We are looking at another political blog called A South Dakota Moderate. This political blog is ‘trying to see purple through all the red’ and is a site authored by one who has a strong desire to express political opinion through the South Dakota Moderate blog. The blogger makes it known that he has no affiliation politically in the sense that he is not being paid by any party to write the blog, nor has he ever worked in the political arena. He is a former 9 year Navy veteran, originally from Ohio, who has settled in South Dakota and has never looked back. The blogger tries to focus on South Dakota politics, but also includes bits from national politics and some interest on gadgets and technology. The blog is very well written for one that is motivated to see ‘purple’ and you can guage that yourself through any of his recent bloggeries: No Surprisek Here, Everyone is an Expert All of a Sudden, So What do you Really Think?, Please don’t Petrae (us), Chris Nelson: It’s Broken, Makes you go Hmmm…, Do you really want to impress people?, Clean Cut Kid Is Charged, Sweeping Away Global Warming, and Pizza Hut Is Getting To Be A Pretty Dangerous Place To Work.
The blog has a very clean and sleek format and this makes it very easy to navigate. Bloggeries are left marginalized and there is a dual right navigation system and a simple top navigation bar. Posts are standard black text on white format and the navigation systems are very nicely laid out. In the top navigation bar you will find links to Home, Contact (containing the About Page), SD Search button, and a register button. In the left/right navigation bar you will find a very healthy categories menu on many different political topics, a feedburner with 19 readers, and archives going back to February 2006. In the far right navigation bar you find an advertisers link for campaign signs, Recent Posts Menu, Recent Comments menu, Blogs I Read, and a South Dakota Blogwire widget.
This blog will get a 4.5/5 from me. It satisfies all of the blog scoring criteria excellently. The content is very well written and the activity is quite frequent with posts coming in daily or even twice a day. The blog is well read as is evidenced by its many page views for each post with each post reaching several hundred page views. There are currently 51 in the feedburner showing there is a steady following with this blog. I would suggest making the about page a little more prominent and accessible to the readers at this point. Currently it is located in the Contact page and I think many readers may not find it if they do not choose to make a point of contact. It will establish a little more personal voice and connection with the readership. I would also suggest adding some more relevant pictures for the odd post here and there to spice up the overall appearance. I might also suggest taking advantage of the many page views which signifies a strong readership and possibly monetize the blog a little bit through AdSense or other forms of advertising. Otherwise however, I think the blog is very well done with an excellent format and design and would be found very appealing to those that enjoy reading political blogs.
-Chrissie
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