Changes Coming to FMF: What's Your Opinion?

Not sure if you'd noticed or not, but I recently had Free Money Finance reviewed by ProBlogger readers. Here's a summary of what they suggested and my thoughts on each of them. Note that these recommendations aren't from regular readers, so I'm not going to do anything until I give regular readers a chance to chime in. That said, here we go:

A number of ProBlogger readers found the number of strong colors and shades in the design (green, yellow, red, black, white and blue) jarring and dissonant, and that the logo looked a bit like a DIY job.

Ha! It looks like a DIY job because it is one!

But I do need a new logo (the name and tagline will stay the same) and I am thinking of limiting the main colors. Which do you like best -- my green, yellow, red, something else?

Few reviewers had a bad word to say about the content. It struck me as very clear and concise. However, I probably wouldn’t want to read it on the site as my screen’s resolution is 1680 x 1050 and the content area stretches very, very wide. Consider fixing the width of the site to fill the screen at 1024 x 768, but allow for whitespace or a background on the sides at higher resolutions.

I've been toying with this idea for some time. What's your take on it?

In regards to the color of the excerpts (FMF had wondered if red was working) I would suggest switching this to an easy to read gray. A number of readers pointed out that red is more eye-catching than black and thus excerpts are emphasized more than the author’s content. In the context of some critiques on the amount of colors utilized in the design, it makes sense to strike red off that list by switching to gray.

When I quote a person or article, I've been putting that quote in red to make it stand out (just like that paragraph above.) Do you like this or do you think gray (or something else) would work better?

Use post excerpts on the main page with a Wordpress ‘More’ tag. This will encourage readers to navigate to the post-page to keep reading. When they click their browser’s social media buttons, they’ll be voting for the specific page, rather than the site as a whole. Specific blog posts tend to do a lot better than whole blogs.

What do you think of this idea -- basically having a summary of the post on the home page and the rest of the post on another page? Good idea? Bad idea? Doesn't matter?

Use more descriptive and inspirational headlines. As seen in the ‘Best of’ list in the sidebar, post headlines which tapped into reader aspirations (being ‘Rich’ or a ‘Millionaire’) have tended to do very well.

If anything, I think I'm often over-the-top with my headlines. Thoughts here?

Develop the habit of adding images to posts. Social media users browse the web very quickly and rely on visuals to communicate with them initially. An eye-catching image can mean the difference between a visitor who stays on your blog and a visitor who leaves the way they came.

I have opted for a more "clean" content area. Any thoughts on images versus no images?

Consider writing longer, thematic posts or resource lists. Short posts rarely do well on social media unless they’re incredibly profound or very useful. Longer, value-packed posts tend to be a favored format.

Yep, I need to set a goal for this (such as one per day, etc.) 

A number of readers suggested placing some form of advertising in-post, as these tend to perform better in comparison to ads in sidebars.

I have two issues here: 1) Typepad isn't the most friendly option for adding ads in the content section and 2) I'm not sure how readers will respond to ads in the content section. Your thoughts?

There is an incredible amount of stuff packed into the sidebars on either side of the content. There are some really important elements in the sidebar coupled with a lot of unimportant elements, and I think a lot of what’s important is probably getting lost in the clutter.

This is true. I have way too much on my sidebars. When I changed it last time, I wanted enough on the sidebars so they went down fairly far with the posts. But Now I'm thinking "less is more." The only questions are 1) what stays and 2) where does it go. Some of their suggestions.

• Move a Feedburner subscription icon above the fold.
• Move up and emphasize: reviews (good social proof from sources who’re authorities to your target audience) and ‘Best of Free Money Finance’. People want to see the best very quickly when they first visit your blog.
• Remove: recent posts element (it’s easier for users to just scroll down), recent comments (”person I haven’t heard of” commented on “post I haven’t read yet” — not so exciting for a new user), simplify your category list down to 10 - 15 (it’s so big as to be intimidating), move the blogroll to a separate page, remove lists of posts from the sidebar or put them on a separate page.
• Move your About and Contact information above the site sponsors on the right. Your About page must be easy to find because new visitors will often give up if they can’t get quick and concise information on what your site is about.

What are your thoughts on these?

I'm currently deciding what actions to take, but there are changes coming. I won't be able to incorporate everyone's suggestions (nor would I want to -- I have to decide what works best for me and the majority of readers), but I do want to give everybody a chance to be heard and comment before I start a re-design. After all, this is "your" blog too. Your thoughts are welcome and appreciated. Thanks for your input.

Comments

[Anne]

I actually unsubscribed from your blog because of weak content. It seems like there is very little original content here; most posts are "here's an article I found on [randommoneysite.com]" or "ask the readers" posts where you just post a reader question and ask for comments without offering any advice of your own. I would come back if your posts offered some more original content and thought.

[Mike H]

1) "However, I probably wouldn’t want to read it on the site as my screen’s resolution is 1680 x 1050 and the content area stretches very, very wide. Consider fixing the width of the site to fill the screen at 1024 x 768, but allow for whitespace or a background on the sides at higher resolutions.

I've been toying with this idea for some time. What's your take on it?"

Please don't! I've got a 1600x1200 screen resolution I LOVE the fact that I can actually use the entire screen to read FMF (unlike many other blogs that annoyingly do what the reviewer suggests).

2) "What do you think of this idea -- basically having a summary of the post on the home page and the rest of the post on another page? Good idea? Bad idea? Doesn't matter?"

Again, please don't! I read blogs via the blog home page (rather than a feed reader). I love being able to just scroll through what I haven't read, rather than having to click into every article to see the entire thing.

3) "I have opted for a more "clean" content area. Any thoughts on images versus no images?"

My preference is content over fluff. I'd say pass on the images unless they specifically illustrate your point.

4) "A number of readers suggested placing some form of advertising in-post, as these tend to perform better in comparison to ads in sidebars.

I have two issues here: 1) Typepad isn't the most friendly option for adding ads in the content section and 2) I'm not sure how readers will respond to ads in the content section. Your thoughts?"

Again, I read FMF for the content. Anything in the way of that (such as more obtrusive ads) is annoying.

In summary: Sorry to only comment on the negative things! Some of the other suggestions seem reasonable (you do have an awful lot of stuff in the sidebars). I don't mind the color scheme you have (though it is unusual), but updating it certainly wouldn't hurt. I really enjoy the content at FMF, and your perspective on PF. (As a Christian, I particularly enjoy your Sunday posts.) I don't have time to scour a lot of PF blogs, but yours is first on my list.

Thanks for asking your readers before making changes!

[beastlike]

FMF - Don't worry, Anne's still reading them :)

Abstain from bright colors so it doesn't look so obvious that I am not working at work!! haha....

[Michael]

Regarding the idea of summarizing the entries and putting more detail on a separate page, I don't like this at all and hope that you give serious consideration to keeping it as is? Why? Because it adds clicks for the reader and that creates more work. I like to load the page and just read through and minimize my work of having to click around and go back, etc. etc. etc.

Plus, I've found that when sites do this, I will often skip entries that I might otherwise read if they were there.

However, I know more and more sites are doing to this and I suspect I'm in the minority, so maybe consider a mix. Maybe have users click through on things such as book review, contest info, and the voting game you're doing. These are OK but they are the 'potatoes' where the real PF posts are the 'meat'.

I do think a picture here and there wouldn't hurt. A refresh of the banner page, etc. is always a good thing to keep things new.

Content wise, this is one of my favorite blogs. I read about 20 blogs on a daily basis and this is probably one of the top 5, so I hope that whatever happens, the content doesn't change too much.

[Anne]

@beastlike: Actually, I read pfblogs.org. When I saw the title of this post inviting constructive criticism, I decided to drop by. I would think any blogger would want to know not just what his current readers like, but also what his former readers disliked.

[Casey]

Pictures are effective for those of us in the 'entertainment' blogosphere who do it as a hobby with no set niche. I read your site because I'm a young person who has a desire to learn more about finances, not see pictures of handshakes and dollar signs..

My next feedback kind of combines the red text with lengthy posts. I tend to focus on the shorter columns, perhaps it is because I don't have a lot of time throughout the work day to absorb knowledge on such a grand scale. At the same time, the red doesn't really bother me, it just helps to delineate what's yours and what isn't.

Would like to see cleaner sidebars, I'm a fairly new reader so there's much I haven't seen!

Keep up the good work though.

[FMF]

Anne --

Certainly, all comments are welcome.

BTW, there's really very little new in personal finance. My policy is that if someone else has said it or says it better, to refer to them and then keep quiet (for the most part.) I do offer my opinions when I think they add value.

That said, thanks for taking the time and effort to comment. I appreciate your honest thoughts and will consider them as I decide how to proceed.

[Emily]

I used to be an avid simpledollar reader but have since put your blog on the top of my list. I like how your stories are short, because I do not have time or attention span to read long articles. I usually skim them when I come acoss them. I also like how you post a lot of stuff each day, keep doing it. That is origionally why I read Trent's blog, but now that he only does one post a day and makes them really long, I stopped. I also like how you have questions from readers. I just wish you would put your opinion b/c I am interested to see what you think. I do read your blog through google reader so the look of your web site is not an issue for me.

[Faithful reader]

Re full-width content: Puhleeze, if you have a widescreen and dont want to use it, learn how to use the un-maximize button.

Re click-throughs: hate em

Re headlines: as long they are actually descriptive of the content, I dont care. I read mostly from an RSS aggregator, and if the headline doesn't tell me anything, I dont read it.

Re social-bookmarking buttons: if I care to use delicious, I'll learn how to use it. These buttons have become a scourge of the blogosphere.

Re graphics/colors: there is no better way to lose an entire weekend than to tweak stylesheets and play in gimp.

[Jennifer/GA]

I have only been reading your blog a few weeks, but I see nothing that needs to change. I especially enjoy the small posts daily and the comments that go with them. I like how you let your readers get involved answering questions of fellow readers, because someone might actually have a better idea of the subject than you do and would be a wiser way to answer the reader.

Keep up the great work!

[Matt]

In regards to the 4th comment I don't like unless it's for particularly long articles. The reason for this is that most RSS feeds will crop the article at the fold. I much prefer seeing ads in the RSS feed to having to navigate to the main page to finish an article.

[stonecutter]

Here are my thoughts:

1 - Whole Blog. Don't use the "More" tag. I like being able to read all your recent threads without clicking into them.

2 - Pictures/Images. I agree with your clean approach. Sometimes having an image is appropriate, but I prefer no images to having too many images.

3 - Screen Resolution. Keep the screen resolution at it's current settings.

4 - Sidebars. "Recent Posts" and "Recent Comments" are unnecessary sidebars. Rather than listing all the options in the other sidebars, can you just have links that take you to that content? For example, don't list all your categories. Just have a link that says "Post Categories" and when clicked it takes you to another page with the full list of categories.

5 - Red quotes. Gray would be easier on the eyes.

6 - Color scheme. Your page makes me think of the Green Bay Packers for some strange reason...

7 - Headlines. I don't see any problems with them. It sounds like the just want you to use buzz words to get more clicks. Good content will always get clicks and comments. Also, because you don't use the "More" tag, I usually read the whole entry anyway, regardless of how good the headline is.

By the way, I love that you find articles from all over the net and then add value by contributing your two cents and opening it up to comments. Keep up the good work.

[rdub98]

FMF,

I'm in it for the content. I really don't care about the colors of the text or your logo. I would strongly discourage putting ads in the posts themselves. That is incredibly annoying and would cause me to rethink my reading your blog.

I would like to see a calendar on one of the sidebars that would give me a chance to click on a date and get the posts for that date. I miss days sometimes and would like to go back to that day in time. Otherwise it gets a little difficult trying to track down the content.

"BTW, there's really very little new in personal finance."

What?!?! Real Estate market going south?! Dow tanking?! Recession?! Gas Prices?! That should be enough to write for months.

Although I do like your "Help a Reader" series because I can equate some aspects of my life to them, too many of them and it gets a little boring.

Keep the articles coming. I use your blog to help me keep up with other financial news. By your reading the articles and posted snippets, I get the best of both worlds without having to spend the time to get the info I need.

I would love to see more "How To" articles. A lot of what I have seen is people bragging about net worth. Well, I don't have nearly the net worth that I should and rather than listen to people brag about how rich they are, I would like to know how they (or you) did got there. Rather than saying "You need to develop a budget," show me how. Rather than say "I got rich on Index Funds," tell me about index funds and how to decide what is a good one, why, and how to figure it out for myself. I would love to see an article on How To Break Bad Spending Habits which is the main reason why I can't develop the net worth I need.

Just my two cents.

[FMF]

Thanks to all of you for your great comments. Keep them coming!

[Darin H]

New/different colors wouldn't be too bad, maybe just drop the yellow or choose different green & yellow shades.

Say no to the "read more."

Pictures? eh, I'm fine without them.

Resolution - keep it the same.

Red quotes - red is fine, but gray would be fine too, I think as long as you blockquote them we'll be able to differentiate them without problems :)

Sidebars - definitely need some cleanup.

One thing that wasn't mentioned is that I would like an "Older Posts" button at the bottom of the page, you do keep a lot of content on the main page, but there are times when I haven't been here in a couple of days and the posts have drifted off to the netherworlds only to be found by the archives.

Love the site either way and wouldn't mind if you just said that you're leaving it alone :)

[No Debt Plan]

I really like the red... it helps distinguish what is your writing and what isn't.

"Consider writing longer, thematic posts or resource lists. Short posts rarely do well on social media unless they’re incredibly profound or very useful. Longer, value-packed posts tend to be a favored format."

I'd like to echo Emily's thoughts on this. I like the multiple shorter posts as opposed to one long one. With the multiple posts, there may be three or four I'm not interested in--but that's OK because there are always a few I do find interesting. I think if you went to one long post a day, I might go several days without finding something that concerns me.

[Mike B.]

Sorry that's my post above, forgot to add name (didn't mean it to be anonymous).

[Kyle]

I also read problogger so I was reading the comments as they appeared. For the most part, they seem too preoccupied with social media. In my experience, social media users are in and out. They rarely click on anything or explore much of your site beyond the initial page. I would rather have focused, interested traffic than a deluge of newcomers who won't see or appreciate 99% of the content. As for the suggestions, I agree with most of them.

I disagree with:
pictures in posts - they are distracting to me
red quotes - I like them, they stand out

[Kevin]

I agree w/rdub98...I'm here for the content, not colors and pictures. I could care less if it's yellow/green (Packer fan?) blue, red, purple...well maybe not purple. But you get the point.

I actually don't read WiseBread because it is too cluttered with pictures.

I also hate click-throughs, so please keep the entire blog on the front page.

As far as the social networking crap....I'm not into that and don't really care to learn.

About the only one I would take is to move the "About me" stuff to the top left, since that's where it appears to make most sense. And maybe move the reviews to a separate page but put a link with the "About FMF" stuff...since that is pretty good stuff and might impress new readers.

Good luck with the changes and keep the good info coming.

[J in FL]

Honestly, I don't care too much what you do with the appearance... it doesn't bother me.

I keep coming back to this site because it is quite simply one of the best pf blogs out there.

The posts are educational, thought-provoking, the comments are as well very insightful and educational.

[J in FL]

Kevin, yea that's interesting what you said about WiseBread... I started to read that blog for a while, but one of the things I also didn't like were the pictures... and honestly, a lot of the content on there seemed a little too basic (not in-depth enough for my tastes). Maybe it's just me?

Anyway, this is the one site that has always managed to survive my occasional browser-bookmarks cleaning sprees. I'm usually here at least once a day.

[plonkee]

I subscribe to problogger too, so I saw some of these ideas there.

I don't think you're going to get many regular readers or subscribers saying it, but I'd strongly suggest that if you do nothing else, you move the subscription button higher up - preferably with only one RSS icon button.

People that are already subscribed won't care, but you probably want to get more subscribers, and they might not look too hard to find it.

[Josh]

Anne,

Why don't you write your own blog so that you can always have original content 24/7. So we can all read something original. Don't be stupid. FMF uses articles to enhances his blog points.

[Matt]

I like the colors, the site looks pretty clean for the most part (although side bars can get a bit clouded).

I like short posts throughtout the day, they show up on my google homepage and I can click through and read it when I need a short break. Long posts are a pain to read if you have to switch back and forth between tasks while reading it.

And the blogs that I don't have a feed for I normally click on once I've come to your site, so please don't move them to a new page!

I love the site, keep up the good work. I think that you're smart enough to know what will be a good change.

[Bobby]

I like it the way it is now. I've been reading your blog for at least a few months, maybe over a year. Pictures are a waste of time. If you need pictures to explain your finances, maybe think about hiring someone else to balance the checkbook. If I don't completely understand something, I will go look it up for a deeper explaination if I need it. keep up the good work.

[Anitra]

Please, keep the content filling the screen! I much prefer that to large empty borders on either side of the content.

Subtler colors would be nice. I like the yellow and green, but it could be toned down a bit. I don't care one way or the other about the red text.

Now for the things I agree with, and want to reinforce to you:
* Reduce the number of categories.
* Get rid of the "recent posts" sidebar.
* Reduce the number of sidebar links in general! I didn't even realize I could go straight to your archives or to an "about FMF" page until after reading this post and looking around the site.
* Summaries are good for the longer posts and the ones that have more of a niche audience (contests, giveaways, etc.) Your short posts are so short that a "more" link would only point to a few more lines, leaving readers feeling cheated.

[Don]

Regarding which colors to choose for the blog.

My wife and I had the exact same issue when we designed our website and blog.

Being a guy, I am horrible at figuring out colors, color matching, color meaning, etc. (You should see me dress when I am left to my own devices.)

I researched books on colors. I found an excellent cutting edge book that I HIGHLY recommend. It shows colors that can be used in blogging, web pages, and marketing. The title is "Color Messages and Meanings, A Pantone Color Resource" by Leatrice Eiseman, ISBN-10: 0971401063, ISBN-13: 978-0971401068. 144 pages.

This book makes colors easy to understand. The large pages show numerous superb examples of advertisements using colors. This book does an excellent job of explaining colors.

First, you must pick out the emotions that will best communicate your type of blog.

The book has a chapter on the emotions. Some examples: integrity, contemplation, complexity, restful, rich, sentimental. There are 24 color combinations shown for each emotion.

Each color group has its own chapter. For example, the chapter on Neutrals is 6 pages long, gives 18 advertising examples, lists and explains 5 neutral colors (Neutral Gray, Charcoal Gray, Taupe, Ivory, and Silver), and gives the Pantone color code number for every color (you can put this code in your computer and see the color on your monitor, or in your printouts). You can try out the different colors.

Yes, I am a guy, and now I know what Taupe is. I also know how it is best used. (I don’t know if I should be scared or not.)

Another book is "The Big Book of Color in Design" by David E. Carter, ISBN-10: 0060748001, ISBN-13: 978-0060748005. 384 pages.

That book has about a thousand examples, and it is sorted by emotions. Next to each example is a list of the color shades that were used, with the CMYK color codes that you can use on your computer monitor, or in your printouts. This book's strength is showing the colors that work well together.

After reading these two books, it made our color selection easy.

The first thing we had to do is to figure out how to best describe our business product or service. We blog about a lake town in Arizona, and we sell the inexpensive vacant land that is buildable today ($8K to $25K).

Next, we had to pick the emotions that best describes our business product or service.

The emotions that we picked are: computer friendly, security, calm, nature, and investment.

The important thing in our blog is the info we are providing. We have substance. We do not want eye candy. We do not want colors that are distracting.

The colors we picked work in harmony with the type of blog and website that we have. To see our example, our websites are www.ConchoLakeAZ.com , http://Blog.ConchoLakeAZ.com , and www.FedoraProperties.com .

[EJF]

1) I sometimes read your blog on my blackberry and it takes a lot of scrolling to get to the day's content (must scroll through ads as well as previous posted links on the side). Is there any way you can structure the site through framing so that the content is the first that shows up on a PDA screen?

2) I think gray would be better for the offsets. Red is a little too distracting

Think the blog is great and appreciate that you post multiple times in one day. Keep up the good work!

[Merry Maid]

The Green background is soothing.

Hate the click throughs. This is why I no longer read mobilemag and now read engadget instead.

don't have time (read: attention span :) to read really long posts. Need you to break it up.

I'm after meat. Making me look at an irrelevant photo of a child getting vaccinated simply b/c you're discussing child doc visits (or whatever) is a waste of my time. Photos should only be used to clarify, make something easier to understand, rephrase your message, etc. They should convey an important message.

[paidtwice]

I agree with the moving up of the RSS button. People expect it at the top of your sidebar. Your right sidebar, preferably but the left is okay too. At least, not at the bottom!

As for other things about your sidebars, I think you should add my blog to your blogroll. ;)

(The sidebars are really long though and shortening them up a bit wouldn't hurt).

I think a new logo would be nifty, otherwise, i am kind of indifferent. Your blog is unique in its approach and I appreciate that.

[FMF]

Paid Twice --

I added your blog. ;-)

That said, I may be moving the whole list soon. :-)

[paidtwice]

Awesome :)

Hey even if you move it I am still on the list, wherever it goes. :)

[Pm]

I would recommend adding search engine so we can archive old posts. I have found it hard to find an old post in the past.

[anna]

please don't use gray...the lower contrast is really hard to read. Maybe a navy blue or blockquotes for the header if you dislike the red, but gray on white is tiring on the eyes, especially for a narrow font like this site uses.

[Rob]

As long as you keep the entire RSS feed, I'm good to go.

[db]

Honestly?

I'd throw the entire review out the window and keep everything just like it is.

[db]

I take that back, I'd change one thing.

I just noticed that at the end of the screen, there's no link to read older posts. I hate it when blogs get rid of that link, I scroll back to catch up on blog posts all the time (I don't subscribe/read in a rss feeder, I visit the url when I want to read).

Also, I would not get rid of the Recent Posts -- again, I navigate by that.

[Jared, The Super]

I have only been a reader for a few months, but I really enjoy your post and thoughts. I think you could stand to update the site in some areas... this would make the appearances match the usefulness and professionalism of the content itself.

I think 'Get Rich Slowly' and the 'Consumerist' have incorporated many of the suggestions (pictures, headlines, longer post, less bold colors, etc.) and I enjoy reading those sites as well.

I think the changes will only bring in more readers and hopefully more revenue for you... even if you don't need the money to make ends meat, it is one of your goals to bring in more money from the site if possible, right?

[Mike S]

I've been reading your blog for about a year now. If I have you figured correctly, I'd guess you are your own worst critic. That said, I wouldn't change anything that you don't think needs changed. Of course, what your readers think IS important, but you know what they say "be careful what you wish for..."

It's clear you know what your doing. Don't forget that.

[Margo]

Whatever you do, please keep BLACK as your primary text color. Too many blogs have succumbed to the trendy 'medium gray' that is impossible to read at high resolution, and if you CTRL-scroll to enlarge the text, it doesn't re-format correctly.

"older posts" - ditto that request.

"more" button - I wouldn't use this on every post, but maybe if you set a certain word max? I don't like reading The Simple Dollar as much as I used to, now that so many articles are super long! It takes forever to scroll past the posts irrelevant to me (child-rearing) and get to the meaty content I want to read (career articles). Maybe there's a happy medium - don't cut off after 10 lines, but after a 1-printed page equivalent?

[Becky@FamilyandFinances]

As a Wisconsinite, I quite enjoy the green/yellow theme ;)

Seriously, though, I like the red excerpts. Anyone who reads your blog with any regularity knows that the red is for other writers' words. It breaks up the post for me.

I agree with pretty much everyone above when I say PLEASE don't go to the "more" button. I hate those!

Also in agreement with most above posters, I like your shorter posts. They make for quick reading at work (shhhh!).

Lastly, I like the idea of cleaning up the sidebars and put a single RSS feed tag above the fold.

I'd keep reading if it stays exactly the same as it is now, though :)

[Debbie Edwards]

I'm new to your website, but I love the "to the point" blogs. I'm subscribe to your RSS feed and the information that comes through is clear and easily scannable. I love the red, which I picked up instantly were quotes from others. It allows me to quickly scan through the entire piece and decide if I want to read the quotes or not.

I think your headlines are just enough information to give me insight into what to expect.

I've been thoroughly enjoying your posts and while visiting other financial blogs you've suggested, I find them to be too heavy laden on the writing and telling stories instead of getting to the point and offering insight.

Keep up the good work!

[Colin]

As to the "Wordpress ‘More’ tag", I have to say I prefer your blog without. I like being able to read down, skip whatever I'm not interested in, all on the main page without following links.

As to "more descriptive and inspirational headlines"... you're the marketing guy. What do you think? ‘Rich’ or a ‘Millionaire’ seem a little hokey to me.

As to visual images... I think this is a bad idea, and unnecessary. I prefer your clean look.

By the way... I've been reading for probably 4-5 months, though I haven't actually commented until today.

[amx511]

No on fixing the width please. I am on a wide monitor too but I'm really pissed at sites that artificially constraint the content width.

No on 'more' link too. If the goal of having 'more' link is to generate more traffic and more ads revenue, then I think you're already covered because the comments on your posts are often interesting and I often end up visiting the whole post page. But that's because I choose so and not because some artificial truncation of the post (the 'more' link).

Here is one they missed: please have the comments numbered so it is easy to refer to a specific comment made by a specific person at a specific time. For example: I second the sentiment of comment #18 in that ProBlogger seemed to be preoccupied with social media.

[Matt]

Pleas DO NOT constrain the width of the text to 1024 pixels. I have a widescreen 22" monitor, and I LIKE the fact I can get this site to fill the whole screen. If I want it narrower, I just change the width of the browser window. What that reviewer suggested is presumptuous.

I think somewhat more muted colors would make the site a little more pleasant to the eye. I'm not so sure about quoting in gray though. The bifocal crowd might have problems with too little contrast. Maybe a nice dark green would work for that.

As for the images with the posts, I wouldn't make it an all-or-nothing rule. Take it on a case-by-case basis instead. If putting up an image with a post really helps tell the story, then go for it, but don't put a picture with each post just to have a picture as the reviewer seems to be suggesting. Applying the rule, I would expect 5% or less of the posts to warrant graphics.

Now a suggestion of my own: add a little more text to the Moose Tracks logo so that it's clearer what it is and how important their sponsorship is to the site. Maybe "support this blog by eating more Moose Tracks ice cream!" It was quite a while before I got curious enough to click on the link.

One more: in addition to the "Recent Comments" area on the right, I wish there were a list ranking posts in descending order of comments received in the last 2 days.

[Tiggy]

Part of what I love about FMF is that I can go to your site and just scroll up and down to read the last few days' posts. Since I'm reading on the sly when I'm supposed to be working, there's an advantage to not having to click to change screens to read different posts.

[mxus]

If possible, not implement #2 and #3. I think you can measure the success of a post for the number of comments, and #3 is not good if the image is not going to really illustrate your post.

Great blog,

Gracias,
J

I am not overly impressed with these pro bloggers. many things are just blog style nitpicking such as adding images. Two things I did notice are:

Resolution:
Their idea is terrible. When I run a high resolution or a wide monitor and maximize the window I don't want just a tiny column of the window used. I have a giant screen for a reason to fit more on it. I personally get very annoyed with sites that don't scale to my screen/resolution and most often leave the site right away because it is bothersome.

Headlines:
Changing headlines to be more dramatic or to pull people in just for the sake of it is bad. Welcome to foxnews online if you do that. Changing your content like that not only gets dangerous as content quality but can lead down the road to being misleading. That is bad business all around.

Images:
yes and no. If called for by the article yes. Otherwise don't put an image for the sake of images. I "read" a large number of blogs on varying subjects and I just now realized the ones with images on every post get about 2 seconds of attention for me to look at the image then poof I am gone to sites like this where I can dig in a read for 10-15 mins.

In conclusion I think you are doing a lot right and need to be very careful about what advice you take form these people. Many of them seem to be for upping click through and ad views. While that will make more money for the site I don't feel it does anything worth while for it other than the bottom line. I disagree with them on the ads per post thing too. Well placed ads are better than ads everywhere.

Just be careful and only use their advice if you already felt it needed a change. I hope they did this review for free because from a readers stand point those guys suck.

[Blaine Moore]

Generally, I don't like typepad's interface, and I think that the site is really ugly, but that doesn't really bother me because unless I'm commenting I never visit it anyway. I always read your posts in a feed reader. I think that most of the advice is pretty good, although I don't mind the red quotes. It does stand out, but I think that that is what you are aiming for. It lets me key in on the topic and then continue reading around it if it is something that I'm interested in.