Kristi Hines said
7 months, 3 weeks ago: Thanks @beachmoney for submitting your blog http://skinnyblackdress.com/our-blog/ for review on SME. I hope you find my various notes helpful!
Contact Form
One thing I noticed off the bat was the contact form in your sidebar from myworldsourcetech.wufoo.com takes a good bit of time to load on your website. I think there are other plugins out there that allow you to put a contact form in the sidebar. Also, on the conversions side, some people might be wary about entering their phone number of to get some information that they would rather receive by email, so marking the phone number as optional would be a good way to go.
Design Notes
This could be a personal thing, but I usually suggest that people pick a lighter colored font for anything on a dark background like your nav bar. It’s easy to read the highlighted links in green, and the other nav items aren’t too bad, but the blurb under the logo is a bit small and harder to figure out.
For the sidebar, I would bring up some items from the footer including (in this order) The Products, Shop, and latest blog posts. Especially the latter that way you don’t have two latest / recent posts lists in the footer.
Social Notes
If you would like more people to share your content on social media, consider putting in social sharing buttons. You can add them directly to your template using the code in this post (http://kikolani.com/social-sharing-buttons-in-single-post-templates.html) or use plugins such as Sociable, Share This, Add This, WP Socializer, or Digg Digg.
For the social icons in the top right of the header, you could always move them to the top of your sidebar so they are less distracting in the header. Also consider grabbing an official YouTube button – most people will recognize that easily as your YouTube channel vs. the red play button.
SEO Notes
Not sure if you’re using a SEO plugin (I would recommend All in One SEO Pack of Platinum SEO Pack if not), but you might want to modify some of your SEO elements. Particular the title tag which I think may be pulling from the name of your blog in the General WordPress settings.
Title tags should be at max 70 characters long, and your homepage title is 92. Basically anything after 70 characters (sometimes less) gets cut off. One good fix would be to make your title.
Body Wraps – Shrink Your Waistline, Butt & Thighs – Skinny Black Dress
Then just title your site Skinny Black Dress so that it only appends that after your blog titles so instead of The Future Is Right In Front Of You « Body Wraps visibly shrink your waistline, tighten thighs, butt, and chin: Skinny Black Dress it will be The Future Is Right In Front Of You – Skinny Black Dress.
Also be sure to enter a meta description – this is about 165 characters that shows up in search results under your link and helps you tell people why they should be clicking on your website.
Content Notes
On your content, be sure to categorize your blog posts. I see you have some topics about improving lifestyle, healthy diet, relaxation, etc. Categorize the posts and include a list of categories in your sidebar so people can easily see what your blog covers. Also consider a call to action at the end of your posts – maybe a post footer that tells people to learn more about your body wraps or the potential business opportunity.
Notes from the Audience
Now I invite everyone here on the SME forums to add your suggestions (or feel free to agree / disagree with mine). Please add constructive feedback and suggestions. This series is to help people improve their blogs, not to have their blogs roasted Comedy Central style.
