Critique my BodyBuilding Blog

[gareth]

I just did a make over on my blog - what do you guys reckon ?

FreeFitnessGuru.com

Next I will add a lightbox optin popup and a footer optin popup

I may add a horizontal line of videos at the top of the first post also.

That should be enough - then I will SEO the plugins and focus on automating content and traffic.

Plugins used so far:

tubepress
dandyID
friendfeed
maxbannerads
rss icon
sociable
tweetmeme

[MustafaKamal]

I'm not sure what's the big empty space for, after your august 16th post.

[gareth]

there is a youtube video there - you got flash installed ?

[MustafaKamal]

Oh yeah, my bad. The browser kinda played games with me by loading it all in a slow pace.

IMO, the last two graphics, on the flickr stream, has nothing to do with bodybuilding, so you may want to look into that.

Other than that, I find it pretty reasonable for an average laymen to check out your blog.

[gareth]

What do you think about the idea to put maybe 3-4 video thumbnails above the top of the first post ?

[pcpupil]

Hemmorroids is spelled wrong in the main title of your post.
Other than that i wish i had a site like that.
That looks like one of the best sites ive seen in a while about bodybuilding.
Im still learning so i cant really critique very much.
But it looked easy to read and follow.
Matt

[Jay Rhome]

It's has a nice, clean look.

You might consider adding pages and/or categories so people can browse more of your site.

[gareth]

Yeah I plan to do that during the content and SEO phase

Have much planned both automated and hand written.

pcpupil this site was easy to make - just buy artisteer and make your own themes and use the plugins I suggested

Also look at blogs of the experts for ideas. I modeled ideas off mashable and shoemoney

[Joel Gray]

You need to add the following plugins

All In One SEO
WP Generic Footer

Graphics look good, I like the layout of your site and the way you incorporate the videos is very good.

Joel

[gareth]

It looks like putting the video bar above the first post requires hard coding the template - this is something I want to avoid so I will have to miss this feature out for now.

If anybody knows of a plugin that can insert code at the top of the first post or above it please let me know. Does wordpress itself have a way to do this ?

Next I will add the optin pop ups and I'm done with the appearance.

[gareth]

OK I tried a footer popup and it sucked - prob over kill if I use a lightbox anyway

Final touch will be the lightbox optin then.

[nickwilliams]

Hi Gareth

The site looks good - but seems to take a long time to load.

Good luck.

Nick

[Intrepreneur]

What is the popup you are using?

Thanks.

[ForeignProfessor]

Looks good.

But I think my wife thought I was looking at gay-medical-porn until I managed to scroll down to Lingerie Football

I'm into fitness but not serious bodybuilding; but if I was, it'd probably by my scene.

[Christian Fox]

Holy hot pictures at the bottom!

I don't like the red text, you will get tons more traffic if you add a forum and develop a 'hook'

Something unique....

I know this stuff I used to be really big (pun intended) into bodybuilding. I miss it but gotta pay some bills.

Good start!

Oh and you wont be able to use PPC with that pop.

[Ross Bowring]

I'm with Christian, you need a hook. Something to differentiate yourself.

Nice content but you need to let folk know upfront what's special about you and this blog... why this should be their one-stop shop for body building info.

[pixguy]

Hi, Just my 2 cents but...
1. Where are your H1 tags? also your H2 tag description does not look relevent to the sites theme? probably because of artisteers SEO limitations.
2. By December 1 you will need to comply with the FTC's blog rules and make sure you put the appropriate links next to all affiliate pictures and links etc..

[bosawi]

hi all, newbie here just joined
nice blog but i would go with another text color, not red... but others are fine to me