David Inglis blogs at It’s a Dad’s Life, where he gives his take on daily life as a Scottish stay-at-home father to two little ones.
First Impressions
Great title for a blog – it captures your niche and your homespun content perfectly. And well done for snapping up that domain name!
TOP TIP: Your strapline is on the long side and some of the information is already encapsulated in your title (e.g. ‘Parenting and life’). How about injecting a bit of your witty personality into a new, punchier strapline?
Header and Menu Bar
We love the big, broad header and that adorable photo of you and your little one splattered with paint. However, the white font is difficult to read against that background. Also your menu bar looks a little sparse – it would be helpful to include two or three page categories up top linking to your most popular or relevant content.
TOP TIP: Why not have a play around with an app like PicMonkey (try the text and overlays features) to see what your header font might look like in a different font style and colour? You could also experiment with a warmer background colour – perhaps orange or yellow – to give your blog a lift!
Sidebar
Top marks for placing your subscription form ‘above the fold’ so that visitors can easily sign up and follow your blog. We would also like to see some attractive social media buttons placed higher up, either in the menu bar or the sidebar.
Your category list is nice and lean. One suggestion would be to take some time and really hone in on the key topics for your blog, then spell these out more clearly in your post categories. Being more specific with how you label your posts could make them more search-engine friendly too.
TOP TIP: File posts you are not sure how to label under the ‘General’ category and get rid of ‘Uncategorised’ altogether as that offers no value.
Main Content
You have a warm, intimate voice and an ability to take the reader right into the heart of your family life. We appreciated the honesty of your writing, especially about the harder aspects of parenting, as well as your witty turn of phrase.
TOP TIP: Photography is clearly one of your passions, so you should make more of this by using larger featured images and adding more thumbnails to your post excerpts. Perhaps you could even consider having a photo slider at the top of your homepage (there are plug-ins or free WordPress themes with these options) to showcase your skills?
Final Thoughts
A well-written blog filled with posts that will resonate with any parent going through that baby to toddler phase. We look forward to seeing your blog evolve!
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