Help with our blog

[mrcfoodsrvc]

Can some of you please give me some pointers about our blog? I am trying to make our company a big success! We are a sleep apnea supply store and I think with some intelligent businessmen's suggestions we can make it big. Any comments/constructive criticism will do the trick!

Here is a link to our blog

EasyBreathe.com Blog (http://www.easybreathe.com/blog/)

[mcarter024]

At first glance, I would change some of your anchor text.

On this page: 5 Ways That You Can Celebrate Sleep Apnea Awareness Day | Easy Breathe (http://www.easybreathe.com/blog/5-ways-can-celebrate-sleep-apnea-awareness-day/)

You've got 15 words highlighted for a link. I would keep it to 3-5 words at maximum, and those are usually keywords you're targeting for the search engines.

More on that here:

Anchor Text - Learn SEO - Moz (http://moz.com/learn/seo/anchor-text)

Hope this helps.

[RayC]

Hi mrcfoodsrvc,

First of all - good job of posting frequently!

As far as the layout of this page goes - there's too much going on. It feels cluttered.

* Remove the blue ribbon with the date from each post - they're distracting because your eyes naturally go there.
* The top menu bar looks 'off' - too many colors or something...
* For the 'Be social with us!' section, replace the vertical listing of each social media sites to one horizontal line of icons only.

My two cents - hope it helps.

[Rick48CM]

Hello mrcfoodsrvc,

Fun blog, I've been flipping through some of the pages :) . I agree with what RayC said about the "Be Social With Us" section, I don't think you need the "follow us" "like us" text, especially with how easy it is to connect when you hover over the icons. I would recommend placing them horizontally under "Search our Blog." If you can't do them horizontally for any reason, consider two rows of 3 and 2.

I think the colors in the top menu bar have too much contrast, especially the bright cyan and yellow. I recommend keeping all the text white in those sections. I like the banners with the dates on the individual blog previews, just change the color, maybe use your navy. Also on the right side, I would keep the "Subscrive..., Posts..., Recent..., and Blog..." all the same color, either your navy or green. Just changing out some of the colors would help visually.

Consider swapping the layouts of the newer and older blog posts. Give the newest three the wide format preview, and the older ones the smaller layout. This will visually create a hierarchy of what's important and give more space to your newest posts.

Hope this helps, good luck on your blog!

[Ocha]

I recently read that you should never put numbers in your titles. Example: 5 Ways to Take a Better Nap. People only want to take a good nap they don't care about how many ways. Concentrate on the nap not the number of ways.

Other than that, your layout looks good. Not sure I like the blue ribbon with the date though. Other than that, looks like you are headed in the right direction.

[Harold Mansfield]

I recently read that you should never put numbers in your titles. Example: 5 Ways to Take a Better Nap. People only want to take a good nap they don't care about how many ways. Concentrate on the nap not the number of ways.


There's an exception to almost every rule online. "Top 3...", Top 5..." and "Top 10..." are good search terms to target. People use them a lot for some reason. You will see them used religiously in fashion, gossip/celebrity, music, and marketing blogs and websites. I don't know why, but people like lists. Probably because it's definitive. "This is what's happening or hot right now and nothing else matters".

List posts are often shared at a higher rate as well. For some reason they have perceived authority even if you've never heard of the author.
Around the holiday season you'll start to see a lot of list type comparison articles. There could be 100 of something, but choose 5 and make it a "Top 5" list and people will take notice.

The whole thing with lists and how they draw people's attention has always been fascinating to me.

[10nnyson]

Here is my constructive criticism..

I think that my first impression was that it was very overwhelming. My eyes were all over the place. I would suggest using something like MouseFlow to see how visitors are interacting with your website. It will show you a LOT about visitor interaction and then you can make some intelligent decisions.

Here are some suggestions

1. I think you should take the top nav and instead of having it multi-colored...choose one color and stick with it. I think this is distracting as it is.

2. Your social buttons really don't need an explanation next to them. I would remove this. I would also put all of your social buttons inlined instead of in block form.

3. In your sidebar, this too is a little much I think. I would remove the gray background from your "posts by category", "recent posts" and "blog archive"...I would also get rid of the expand/dropdown functionality altogether. The use of black for those links also should go. Basically, you have too many colors in your color scheme. Pick one and build off of that. In this case, blue would work, considering that blue psychologically represents trust and has a medical association to it (perfect for your niche).

4. I would remove the gray border around your post excerpts completely. Everything is so "boxed-in" that I don't know what to look at first. It's hard to scan through.

5. It's not enough to have a blog. Determine why you have a blog. For instance -- you have a "Subscribe via email" near the top. It would be better to use an autoresponder and use an enticing offer to get a decent optin rate so that you can educate your niche and sell them through email. You could be sharing all of your posts that way since you have great content!

6. This is also why I suggest simplifying your color scheme, because then you can make that optin form really "pop", but you're going to need a good offer to entice people to join your mailing list and you need to send theme premium content that they want. If you can do that, then you should be able to skyrocket your profits.

7. There's a lot that could be said about the SEO side of things. I haven't taken the time to look into that yet, but I see some things that should be improved at first glance. Also, the use of numbers in titles is a good attention getter, but you don't want to overdo it. I think your content is great! if you ever wanted to improve it just pick up a book on copy.

I hope my suggestions are productive for you and best of luck!

[londonmoon]

Actually I think I can take some pointers from your website myself. Actually, it looks great but it seems to need a few focused areas on whatever you are trying to retrieve better focus on. I suggest using solid colors throughout your website. Choose 3 different layer types.

[MakingItNow]

There's an exception to almost every rule online. "Top 3...", Top 5..." and "Top 10..." are good search terms to target. People use them a lot for some reason.
I second that Harold.

Here is how your site appears on my screen.
475

I'd drop the blue date icon. You are having some conflicts which I highlighted in yellow. I usually bounce when I see those personally. I'm not familiar with blogs, but when I am searching something medical I usually filter by date to ensure there have not been recent medical advances. I search unlike than the average Joe though."

What is your target age range if you don't mind me asking?

[Paul]

It doesn’t look much like a blog…it just looks like a page of advertising to me. I would suggest the first or top block be informative, not an advertisement. “What is a CPAP and how can it help you” would interest me if I were looking for help with sleep. It tries to sell too fast....with no message or usefull information. As an older person that doesn't really get into how many "likes" there are the 'be social with " part is annoying.

just my opinion.

[websitebuildersteacher]

How about publishing more informative posts, I mean not about your products? People like such content and will be more likely to stay longer on your blog. And I agree with Paul, your blog looks more like "sell sell sell" web site not like a place where I can find helpful informations. And shouldn't a blog be helpful for your prospects?