This is not the usual fare for me, but I couldn’t help it. After stumbling upon this site, I couldn’t take my eyes off the design (no, really, I’m just talking about the design). Cocoa&Creme.com is a fashion, makeup, and celebrity tips site for African American women, or any woman with a darker than pale shade of skin.

Crush Factor:

Twitter: Following 16 / Followers 890 / Listed 42

Facebook: 663 Fans (“Likes”)

Alexa Rank: 425,067

Compete Rank: 177,138

Look at this custom sidebar creative. Look of the Day? That’s killer. Not only do they provide fresh sidebar content each day, but the look has the customized look and feel of the rest of the site. I’m so impressed. I don’t even care what the look of the day is. I just know I like that they have one, and that it looks this good.

Three font styles broken up by a color change keeps the eyes intrigued and reading this specialty content. Now I know that Monique Coleman looked like at the VIP screening of “Gimme Mo.” I would have never known that otherwise. Seriously.

Clean. Good contrast. To the point. A winning piece of creative.

Then there’s the actual post. We haven’t touched on those yet. Check out this creative below. Not quite an infographic, this falls somewhere in the middle. Again, while the content doesn’t appeal to me personally, I love the way they envisioned this graphic.

Want to look like Rihanna? Here’s all the makeup she used. Heres’ how she applied it. And we’ll show you in a way you can’t resist looking at. Near perfect presentation. Only complaint is the title of the post. Uh.. where is it? Oh. WAAAYY down below the photo? “Get the Look: Rihanna’s Aqua Eye Lids.” Weird.

From a usability standpoint, I’m more likely to click The Daily Blog: Submit News + Tips link above the image, thinking it’s just some weird link to the post content. But I would be wrong. That’s how you subscribe to the site. Just because you WANT the title to be above the photo doesn’t mean it will be. Sadly.

Most surprising was that this site has only been around since early July 2010! Cocoa&Creme came onto the scene with a vengeance. Featuring two to four posts per day, this site has quickly built an archive and a following most six month old blogs would envy.

I can’t imagine that it’s the only site dedicated to the subject, but Cocoa&Creme pulls it off with more style than even the more traditional online mags. I predict that this site will grow by leaps and bounds as it carves its own niche loud and proud.

You Need An Escape

If this image doesn’t reach you at the core of your being, you don’t have a pulse. Especially if you’re a full-time blogger. Feeling a little claustrophobic? Chained to your blog? Believe it or not, you CAN get away. We all need a break from the norm. Even bloggers deserve vacations, sabbaticals, and moments of solitude. But it takes too much extra work to have posts ready to cover a vacation!

So let your readers write for you. Why should you have to work extra hard before your time off just so you can be too tired to enjoy it?

Turn that Sabbatical into a Contest!

We’re experimenting with this idea right now on my wife’s blog – Mommypotamus.com. We’re expecting baby #2 any day now and my wife doesn’t want to lose steam during that first tiresome month with our new baby. She also doesn’t want to scramble to write extra posts beforehand… that’s not relaxing! So we’re doing a contest. We’re putting her readers in charge of the content during that first month and giving a pretty major prize to the winner.

Getting to Know the Readers

My wife blogs on many overlapping niche topics – real food, organic lifestyle, attachment parenting, full-term breastfeeding, family vision and purpose, etc. And since the majority of her readers are mommy bloggers, we know for a fact that many of them are still blogging on no-cost solutions like Blogspot, WordPress.com, and Typepad. These women are passionate about their families and lifestyle choices, and some of them are burgeoning small business owners. But with almost no startup funds, it’s tough to justify making the switch to a self-owned domain and content management system.

Since I have set up nearly 30 different blogs on the self-hosted version of WordPress, we’ve taken my talents and offered them up to the guest blogger who gets the most comments. Whoever wins this guest blogger contest will receive a free domain registration, free year of hosting, import of all content from current blog platform to self-hosted WordPress, and a premium theme. Winning this contest will take one blogger from the rank and file of amateur bloggers into a force to be reckoned with.

The Premise of the Contest

Her readers are encouraged to submit a guest post along similar themes to the typical daily content on Mommypotamus.com. The winner of the contest will be determined by the most unique commentors on a guest post during my wife’s time off. This motivates each contributor to tell their friends and family and followers in hopes of winning the prize.

There are so many benefits to this approach that I can only thank God for the idea.

Benefits of Guest Blogging Contests

1. Free content – each person who enters the contest writes and submits one blog post. Heather doesn’t have to write anything if she doesn’t want to after the baby is born. I can edit and format the posts for her and take the blogging burden off her shoulders.
2. Spreading the word – each guest blogger will send their friends, families, and neighbors to the site to read their post and leave a comment. More people will become aware of the site.
3. Comments leads to return visits – when you visit a blog for the first time and you see 20 or more comments on several of the most recent posts, you get the point that this blog is somewhat popular. If other people find it useful, you might too. So you make the mental association that this is probably worth revisiting sometime later.
4. Engaging the community – you might think that the regulars would check out if there’s an extended hiatus from the blog owner. In this case, I think we’ll find that readers visit more often, to check out the competition’s posts and to keep a tally on blog comment totals. They’ll need to know if there’s a reason to find more friends to comment if they start losing to someone else.
5. Promote the community – you build loyal relationships when you give your readers a voice and then promote their blogs at the same time. Each guest blogger will get a bio and link to their current blog on the post.
6. Builds business exposure – I don’t actively promote my blog consulting and building services. But this contest will make everyone who enters or considers entering aware of what I do and what it can turn their current blog into. Whether anyone entering this contest ever requests my services or not doesn’t really matter. Each of them knows potentially dozens of OTHER people who they might refer to me. And this is purely an additional benefit. I couldn’t care less if this generates revenue or not. It’s really all about getting guest posts for my wife and making it fun.
7. It’s just plain fun – As I just mentioned, there’s nothing better to unite a community than to get everyone in on fun activities. A little sense of competition with the underlying motivation of helping out a new mommy is a winning combo! Who wouldn’t want to help out a woman with an newborn and gain some exposure at the same time?

The Challenge: Too Few or Too Many

One of my concerns was that we wouldn’t get enough submissions. If I give my precious time away to set up a blog for someone and my wife only benefits one week off, I’ll be disappointed. I want all sides to win on this one. But in the same vein, if we were to somehow get 30, 40, or 50 submissions, we’d have ourselves another quandry. I don’t want the contest to drag on forever, and I don’t want to turn anyone away.

Keep it Simple

I think we’ll limit the contest to the first X number of entries. Then we’ll cut it off. If our goal is 20 posts, I might accept 30 just in case 10 are really bad or off topic. Everyone will lose steam if the contest lasts longer than a month and my wife will forget how to blog if it turned into a two month hiatus. Okay, probably not. But you get the point.

I’ll report back in a week or two with an update on the contest.

My first impression of Media Decoder was, “What the heck? This must be one of those quasi-reporter blogs.” Because everyone knows that REAL blogs aren’t sub domains of traditional newspapers (who are typically pretty web stupid).

But, it’s a clean enough design and recognizable as the NY Times, which is probably among the three most reputable newspapers. So I’ll give them a pass on the first impression. It’s a business blog that, obviously, focuses more on news than opinion.

No Headers or Geographic Markers

The first post I read about Pizza Hut was ____, but the first thing I noticed was the lack of headers throughout the lengthy post. That’s 23, yep, count ‘em, twenty three paragraphs without a single image, header, bulleted list, or call-out quote. And you know what? The content could be KILLER and I would still have eye strain. That’s too much of the same looking landscape for my eyes to have to navigate. With every glance around the page, I’ve now lost where I was on the article. No discernible markings left me feeling a little claustrophobic.

Reader Interaction?

This part is somewhat surprising. Even though Media Decoder is popular enough to break the Technorati Top 100 list, I found only one out of fifteen posts on the home page had 50+ comments. Most posts had 2, 4, maybe 15 comments. Seriously? How does a site with thousands of daily visitors only get 1, 2, or 15 comments on a post?

Then it hits me. Commentors have to sign in to comment. Ugh. Lame! So much for harnessing the power of the people.

You know what’s funny? The ONE post that got more than 50 comments recently was a one sentence news blurb about Rupert Murdoch giving $1 million to the Republican Governors Association. Duh. A liberal paper with liberal readers is going to generate some response from a media mogul supporting Right Wingers.

Erratic Schedule

While the site is definitely a daily publisher, some days you get one post, other days you get four. A bit odd, don’t you think? Still, they pass the daily test, which means readers who enjoy the content know they can come back tomorrow for another installment.

One thing I HAVE noticed about the most popular blogs in the world, however, is publishing frequency. Every one of them I can think of publishes 5-15 posts per day. Granted, they’re not one-blogger shops, so that’s feasible. A one-person shop could probably pump out five posts per day, if they spent two hours per post and never ran out of data. I counted five different bloggers contributing to the content on the Media Decoder home page alone.

Would I Return?

Probably not. There wasn’t a single compelling story or title on the first page. It was boring media business news as far as the eye could see. I’ll pass.

What IS It Exactly?

Want to know more about Media Decoder? Good luck. There are no About pages or lists of contributors that I could see. All you get is one paragraph blurb in a sidebar that’s chalked full of links to other parts of the Ny Times website.

Media Decoder is an insider’s guide to the media industry that tracks the transformation of the movie business, television, print, advertising, marketing and new media. It’s a showcase for the extensive media coverage throughout The New York Times and a window on how the business of connecting with consumers is changing in the digital age.

Huh? That’s a lot of topics. Media? That’s the subject. The transformation of media. And after glancing through the blog posts on page one, I saw maybe one-fifth that actually seem to reflect that mission statement. Sounds like Mediaocrity to me.

CRUSH or BE CRUSHED?

Waste of Eye Strain

2.5 out of 10

It’s Friday, and time to hand out a single tip for amateur bloggers. There’s plenty to glean from the daily crush, but today is my own personal case study: to see if beginner tips are still needed. We’re going to start simple and work our way up. So let’s start at the very beginning.

Twitter Search Enlightened Me

I try to answer questions floating around on Twitter from all sorts of people. Questions about blogging. Anything from “Why don’t I get more traffic? I thought this blog thing was going to be easy!” to “Why can’t I change the style of XYZ on my blog?” After pulling up their profiles and clicking links to blogs, I found that 80% of the questions I run across are asked by people blogging on third-party blog platforms.

Host Your Own Blog

1. Register a Domain

2. Create a Hosting Account

3. Upload WordPress 3.0

4. Import Existing Blog Posts

If you’re still using free blogging solutions like WordPress.com, Blogspot, or TypePad, you won’t always be able to implement these Friday tips or the other ideas you might catch from some of the blog crushes featured here. Some of them simply cannot be implemented until you have full control over your blog.

So if you’re serious… if you will commit to blogging at least three times a week for the next six months… be a good little blogger, scrounge up $9/yr for a domain. I recommend using Moniker for domain registrar. The spend $5/mo for hosting. I recommend HostGator. Most affordable hosting solutions have a simple WordPress installation button. Look in your dashboard. It’s really simple.

Why Spend Money on My Blog If It Won’t Make Money?

There are no guarantees you will make money on your blog. But that’s not why you should take the time to blog or spend the money on hosting and domains. If blogging is important to you, be the best blogger you can be.

No one takes a third-party blog seriously. Your friends might visit, but it’s very difficult for a free blog to gain steam beyond your closest friends and family.

Why? Because you’re using a crappy template and your domain name says randomblogtitle.blogspot.com. That’s a mouthful! It’s not memborable. A memorable domain name will stick in people’s minds. It’ll also look better on a business card. Trust me. Business cards are a good idea. Even if you’re not a business.

The Cardinal Rule

If you don’t care about your blog, why should anyone else? Never forget that. If it’s completely bland without character or voice, DON’T host your own blog. Use the free third-party platform. You won’t care about it, and neither will anyone else.

But if it matters to you… if you have something to say… make it something worth visiting.

You’re Killin’ Me, Smallz

If you refuse this foundational advice, you can still benefit from my site… just not as much as you COULD. You’ll still get tips on writing, voice, and most importantly examples of bloggers who do it well. But if I’m going to care about HOW I write, I wouldn’t waste my killer content on a forgettable, subpar blogspot template. But that’s  just me.

Name ONE blog you find so attractive that you would visit often even if the subject matter changed.

I must confess: if this were a blog about tooth decay, I would still visit often to see the design. What can I say? I’m a sucker for these stunning color combinations. Luckily for me, Phandroid is a blog about one of my favorite things: the Google Android OS and devices.

If there is a perfect shade of blue, I’ve found it here. Seriously. I don’t know if I’m the only one, but I can literally stare at this site for minutes at a time and not really even read anything.

Logo and Brand

The brand name itself is clever. Fans of Android? Check. And let’s be honest. Don’t we think “Phandroid” is a much cooler alternative to “Fandroid”? Just being slightly less obvious is clever. Or it seems clever. Whatever.

To create a memorable logo, Phandroid started with the now conventional form of the Google Android. Then, they personalized it. Adding a wink and a smile, Phandroid and I are suddenly friends. Not friends only, but sharers of secrets. Insider secrets. Secrets most people won’t know for at least another week. Then you add the arms, and he’s holding – no, hugging – the name. Maybe I can’t describe it fully. But it’s good. And I like it!

Color scheme is great. The perfect two-toned blue with the perfect two-toned tan. There are no words. Just go look and stare.

Advertisements

I’m not usually a big fan of top page banner ads. They usually overwhelm the site’s much smaller logo. Not here. Each time I refresh, the top banner ad is a bright contrasting color that only serves to provide further color contrast. Well done. It doesn’t hurt that the logo is such a deep, rich blue either. A grayscale image (like I often employ) would be swallowed up in comparison. But the blue phandroid fits wonderfully.

At present I count three ads on the home page. Top banner, wide/short sidebar, and skyscraper sidebar. Not at all intrusive or annoying. I wonder, however, how much money those ads yield, or if their primary source of revenue stems from the accessories store.

Navigation

I’ve always been a proponent for secondary and tertiary drop-down navigation. I like knowing that I can find the precise page I’m looking for without having to click one or two more times first. But in Phandroid’s case, I’ll gladly make an exception. The double nav bars work wonderfully when you have a clear and attractive distinction between them.

SEO

Title Tags – Take a look at the home page title tag: “Android Phone”. That’s it? Really? At first thought, I’m thinking these Phandroid fellasare seriously failing to take advantage of the Title Tag real estate for ranking purposes. Then I do a Google search. #1 result for “Android Phone”? Yep… Phandroid.com. Huh. Not only does the singularity of their title tag communicate a greater relevance upon that one phrase, it looks really cool in the SERPs. Imagine doing a search for “Android Phone” and the #1 result looks like this: “Android Phone – Android Blog – Android News” or something like that. You may know more precisely what all is contained in that site. Maybe that’s a selling point for some. But then again, if what you see is “Android Phone”, are you more likely to assume that this site is the definitive place to learn about Android phones? I think they come across as more elite this way.

Content

I could go on and on about how I like every little aspect of the site’s design, but that would drive some of you away before you even know if it’s worth reading. When it comes to content, this site is definitely geared toward the technophile. Obviously. But seriously. They cover every bit of news about every single Android phone on the market or coming to the market. I don’t know about you, but I’m only going to buy ONE phone every couple years (thanks to contracts). I’m somewhat curious about the innovations made in new phones coming out, but a solid 70% of the content on Phandroid is NOT geared toward me. And I think I’m not unusual this time.

I think Phandroid’s approach to content PREVENTS them from being a daily read to the majority of their readers. I’m betting that since they cover EVERY phone, they get a lot of Incredible owners, Evo 4G owners, CLIQ owners, G1 owners, and Droid owners who only skim most of the titles for something that applies to them: whether that be a comparison of phones, updates to their phone, or news on something amazing coming soon. But the minutiae? I know I don’t need to know that much.

Who is their core audience?

That’s THE question. I’m sure the Phandroid writers could answer that question very succinctly. Either they’re marketing a little of their weekly content to EVERYONE with a smartphone and an interest or they’re marketing ALL of their content to a much smaller core of developers. And as it stands, perhaps these two demographics combine to make up their whole target audience. If so, I suppose they’re quite effective.

Kudos for Open Comments

Though it’s not a HUGE deal, I’m so annoyed by another Android blog (to remain unnamed) who requires membership to comment that I want to give kudos to Phandroid for keeping comments open to the public. I’m one of those people (as I mentioned in my last post) who won’t take the time to sign up or login to leave a comment. So I’ll probably never comment on sites like Lifehacker, SEOMoz, or AndroidCentral.

I might have to revisit and rewrite once I graduate from my ridiculous CLIQ to a real Android phone, like the Incredible or Evo 4G (or whatever comes out by year’s end). Once I’m using a phone that doesn’t suck, I’ll probably find Android news more fascinating.

The ONE thing I Would Change

Probably the most universally interesting aspects to the Android OS are the apps. There are no doubt a dozen if not a hundred apps out there I’ve never used because I’ve never heard of them. Phandroid has an App section of the site, but it’s not part of the blog. It’s more of a database of apps and user ratings. And you know what? I NEVER use that part of the site. Because if I’ve never heard of the app, I wouldn’t know what to look for. Want to REALLY impress me and bring me back to the site several times per day? Showcase new apps with detailed reviews ON THE BLOG. I will be here all the time. I promise.

My suggestion: create a separate tag cloud or categories for app verticals, so they can be divided into categories, and start blogging about the apps. That’s what I want to read. Yes, there are people who specifically want to search for social networking apps, or arcade game apps, or life-saving time-saving Lifehacker approved apps. But that’s not me. I want to stumble across new and interesting apps I’d never have heard of any other way except I was visiting the Phandroid site and I saw this amazing app in detail right there on the blog.

If you want to seriously increase pageviews, give it a shot. Review 2-3 apps per day: morning, afternoon, and evening. I know I’ll be there to read them.

Daily Crush:

4.25 of 5

]]> http://dailyblogcrush.com/phandroid-fetching-androidy-goodness/feed/ 0 http://dailyblogcrush.com/seomoz-org-kings-of-seo-style/ http://dailyblogcrush.com/seomoz-org-kings-of-seo-style/#comments Fri, 16 Jul 2010 19:27:00 +0000 Daniel http://dailyblogcrush.com/?p=151

At SEOMoz.org, my eyes are immediately drawn to the combination of a killer black banner, the faded imagery within the banner, the contrast between banner, body, and background, and eventually the way it all makes the blue “moz.org” stand out as the most important thing on the page. Upon closer inspection, I see the Seattle space needle, street lamps, and an artsy sense of downtown life. At first, however, I don’t identify the faded images at all. I just find their shapes appealing and my eyes move on to the next thing: the logo.

While this is THE BEST looking SEO services / tools website I’ve ever seen and the logo matches the color scheme of the site,  I still find myself a bit confused by the logo. What is that, exactly? A star? A flower?

In that moment of indecision, the brand has lost a bit of my respect. This starflower looks a bit like glorified clip art. My can be regained, of course, but to my subconscious, the nondescript image says, “we don’t know who we are”.

Short-Lived Negativity

Those negative feelings are instantly squelched by the next thing I see… the beacon. Call it an antennae, call it a tower, call it what you wish. To me, the image is bold and says, “HERE is the beacon. The signal heard round the world. The tower to which all men are drawn.”

And, in a very real way, this imagery holds true. You don’t get very far into the informed SEO universe before you hear about the most popular brand on the block, SEOMoz. Rand, if you’re reading this, the beacon should’ve been the logo. Just sayin’.

Long before the days of Outspoken Media, SEOMoz was successfully pulling in tens of thousands of visitors to a blog that wasn’t the homepage. It was a products / services website that just happened to have a blog. Okay, not really. The blog and the people behind the blog (Rand Fishkin, Jane Copland, and Rebecca Kelley) are what made the brand. The services were only in demand because of the proficiency shown in the blog (and the combo of trust and relationship built with others in the industry at every single SEO conference under the sun).

My Biggest Complaint

Ever since the beginning, I’ve disagreed with ANY blog that requires membership to comment. Because, honestly, there’s no blog I NEED to comment on so badly that I’m going to waste time signing in. Either I get the instant gratification of commenting on the fly or I don’t.

Why Memberships Suck

First of all, I don’t like terms such as “fans”, “followers”, and the like. I don’t like any brand coming across as the definitive source, with all its readers as lesser-than fans or members. The time spent signing in is exactly the amount of time it takes for me to go elsewhere and participate in a different conversation (if I happen to be feeling chatty that day).

Why SEOMoz Gets a Pass

In the end, I begrudgingly give Mozzers a pass on this one. It’s a judgment I couldn’t have made from the beginning. I guess blog memberships are amoral – neither good nor evil. It all depends on what you do with it. And over the years, SEOMoz has integrated members into the site in a more thorough way than most.

Voting Comments and Posts

I love voting. With the SEOMoz, it’s largely been an opportunity to kiss ass. Everyone wanting to make friends kisses ass by voting comments up. In an industry where companies thrive based on the reputation of their blogs, it’s no wonder that so many have tried to align themselves with the popular kids. It’s like watching Survivor and Big Brother in type.

However, I’m such a fan of the right to vote, because it gives the reader the power to show his/her opinions on content that isn’t theirs. It also allows the community the capacity to self-regulate. A very rude person who is rude regardless of cause can be voted down by the community and eventually blacklisted.

YOUMoz Is the Coolest SEO Blog Idea Ever

Essentially, there are two blogs to be found at SEOMoz: the SEOMoz blog and the YOUMoz blog. Any member of the site can contribute to the YOUMoz blog. Some sports blogs have this functionality too, but it’s not as pretty. The best submissions are promoted to the SEOMoz blog. How cool is that!

And this is why, ultimately, SEOMoz does not suck for employing memberships onsite. Don’t try this at home unless you can actually make membership a benefit and a privilege. It’s a judgment call I questioned from the very beginning because it looked like an ego play. While all the other SEO blogs were free to comment, this ONE blog required membership. This is why you never know what will succeed until you test (shameless A/B Testing plug).

Whiteboard Fridays

If nothing else, stop in on Fridays for video whiteboard sessions. Rand Fishkin is nothing if not a communicator. He spells out concepts in simplistic ways so that ANYONE can understand. Tune in and see what he and his crew have to say each week.

I’m sure you’ll find most of the content on this particular blog to be worth reading. A part of me hates to admit that, but it’s true. In an age where Hamlet Batista, SEO By the Sea, and Blue Hat SEO no longer contribute on a regular basis, you can count on SEOMoz to maintain a level of ongoing quality found on only a couple SEO-focused sites.

Crush Level:

4.5 of 5

What do you get when you cross futuristic design with sustainability? JetsonGreen.com, my favorite place to go for clean and crisp presentation of ecological living. It’s eye candy for the soul. It feels good to get excited about something truly good. Like when you recycle materials into a house EVERYONE wants to live in. Well… everyone without kids.

Quality Content

The images are always top notch. The site is visually pleasing ALL THE TIME. I’ve learned about quite a few projects that have inspired me to consider LEED Certification for my next home (or at least the home after that).

It’s not the kind of site I visit to read 20 pages of archived content. It’s more of a glance-through site for me. If the day’s feature looks interesting enough, I read the post. I ALWAYS check out the pics, though. Can’t get enough of how good these homes look… even the ones converted from railway cars.

On a regular basis, you’ll find fabulous LEED Certified homes and office buildings, product explanations, book reviews, and weekly summaries.

The Biggest and ONLY Drawback

My only disappointment with the content on JetsonGreen is that the vast majority of green home projects featured are tiny. Like 1,000 square foot or less. Many are less than 800. And while the homes look clean, bright, and inviting, it doesn’t help me get closer to the house of my dreams. This may not be the fault of the author. It may simply be that the majority of LEED Certified home projects involve tiny homes. But for a married guy like me with a second child on the way and a live-in mother-in-law, anything under 2,500 square feet is laughable.

Clean and Crisp

How did they do it? The blog design is SO SIMPLE, and yet, almost perfect.

1st impression: The banner automatically makes me want to visit again, and I just got here. LOVE those colors! the combination just pops and my eyes whisper, “Thank you!”

2nd impression: Stylish photography is a huge plus.

3rd impression: Green post titles help communicate the purpose and theme. Very tasteful.

4th impression: I like how the background ads character and contrast without distracting my eyes from the content.

Banner + Photo + Header + Background = Winner

The Ads

My 2nd or 3rd thought when looking at this home page is “I wouldn’t have placed Google AdSense ads so prominently on MY home page.” Of course, I’ve also never had the traffic JG gets, so what do I know?

The real of it is, JetsonGreen.com does what every blog should aspire to: more with less.

Crush Level:

4.0 of 5

Be Careful What You Wish For

I know that generally it’s not a good idea to miss Day Two of a series when you’re just getting a new blog started. My apologies. In my defense, I have a REALLY good excuse which, even though it was in no way responsible for my lack of postage, makes a good story.

Scene: I’m at lunch. I take a two-hour lunch today because my head is feeling all kinds of pressure and disorientation. I buy a journal from the super awesome Legacy Books. I stop for a venti Zen tea at Starbucks. I pick up a chicken sandwich. I’m texting my wife and my dad, asking them to pray that my cobwebs will clear up so I can function the rest of the day.

I’m driving back to the office. Waiting at an intersection for a car to pass, I hear the bang and my brains are suddenly rolling around in a chaotic fizz. I’m so startled, for a second I have no idea what’s happening. Then it hits me.

I just got rear-ended.

Ugh.

Seriously?

Long story short: No damage to either vehicle. My cobwebs are gone. I have no blog crush for today. These incidents are COMPLETELY unrelated. But since I mentioned my wreck, I’m hoping for sympathy (or at least fewer insults).

Be careful what you wish for. Or at least, how you ask for it. See you tomorrow.

If You Wrote Without a Filter, Who Would YOU Sound Like?

“This is exactly like that time that that German princess tried to steal my look and we had to get the king and Hitler involved except this is way worse because we’re both Americans, Morgan Freeman.  We’re on the same team, Morgan Freeman. And this hurts way more than the princess thing because I thought we had something special.  Remember?  Nine years ago at the Houston airport when I got lost and so did you and we both turned around at the same time and almost ran into each other and you gave me this look like “Hi.  I’m Morgan Freeman and I’m lost too.  We’re in this together, my friend.  Fight the good fight, little ninja” and then we totally had this moment that one of us never forgot that and it stayed in her heart as a special little bond until YOU TOTALLY F****D ME?  And yes, I realize that I might be overreacting but it doesn’t change the hurt, Morgan Freeman.  It’s lingering.  And painful.  All that goodwill you built up?  Gone. I can’t even watch any Morgan Freeman movies anymore.  Or movies narrated by you.  Which is pretty much every movie ever made.  Awesome.  Now I never get to go to the movies again.  Nice job, Morgan Freeman.  You just ruined the entire film industry.”

Who would YOU most resemble if you cut out all filters and just wrote what comes to mind? For me, it’s The Bloggess. Where emo and wit go to mingle and make furry little flesh-eating babies. Yes, she’s crass. Yes, she’s irreverent. Yes, she writes things I don’t agree with. But she makes me chuckle like no other blogger I’ve ever read.

You learn a lot about yourself when you realize that the one blogger you absolutely enjoy more than any other does everything you don’t. I’m cautious and careful. With my ORM background, I’m thinking about 5-10 years down the road when I’m known more for ministry than for commerce. Even though I have some pointed and occasionally sacrilegious opinions, I don’t want to build a name for myself upon that persona. I expect that I will continue trending toward a more healthy and healed perspective. And the voice I use today will affect people I’m trying to reach tomorrow.

But I can’t escape one simple fact: I’ll forgive almost anything if you make me laugh.

The site’s design isn’t so special. It’s simple, approachable, and most importantly, the sidebar and ads don’t distract from reading the actual copy. Whether it’s Q&A or convos with Victor, you just don’t want to miss a single thing she says.

Most blogs I crush on will be more due to their look and feel than their content (because there aren’t THAT many blogs with killer content). Not here. Check out these posts and you’ll see what I mean:

UPDATED! An open letter to the King of Germany

You brought this on yourself, Morgan Freeman

An open letter to the people sitting next to me at the movie theater

What she does well

Humor. Wit. Pairing the oddest descriptors together to form the perfect mind-bending mental image.

Unadorned. I like to think of The Bloggess as the anti-Dooce. She’s not fixing her hair and trying to impress you with her catalog-finish family round the clock. I’m not sure I believe she hasn’t embellished some of the conversations with her husband (they’re just TOO funny sometimes to be real). But I don’t care. Unlike some (God forbid), I don’t come to The Bloggess looking for advice or life lessons. I’m looking for a laugh. And that’s exactly what I get… 92.35% of the time.

Publicly Battles William Shatner. Who else takes on Captain Kirk like a sassy, territorial she-goat?

Needs improvement

Titles. Too long winded and too small a font. Her titles are often entire sentences. I get it – that’s why the font is smaller. It has to be to fit the sentence-long title. But it makes it harder to scroll down from one post to another. Typically, the size of the title font is the indicator that I’ve finished scrolling from one post to the next (assuming the blog shows the entire post on the homepage rather than the preferable excerpt).

URL Structure. All of her posts’ URL structure looks like this -> http://thebloggess.com/?p=4577

This is an SEO no-no. It’s a waste of an opportunity. If you simply turn your post title into the URL (WordPress custom structure /%postname%/), you solve this problem. Or you can customize each URL to something like http://www.dailyblogcrush.com/thebloggess-blog-review – this may not be my title, but it gives a an optimized view the post’s content.

Sex Talk. You won’t see me retweeting 95% of her content, simply because I don’t endorse EVERYTHING she says, especially in regards to sex. But she still makes me laugh harder than any other blogger I’ve run across, and that has to count for something.

Level of Crush

4.5 of 5

***Note: As you can see in the image above, the site isn’t styled for a large screen monitor like I use. If you view the site with a laptop, you won’t see the white background section to the left.

In case you’re wondering what to expect from each blog crush, here’s the breakdown of areas we’ll be reviewing:

1. First Impression

What’s the first thing that you see? What first impression does the site give?

2. Overall Rating

I’ll give the site a rating, from 0-5 stars.

3. Logo and Brand

Does the logo and site name make sense? Is it memorable? Do I want to engage with this brand?

4. Content Quality

How often does the blog publish new posts? Are the titles compelling? Is the content engaging? Are readers invited / compelled to comment?

5. Community Engagement

Does the author interact with commentors? Does the author generate more conversation in the comments with timely, thoughtful responses?

6. Search Engine Optimization

Are the title tags optimized? Are the post titles optimized? How many pages of the site are indexed? Does the site rank well for the home page title tag? How many links does the site have? Does the site appear to link internally with frequency?

7. Best of / Worst of

Covers the highlights and the lowlights. Strengths and weaknesses. You get the idea.

That’s it in a nutshell. I began writing about my first blog crush, I spent 500 words on the banner and logo. I realized that a daily blog post isn’t conducive to the level of scrutiny I’d like to put into each blog.

If you’re interested in an indepth audit or would like information about other services offered by Daniel Dessinger, drop me a note here.

***NOTE: Now that I’ve gotten this post off my chest, I would like to inform you that I have no intention whatsoever of adhering to said guidelines and process. Each crush will likely come straight from the hip -> spontaneous opinion, no chaser.