Bloggeries Blog

If you are a mom, then you will appreciate the sentiments that you will find at The Parenting Diaries.  The Parenting Diaries is exactly what it sounds like – a blog about parenting.  The blogger is writing her way through the joys and journeys of parenting, and it is most definitely a personal blog.  The blogger describes the blog as an honest to goodness account of the joys of motherhood, its bumps on the road, and the joy her child has brought to her life since 2003.  She also speaks of nothing but love for her daughter, who is described as the inspiration and strength she herself gets everyday.  You can get to know this blogger and her daughter a little more through any of her recent bloggeries:  The Experiment, I should get a Tattoo on my Forehead, Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Party, Falling Sick Has No Perfect Time, 24 K Gold, Talking About My Lines of Valor, He Just Wouldn’t Quit It, Time Travel, and How Would You Interpret This.

The blog is well organized in a clean layout that makes blog navigation very easy.  Bloggeries are centralized and there is both a left and right navigation bar.  Bloggeries are black text on beige background and the blog is bordered in a soft orange with links highlighted in deep rustic color.  The color scheme and theme is very warm and inviting, excellent choices for this type of blog.  In the left navigation bar you will find a blog calendar, Recent Posts Menu, and a stats counter.  In the right navigation bar you will find the RSS button, Archives Menu, and blogroll.  All bloggeries are accompanied by relevant pictures which add meaning to the bloggeries, and make the blog aesthetically appealing overall.

I give this blog a 4.5/5 as it scores very well on all accounts.  This is a blog I found myself wandering in between posts and activity, which for me is always a sign of a good blog.  The content is well done with the personal voice you would expect in a personal blog.  You can truly get to know the blogger well from her writings.  Activity gets perfect scores as well, this blogger is truly dedicated and writes in every day.  The appearance of the blog is very well done, with no distractions and in a theme that is warm and inviting to its visitors.  Navigation is also very easy on this blog.  I would suggest moving the two navigation bars into one however, as there is a lot of space on both navigation bars which could be made better use of by filling that space up a bit.  I also think a categories menu would be beneficial to this blog to organize it a little more.  Overall however, I enjoyed reading this blog and I think it could sustain a healthy readership over time.

-Chrissie

If you are looking for some practical advice from another blog about making money, then you really want to stop and check out EzMoney.  The bloggers here are fully aware that they are a fish in a school of make money online blogs, however, they want to create a more practical blog for bloggers that wish to make money.  EzMoneyOn.Net is run by two bloggers and is geared to be a place where you will find different ways to make money online, in simple presentations.  Some of the methods found here have been tried by these bloggers, and some of them are tried as they go along their blogging experiences.  Either way, their process is published on their blog as are their results.  To see how these bloggers are doing with their money making experiences, be sure to check out any of their most recent bloggeries: Easy money on the Net?; Free Banner Ads For You: Project WonderFree, Batch 6; Link O Rama: Get Links From Blog Carnivals; What is RSS?; How Much Money can One Make Online With Smorty; Entrecard: Free Advertising which Drives Free Traffic To Your Blog; and Bidvertiser: I month’s report.

The blog is well organized and thus has a clean template that is easy to navigate.  Bloggeries are in black text on white background with a distinct ‘green’ header which to me, subconsciously makes me think of money.  A great theme for the blog, nonetheless.  Bloggeries are left marginalized and there are two navigation bars.  In the left navigation bar you will find a menu with links to different pages, Categories Menu, and an Archives Menu.  In the far right navigation bar you will find subscription information, Ads, Featured Posts Menu, Recent Posts Menu, and the  Recent Comments Menu.  Most of the bloggeries are textual, but the odd post does contain a relevant picture associated with it.  

Overall, I give this blog a 4/5  The blog scores well on all scoring criteria.  For navigation the blog does well as it contains all major essentials of blog materials, and thus making it easy to navigate.  The blog has good user friendly and easy to read content as well, which gives it some solid credibility for a money making blog.  Appearance wise the blog does do okay, though I suggest it add more pictures to the bloggeries.  To me right now it just seems a little too texty, and some pictures would give the posts a little more life.  I also think there is too much white space right now in the navigation bars.  I would suggest either reducing the number of posts on the main page, or moving the navigation bars into one main navigation bar system.  Overall however, the blog has a lot to offer and presents itself well enough to do so.  For those looking for a blog about making money, this one has a wealth of practical tips to do so.

-Chrissie

If you are into gaming, then you may want to take a minute to check out Lagorama: Sucking Up Your Bandwidth to Discuss Mine… I have to admit, it took me some time to find out what this blog was really about. It doesn’t really say anywhere for us ‘non-gamers’, Hey! This is a Gaming blog! If you have any experience in gaming, then you know there is a tendency to fall into the lingo, and only fellow gamers, can speak and understand the lingo the way that you can. I do have acronymed convos myself in IM or the like, but this was a whole new world to me. Nothing wrong with getting an education though. The Lagorama blog is about a gamer that essentially got into the gaming experience, albeit ‘late to the party’ as he states. The game (I think) is called MMO, and like many other gamers, he was succumbed by its appeal. But this gamer took his fun and experiences a step further and uses his decades of experience in the broadcasting industry to start Internet radio broadcasting an Internet Radio Station called Paragon Radio to broadcast the gaming experience. It has been, quite a success. And you can read more about it through this bloggers recent bloggeries: A Brand New Day for Marvel Online, Chinese TV is Specced for Graphics Theft, Valkyre Needs Caffeine…..Badly, Starcraft online is a Definite Maybe, Shadowbane Starting from Scratch, The LagORama List of MMORPG Cliches, The Perpetual Lawsuit that Wasn’t, and Age of Conan Delays Release for Orken Army Time.

The blog is neatly laid out which makes it very easy to navigate. Bloggeries are centralized and there are both left and right navigation bars as well as a small top navigation system. Bloggeries are in black text on white background and the odd one is associated with a relevant picture. In the top navigation bar you will find the Home page, About page, and contact page. In the left navigation bar you will find Subscription buttons, Entrecard, AdSense, and Archives Menu. In the right navigation bar you will find email subscription links, ads, MyBlogLog Widget, Lagtastic Audio Menu, The ‘Must Read’ List, Things of Interest, Video Gamers Media Network, and Webmaster and Blogger Resources.

I give this blog a 3.5 at this point. My only complaint about this blog is that it is not initially clear what it is about. Perhaps this is intentional to get the stray reader to spend some time on the blog, but perhaps not, I am not sure. However, it did take some time for me to figure out this was a gaming blog as so many acronyms and game slang were used I honestly had no clue. The blogger could take advantage of the About Page to explain to new readers what the blog is actually about. Navigation and appearance scores were good, though I would suggest the use of more pictures associated with the bloggeries. I would also suggest adding a categories menu, as I think this niche is well served by a little more organization. The content is well done and is certainly active enough, so the blogger does not lose marks there. The blog clearly has a good readership as is evidenced by the feedburner and by the good amount of comments. I think this blog has nothing but continued growth in its future and could maximize that by making just a few tweaks to the blog.

-Chrissie