to it. All the colors mix well and basically bring you into this “Danielle World” that you can only associate with her. I can’t recall any other blogs that look similar to hers so her design and colors really do stick out on their own. Her posts are mainly focused on marketing blog tips, but she does not just stick to that. She expands into many topics but it all does flow great together. There are a couple posts of hers that I wanted to pull attention to. If you have never been to her site before, these are a couple that I have enjoyed immensely: Google Operators: What Are They and Why Do I Care? & Is There Such a Thing as Blog Ethics?.
The Not-So-Good:
Site Navigation:
This is something I am just picky about. Once I open an individual post, I really like to go straight from one post to the next or previous without having to go back to the main page. To me, having the next and previous links is something so basic that all blogs should just have. It makes it easier for the “active commentators” of your site to comment more.
Header:
“Thats a huge header!” It really looks great, I like the design of it and everything, but combining the image together with the rest of your header content and its easy to see that you are taking up around 40-50% of your opening screen space (on a standard 1024/768) with just the title of your page. Opening screen space is something very important. You want to be able to show a lot more content here to the reader as they will see this quite a bit before they scroll. Remember, the header area is the one thing you can guarantee they will see on every page load. However you have no idea if they will scroll the full length of your page. This space being used could be showing more props to your commentators or perhaps have more monetization without requiring scrolling.
Summary & Advice:
I think the layout, colors, and content of your site mixed into this wonderful recipe and became what it is! I honest can’t find a lot wrong with your site, its great! I would really throw in the navigational links, it really helps people comment more when they can jump directly to the next post. And I would also work on shrinking down the header, even if it was just width so that your sidebar could run longer. And finally, as your sites content goes, well, you have another RSS Subscriber and his name is - me 
* My reviews are based on my own opinion of different matters. I can be very critical of some items, but that is just because I am trying to help. If you would like me to review your blog or website, please comment below. I am trying to get my feet wet on technical reviews and I am willing to review yours for free. Only requirement is that upon receiving the review, you can either review my site on yours or add me to your blog roll.
Please Subscribe To My RSS Feed!To catch many more articles like this in the future, make it easy on yourself and subscribe to me via RSS. You will not regret it!
Add This Site To Your Technorati Favorites!Let me know that you added me by posting a comment below and then I will add you as a favorite of mine as well!
Please Give Me Some Rice!Giving me "rice" on Nice4Rice.com also benefits you by giving you a free linkback on that site too.
ReformatThis is a Sole Proprietorship Company owned and operated by RJ Matthis. This website is the personal blog of RJ Matthis and will contain a wide range of rambling thoughts. Everything from technical php tips to posts full of RJ's creative nonsense.
I love Danielle’s site a lot, it’s definitely feed worthy! So, are you going to do an official review of my site, not like I don’t get enough linkbacks from you already!
Sure, I will put it on my todo! Didn’t want to assume I could, just wanted to wait and see if you wanted one.
Just like my smaller text says above, as of right now, willing to do it for anyone so long as they are willing to give me link love back - you have already done so many times over - so thats an easy yes
hi hi!!
thank you for the wonderfully critical review! i am so happy that you gave constructive criticism and really broke it down. i really don’t know how to do the “previous” and “next” post, and didn’t realize its importance, so if u could let me know how 
i’ll definitely include it. and yea the header is kinda big LOL mistylook has this “auto” uploader feature which i really don’t like, so specs are “set” and i had to pretty much format to that size. i tried asking sadish but he didn’t get back to me… 
if anyone knows how to get around it, let me know!! 
Hello Danielle,
It was my pleasure, really! Thanks for the chance!
The navigation would require a little bit of code editing, but really easy if what I think will work actually works. The file requiring the edit is the single.php. Compare your current theme’s single.php file to the default theme’s single.php file. You should notice a div in the default one with the class of “navigation”. That div should have all the code necessary to transport over to your current theme. That should at least get you pointed in the right direction.
I have never used the misty theme, but I know it really is quite popular. This is the default theme that I use here, but I actually did so many code edits that it is far from what it used to be. But I really have no idea how to manage the options of a theme to have it do it all automagically
Perhaps another Misty theme user would be your best route of info on that one. That is if they were able to shrink theres down.
nice review.. its good to see someone but in some effort with the review.. That’s probably the best one I’ve read in a while..
Thank you for the compliment! Thats so excellent to read! Makes the time spent all worth it of course!
Yeah I agree, it’s great to see you spent time going through Danielle’s site, I think she’ll find your comments really useful! Great review!!
Hello Melanie!,
Thank you very much for stopping by here! I hope to always keep all of my reviews as honest as I can possibly deliver them.
Very nice review.
The big headers seem to be the “in” thing these days. I only recently shrunk my header (it used to take up half an XGA screen too)
[…] people who participated in this promotion were: Julie from JuliesJournal, Jez of SiteLogic, and Bobs from ReformatThis. I invite you to check out their blogs, as well as the reviews they wrote. It’s always good […]