The NESW Sports site claims to be the best sports news anywhere. A very, very bold tagline. Their browser title says The Best Sports Videos, which is maybe a little more apt. I’m no ESPN jockey, but they do some fairly serious reporting. My first bit of advice for the owner would be to cut the hyperbole and get down to the nitty-gritty — what does the blog provide? (Sports Videos from Every Direction — just an idea.)
The NESW Sports site does provide sports videos with a bit of historic background. The current post (as of writing this) shows the Carl Lewis National Anthem from 1993. The bit of text leading into the video provides a clear idea of what you’re about to see. Each post has a relaxed and informative feel to it, which will help gain readers and with search engines ranking.
There’s no archive in the sidebar, but it appears, according to Alexa, the site’s been around since March of this year. Since that time the site has been posting sports videos, or videos related to the sports world on at least a daily basis, if not two or three times a day. This is no small achievement, and fans of the blog should high five the blogger. Keep it up.
Template and Layout Problems
I would say there are some problems with the appearance of the blog, mainly due to the header. The image in the header doesn’t look right. It should cover the whole of the page or at least be balanced with an RSS subscription callout or something to the right, and the main banner should not look like a scanned in photo. The Live banner below the header image appears to be the secondary title of the site. Not a good thing by any measure. There’s also some prime real estate on the right side of the blog being used by…white space.
You’ll also notice the post title scrunched up to the Join Now banner. It’s hardly noticeable with no margin. Pull the ad, or give it a margin, then people will see the post title much more clearly. The navigation does quite well on the right. There’s quick access to subscribe to the feed, recent posts, and categories. The only thing missing is the archive.
The RSS feed is supported by Feedburner and includes the option to sign up via email. It shows the videos perfectly inside the feed, so A+ in that respect.
Does All This Negative Talk Mean the Site Sucks?
Not at all. The site has really good content. If the header were to be cleaned up, some key advertising moved around, and a few navigation elements added, then the blog would be really, very nice. Could it use some professional design touches? Absolutely.
I would start with the header and work my way down. The majority of the design flaws on the site could be fixed in a matter of an hour or two. The more laborious things would be sorting out the main header with advertisements.
All in all I would say the site’s a good one, but could use some tweaking. The right changes and with the current content, the site will definitely pick up readers and continue to move forward.
{ 9 comments }
Awesome write up. I appreciate the honesty and the compliments.
The mistakes are pure laziness. I know I need to fix the header. I have been working on multiple blogs and I need to do some house keeping.
I will add an archive as a drop down box. I think it messes with my SEO to have links to duplicate material. I am also aware that a ton of bloggers like to navigate via the archive. I will do that ASAP.
The advertisement under the logo is a cpm ad and they want it at the top. I get a few dollars a month from it. Should I stop it or put it above the logo? It is guaranteed money. It runs about $1 per thousand.
I would like you to do a follow up in a month to see where I am at.
Have a goodun and thanks again!
ethanator1088s last blog post..LeBron James, 2008 Olympic Diving Alternate, Video
I also like the “Sports Videos from Every Direction” line. It is now taken.
I started the blog with the idea of doing sports news but sports videos are so much fun
That is why the blog header says news.
I will redo the header with my graphics guy. He is awesome.
ethanator1088s last blog post..LeBron James, 2008 Olympic Diving Alternate, Video
Nice review, like the mix of good and bad. I frequent this site often and have to say the content is very good. I’m sure ethanator will fix these issues and make them pluses.
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Snappy review. All these reviews can be informative for improving our own blogs. I like that. Keep up the good work.
@Ethanator: I would say you could move the main ad at the top when you get someone to organize the header. You could easily separate your logo from the banner in a snazzy way. All its going to do is draw more people into your site and you’ll be getting better results from those ads. Get the header figured out and the ad won’t look out of place up there.
I’ll consider revisiting the site, maybe do a wrapup of the four sites I review this month. Good idea, actually.
Great review!.. do you charge for these services? They are very thorough and cover everything worth mentioning.
Keep up the good work jason!
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I used to charge through the EC shop, but I decided to do four for free this month. I still have more to come!
I enjoy doing them. I may put the shop item back up in EC.
This is an attractive well controled page
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Thanks for the story, good info. Already found 4 crappy posts about the same. But this is great. tnx
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