10 things: Only in Silence
03. Feb, 2009 
13 Comments
I was contacted by Abelle the other day, inquiring about her position in the queue. Admittedly, she is towards the bottom, however, since her blogoversary was coming up I told her I would complete her review sooner. Today is the day, so Happy Blogoversary OiS!
I’m not sure this is the gift I would have chosen, however, it’s what was asked for. So, Only in Silence, here are 10 6 things I hate about your site.
- Your blog theme is overused.1
- One word: Feedjit.
- RSS. Where is yours hiding?
- Load time.
- I like symmetry. Your sidebars are lacking it.
- Don’t advertise “Valid XHTML & CSS” if you’re not.
Details
- Your blog theme (Aspire) is overused. This is clearly evidenced by the fact that the last blog review I completed used the same one. As I stated previously, I know of 2 other blogs with this theme (and now all five of my readers know of at least two
). This is a problem with good, unique themes. After awhile, they become good, overused themes.
What does this mean? I’ll give you the same advice I gave Willem: consider a new theme.
- One word: Feedjit. Feedjit is just a pet peeve, but it calls to a bigger issue. Unnecessary widgets. I’m just not a fan of “widgets for the sake of widgets.” Not just the Feedjit widgets, but what’s with the clock? do your readers really care about your uptime? No. Unless you are my web host, or a site I rely on (like my bank), I don’t care if you have 100% uptime.
What does this mean? Use your sidebars for relevant stuff. The Feedjit thingie on popular pages isn’t too bad, even if it is Feedjit. Some of the other stuff is irrelevant and your readers probably don’t care.
- RSS. Where is yours hiding? Your RSS feed is not doing you any favors. First, it’s located midway down the page. Second, unless I’m a WordPress user, I wouldn’t know to look for it in the ‘Meta’ section if I don’t see a prominent link. Third, even as a WP user, many bloggers don’t use the Meta widget–if you were to exclude this widget, you would have not RSS link at all.
What does this mean? You need to include an RSS icon/link much closer to the top of your blog.
- Load time. I don’t know if it’s this theme, or if it’s the desire of the users of this theme to include every widget/plugin under the sun (refer to #2), but your load time is not good.
What does this mean? Check out Web Page Analyzer. Enter your URL and view the results. You’ll get a full report on all of the elements on your page. This will give you a roadmap on how to reduce your load time.
- I like symmetry. Your sidebars are lacking it. It’s not terrible, but I really dislike the jagged edges created by all of your uneven buttons.
What does this mean? Take a minute to center all of these and see how they look. I’m guessing they will improve the overall look of the sidebars.
- Don’t advertise “Valid XHTML & CSS” if you’re not. Like Willem before you, you have the “Valid XHTML & CSS” badge at the bottom of your blog, linking to the W3C Markup Validation Service. Your blog, however, is NOT valid. When I click on the link, 320 errors are returned.
What does this mean? The simplest thing to do is to remove this badge. I’m guessing you don’t want to address the 320 errors.
In Summary
Happy Blogoversary! Keeping a blog for over a year is no small feat. I hope you find this review helpful. I see that you do want a theme change (based on your bulletin board). I hope you are able to find one that you like. If you have questions, or would like my assistance finding a new theme, just let me know!
- I don’t like to duplicate content, however, this theme was used in the last review I completed–Willem’s Internet Blog. As a result, there are some repeat issues. [↩]
Thank you, Melissa. I’ll work on it soon. Then I’ll fall in line again for a review when I get myself a new theme ;o)
abelle | Only in Silences last blog post..Only in Silence turns 1 today!!!!!
You’re welcome Abelle. There are so many great bloggers and resources. Feel free to reach out if you have questions or need help.
I just visited Only in Silence for the first time. It felt as if I had been there many times before. You are correct, that theme has now been used just too many times. Nice blog though, nice articles and I congratulate the owner on reaching this great milestone.
Slightly off-topic, welcome back, missed your articles.
Lyndis last blog post..WordPress and Duplicate Content
There are several blogs I visit regularly that use this theme. I’m excited to see if any of them change and if so, what they change to. (Willem has already drastically changed the look of his theme–same theme, different color scheme which does set it apart).
Off-topic: glad to be “back.”
Nice review again and useful tips. You might have a quick look through your queue and see if there are any other sites with the same theme and save yourself some work…
If the author of onlyinsilence contacts me I could give some tips on how I solved part of those issues…
Just today I finally got the RSS feed working on my site. This was a really difficult issue. Somehow empty lines were added to the RSS XML before the opening statement which isn’t allowed. It turned out to be two different plugins that were causing this…
As some may have noticed, i didn’t completely change theme, but did change color-scheme which at least made my site stand out a bit. I got some nice comments on that so I guess it was worth the effort.
Naturally I’m not going to suggest the grayscale look to only in silence…
Cheers
I agree that the new color scheme sets yours apart.
With regards to OiS’s RSS, I can view it. It’s just not prominent enough if she wants people to subscribe.
Woah! talk about widgets and buttons! There are more on this site than i’ve seen before on any other, and I thought I was bad. I had loads of widgets at one time…and the feedjit one…but have drastically reduced them.
Actually I’ve been following your reviews (my blog is probably still last in the queue) and have been fixing my blog according to your advice. I’m finally happy with mine – although I know a professional’s touch is what’s missing in the final analysis, which is probably what i’ll go for if ‘business’ picks up :0 great advice once again…
Helenes last blog post..To design or not to design – a controversial topic
Don’t fix it too much or I won’t have anything to rant about!
You know — for those of us who regularly read and take to heart your advice, we *should* have blogs that are absolutely squeaky clean
However, I’ll bet dollars to donuts that many of us (self very firmly within the group) won’t pass your acid test 
As with Wilem’s blog the valid HTML and CSS badge is most likely part of the template and not something the blog owner put there. No doubt without the offending widgets the basic template WILL validate. I agree, though that for the sake of brutal honesty, they should be removed.
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Margarets last blog post..Twitter Twitter Tweet
I agree with you wholeheartedly and my blog should be the squeakiest of all
. Even 10 things, however, wouldn’t pass with flying colors (you can see from the comments on Willem’s post that some advice has already been given to the reviewer, LOL).
I checked out the actual theme demo page (http://www.infocreek.org/) and it validates perfectly. It is most definitely the add-ons and such that are to blame. I’m just being a stickler–if you state that you are valid, your blog should validate.
You certainly won’t see me making that claim on mine, at least not yet.
Lyndi, willem, Helene & Margaret – Thank you for visiting OiS and thank you for your comments too. I’ll remember all your advice. Again, my sincerest thanks ;o)
abelle | Only in Silences last blog post..Only in Silence turns 1 today!!!!!