Shawn Knight, a fellow blogger, has decided to go in the footsteps of the great John Chow and start a “Review My Blog” link back program. Shawn was one of the first to participate on my site, so of course I have been participating on his. There have been different items about his site that I have noticed, and given this opportunity, would love to point out. I think it is our responsibility as a community to do such things for one another.

The Good:
Shawn’s content is amazing. He doesn’t only add new content multiple times a day, but its valid content. You never get that feeling of this was just thrown in so I can say I blogged today. He has a great “Daily Ownage” series going right now that involves pictures of a lot of unfortunate situations. Along with another series called “Photo-a-day” he really does a great job of keeping valid and updated content on his site.

The Not-So-Good:
There are a few things on Shawn’s site that almost sent me in a different direction. But his content is so good that it has kept me coming back.
Site Navigation:
The first thing I would like to mention is the unfriendly content navigation. When you are reading an individual blog, there is no way to navigate the next or previous one without going back to the main page. There are links for “Related Posts”, but I want to be able to just next and/or back through the posts.
Scare Factor:
John Chow just recently wrote about this too. You are advertising a low subscriber rate on your RSS feed. If you have a low rate, maybe you are not interesting? That’s not true of course, your content is great, but that low rate did almost scare me away. I would keep that little widget off until as John advises - 50+.
Partial RSS Feed:
I’m subscribed to your RSS feed, but noticed it is only a summary/start feed. You have to look at this from a different perspective. Most users, including me, subscribe to many feeds. They want to catch up on everything all at once. I think most users will not want to only catch the summary and than open your site, they want all of it. You may have a strategy as to why you only show part, but I’m telling you, that partial feed is most likely making you lose subscriptions.

Summary & Advice
Keep going in the direction you are already going. Your content is amazing and that is what is most important of a blogger. The rest of the stuff is just how you deliver it. Change or not, you still have me as a reader. I just know that if you are able to work on any of the “Not-So-Good” stuff, there will be a lot more out there sharing this great content of yours.

* 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. After all, I know I need to move my RSS links to the top of the page, I have not yet, but that would be handy advice for me. [Scratch That - took care of moving those links today]. 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.

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