From the category archives:

How to evaluate a blog

How to evaluate a blog – Part 8:
Graphical Presentation

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While most of the previous blog evaluation criteria were pretty objective, we now move into a much more “touchy & feely” area: the aesthetical presentation of a blog. Website graphics are a means, and not a goal by themselves. Graphics support the purpose of the site. They can emphasize areas, group different topics together, give [...]

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How to evaluate a blog – Part 7:
SEO or Search Engine Optimization

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Do the test yourself: Google the main keywords which should be relevant to the blog you are evaluating. Does the blog feature on the first search page? If so, cool! That’s what we want! How about Googling a key phrase, or key title, or some key issues which have been well covered in the blog [...]

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How to evaluate a blog – Part 6: Speed

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The download speed of the home page, and the individual pages on a blog are important. Internet users are an impatient bunch. Even if they have a good Internet connection, people will not wait for a page to download for more than 30 seconds. Often we forget not everyone uses high-speed connections. Pages of 1 [...]

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How to evaluate a blog – Part 5:
The user experience

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“User experience” or “Usability” is a big word for webmasters and serious bloggers. It is all – as many things while evaluating a blog or a website- all about “putting yourself in the shoes of your visitors”. In this part of our evaluation series, I will restrict our analysis to the key points of “How [...]

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How to evaluate a blog – Part 4:
The use of real estate

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After questions, numbers and first impressions, we are gradually moving into the technical part of our blog evaluation series. Let’s start with the most important piece first: “the blog’s real estate” or “how are the different bits of information used to build the blog”. A blog cramps a massive amount of data onto a small [...]

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How to evaluate a blog – Part 3:
First impressions

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In the previous parts, we have explored mostly “the environment” of the blog. From the blogmaster, we got all the information of the blog’s setup, its purpose, what they want out of the evaluation,… In the second step of the evaluation, we looked at the Google Analytics figures to find areas for improvement aided by [...]

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How to evaluate a blog – Part 2:
Check the numbers

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We can discuss blog statistics, visitor trending and referral patterns for days and on end. We don’t need too many figures for a general blog evaluation: only the basic traffic statistics will already give us a good view of: the blog and visitors’ profiles, and a trend over time. The main purpose of this exercise [...]

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How to evaluate a blog – Part 1:
Ask questions

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In evaluating a blog, try to understand “the environment” before even looking at the blog itself. Ask the most relevant questions to the blogmaster, so you can form an idea what is in their mind: what is this blog all about? What’s the purpose? How are they set up,..?

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BlogTips Tutorial:
How to evaluate a blog

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It is encouraging to see how many nonprofit organisations discover the power of social media and the added-value of blogs. Comes a time, though, where any blogmaster asks the question: “I am on the right track here?” You can look at your own blog until you are dizzy. You still won’t see what someone else [...]

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