Ben
Ben is a lifelong Nintendo fan who likes to build websites, and make video games. He buys way too much Lego.
JazJaz : Site Review
JazJaz.net was the winner of my links competition and his main prize was a permanent review on my site, so I thought it was about time I pulled my finger out and wrote the thing.
The Site
First some background. JazJaz.net is a blog consisting of a multitude of short, pop culture inspired, articles. Many are geeky, many are daft, but all are interesting (to me at least). The reason I picked JazJaz as the winner of the competition was simply that his site had the content I found most enjoyable.
Things I like
- The content. I know I said it above but the content is great. It’s actually almost a tumbleblog style affair but without the mindless nonsense and just the geeky goodness I love
- The design. I realise the site is built on WordPress, and I realise it uses a theme which itself is the offspring of two other themes, but the design works well.
Things I would change
- The design. As I said above I like the design, but I think it could be improved. To improve things I would make two changes. I would switch to a single column format, placing the navigation at the bottom of the page, and I would change the colour of the header. What these changes would do is firstly distance the site from the theme, giving it more of a personality, and it would place more of the focus on the content – and that’s the key to a site of this type. Also I would move the (very recently added) Google ads from within the content as I feel they distract from the stuff I am trying to read.
- More user/ community features. Whilst writing this review I have noticed a myBlogLog widget appear, which is a nice little addition, and other features to encourage commenting would be great eg recent comments or top commentors. Before anyone says anything, I realise that too many of these types of things can be detrimental, but used in a careful way (in moderation) I think they can be a nice addition.
- Tags – A site like this is the perfect chance to make use of tags for categorising the content. Tags work best when there is a wide variety of different content so would slot in nicely here. If you’re going to use tags I think it’s better to start sooner rather than later since you really don’t want to have to go back and add tags retrospectively – and with WordPress 2.3 around the corner, there is no better time to start!
Thanks for the honest review, Ben. I will try to implement some of the stuff you pointed out in your review. I already use ultimate tag warrior – the tags only appear in individual post view. Thanks, once again, for the review.
This is a great review, particularly enjoyed the improvement suggestions, some good food for though for my own sites. Great stuff!
I agree with the sooner rather than later about tags. I’ve had some themes that use them and some that don’t, but having them there is a great method as I always have the option to use or not.
Nice review. I don’t use tagging at the minute, but when I upgrade to WordPress 2.3, I think I’ll start. They’re definitely useful to have! 🙂