Zignus' Web site review

Taking a slice for myself

Nowadays more and more people are getting into Blogging, not only because it is free -- but it's also because it is easy to set-up and promote. You can practice this without any complication as long as you have knowledge in CSS and HTML.

The site http://www.mikebogo.com was created by the student Mike Bogo, a senior Psychology major at Brown University. His “About Page” is a little bit overwhelming, but I'm saying this in a a good way. He strategically puts it on the left part of the page, wherein people can read well and know him instantly. It's quite brilliant that he also puts a photo of himself, because for some people it's hard to gain their trust if you're sort of a stranger for them. About his introduction, I can say that he's really into the world of Marketing and Monetizing though he claims that he's not a professional. However he definitely has something interesting and accommodating to say that has me thoroughly intrigued. His blog is basically jam-packed with ideas.

The Drills

With regards to the Meta Tags of the site, I' am really impressed by how he manages to keep it clean. When I say 'clean', it means that he didn't even bother to put keywords and long descriptions in his Meta Tags, yet he succeed to present them in an informative manner. Meta description is important so that people who visit your site will have a brief introduction as to what your site is all about. With mikebogo.com though, you don't get all that long description with keywords on it, maybe because he wants the content to speak out for itself.

Technically, on SEO aspect, his format is rather amazing. One of the reasons why he has a PR5 for his site, because the robots of the search engines can crawl on to his site easily. That is the advantage if you put the content of your site on the left portion of the page. The articles are also helpful. He has posted educational articles, which can help all his readers on marketing aspect. Also, There is a snapshot of a website installed by the author in his entries with hypertext link and in the links sections of the page. It makes the websites more informative for the users because they can preview the site that they want to visit, without “going” to the site itself. Since, it's much better idea to see the details/view foremost of the project by dragging your mouse to the links, instead of just enlarging the image in the new page. If you stumble upon Mike's blog you can see below his introduction, are the list of Top Articles, Categories, Links and Visitor's in an orderly manner beside the Adwords by Google. It's quite confusing though why he had placed the ads on the leftmost part of the page. Perhaps they're part of the design.

The gists

Mike Bogo writes his content interesting that's why people enjoy visiting and reading his blog. Mike Bogo thinks in a very precise manner, he wants to impress people with his skills and learning, that's why he made his blog in a very newsy yet chatty style. Also the good part is his articles are immediately on the left half of his page, which is both easy and accessible for human readers and spider bots alike. I mean, all his keywords are there, but not annoying for the readers. The format and content of http://www.mikebogo.com are not only user-friendly, as well it's a search engine friendly.

Labels: Consultancy, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Web Marketing, Web Site Review

Designing Templates for Websites

How many sites do you know that actually offers a FREE website design template that is very unique and has a very good design? Quite few. Nevertheless, templatextreme.com is in fact offering this kind of service. The site put up a page for the webmaster resources that the users find very useful if ever she/he wants to build a website of its own. The mere fact of this act, captures my criterion for a helpful website. Besides from the accuracy of the site that you can look through its Contact Us page, it is really impressive in regards with its idea of designing a templates for the users who needs one. This site specialize the designing in different layouts, users can choose from whatever they desire. All the design here have style, impact and quality, that will surely catch everyone's attention.

Look and Feel

When I looked into this site the thing that never fails to catch my eyes is the big letter X of the header. I thought that the creator must be into extreme and cool stuff or something. Because for me, that letter stands in a huge context like being adventurous and daring. In fact some people grew up with this term and use in a colloquial language when someone is into intense doing.

Anyhow I reckon that the name of the site is sort of a little bit odd as when you look through the whole layout of the page. The color usage is not that “extreme” as suppose to be. It is too slow because it is dull and simple. The only color that makes the site look lively is the yellow vertical line on the left page, other than that the whole thing is white and gray. However I must give credits to the consistency of the table, it is allot in a coherent position and it looks good. The CSS design is quite simple and elegant with the uses of drop-down box, I can easily search the categories and templates. The use of the thumbnails to display the sample of the site's designs is not unique but it is practical and convenient. All the information about each theme is written below the image and you can preview it in a large view, when you click.

Navigation

Menus are located in the top most of the page in a compress mode, which you can easily navigate and explore. All the information about the site's designs are listed in a basically readable layout. I downloaded a free scheme which I'm using right now, by the way. I can say that it is fast and very easy to use. As I continuously explore this site I eventually realize why the webmaster used the big X as the prominent letter in his/her site. Why, you ask? It is simply because all the design templates that I look at is rather tremendous and “eXtremely” striking within its own kind. Also the sub-menus is alloted orderly below the menus, that you can effortless selects different design from wordpress, HTML/CSS and flash.

Content

In this site, even though there is a lot of HTML/CSS and Flash implementation, surprisingly the website pages and samples are quick to load. There is no denial that this site is being well-visited by its costumer because there is no hassle like pop-ups and banners that can stand as a distraction rather annoys the users. The content is precise and informative, all the queries that you might ask are answered in an accurate manner. From the prices of the templates and its type are catalogue under the thumbnails. Another good part is the idea of putting the number of times a design is downloaded. With this the users can tell how popular the designs are. On the other hand it can also forewarn the End-users on how unique the design that they are eying on.

If you look at this site templatextreme.com foremost you can easily forget about it in just a minute because of the ordinary appeal from its layout. However if you stay and explore through this site you will be amazed by the site's products.

Over-All evaluation

Although I can say that this site is an Art in progress, templatextreme.com packs quite a punch for a starter site. This site is well created and executed by the webmaster and his/her teams. Above all, they offer FREE but very well designed templates.

Labels: Web Design, Web Site Review

NATIONAL VISAS ( Australian Immigration Made Easy)

Even though I had no intention to migrate in Australia in the first place, I'm quite interested exploring this site. You can easily browse the main page and it uploads quickly, plus the navigation is not difficult to use. The content, too, is worth reading, because it's not just well-written but very informative especially to those who want to live and travel in Australia.

The layout artist of National Visas must be very focused in regards with choosing the right image. I think she/he made a point to not be very dramatic and heavy in putting some images. I actually like the idea of the image header; for me it's fun to look at because of its simplicity. However even if the logo on the right side of the page is composed of a simple text, it actually accents the blue color and the caption written below it. When I first saw this site I thought to myself that, “hey, this is simple, neat, organized, and readable.” It can really make one want to check Australia personally.

For the people who's into designing could say that the site is actually spacious regardless of having too much content on the homepage, though it's creator executed the whole idea exquisitely. When you start to navigate you could check all the menus, sub-menus, and all the services are listed orderly. And you can search all the information about that list even if you're still navigating in the home page when you drag throughout the menus. And if you want all the details and content about your queries in migrating to Australia you can click and explore the hypertext link and read all about the services that they offer, fast and easily.

The good thing about this site that make it more credible and accurate is their code of conduct, terms and conditions, privacy policy--all the information that you need to read to know the a site's quality . Luckily all of these are listed at the lower part of the page. Even the registration number is there. So if ever you want to avail of your Australian visa, you can have the assurance of dealing with the right information and details.

If you try to search this site, for example in Google, I know you can easily find it. Perhaps because of the unstoppable link building like submissions of their articles and press releases. It's quite helpful building a traffic of your website if you know how to increase your rankings in search engine. And because the webmaster of the site is a genius he/she knows how to handle these things.

This site is worth visiting because it can really be useful and helpful for people who want to travel in Australia. I had no idea that there are a lots of types of Australian visas, and this site explains them all in a user-friendly way. It provides information that even I have never imagined. And the best part is, there are no pop-ups that make the other sites annoying, no advertisement that can be distracting. Overall the site is impressive respectively within its own criteria.

Kudos for the creator of this site!

Labels: Immigration to Australia, Travel, Web Site Review