Being a music lover, I’m excited that I have to slow down and actually go through this blog. I’ve visited it many times but have not given it the attention the music lover in me would have liked to. I actually can think back several months (give or take) and remember a much different layout than you see now. I’d love to think that Kystorms has been reading every post and paying attention1. :D

So let’s get on with the show. Rock Music ~ KOME Style, here are 10 things I hate about your site:

  1. There is too much wasted space between the main page post excerpts and the footer.
  2. Your pages are all over the place.
  3. Your page link text is too wordy.
  4. Your font is way too small.
  5. Your header/banner is too bland for a rock music blog.
  6. There is too much stuff on the sidebar—most of which is repetitive.
  7. Thumbnail images are great for adding visual interest to a layout, and for complementing the content. You have a great opportunity to include images but you are not utilizing it.
  8. Your Best Vid’s page only has one video, making it singular, not plural.
  9. There is no rhyme nor reason to your categories.
  10. If you’re not going to keep a page updated, don’t advertise the last updated… date.

Details

  1. There is too much wasted space between the main page post excerpts and the footer. This is due to a few things: repetitive sidebar items (see #6); not enough post excerpts on the main page to balance out the length of the sidebar; unnecessary sidebar content. People aren’t going to see that there is any footer content, because they aren’t getting to the footer.


    What does this mean? While it’s difficult to have the content column and the sidebar the exact same height, you should have then much closer than they are now. This can be achieved by following my advice in #6 and adding a few more post excerpts to the main content column. This should help even things out.

  2. Your pages are all over the place. Not only are the titles too long (see #3), but some of your pages are really just subtopics of one main page: KOME.


    What does this mean? Organize and structure your pages. You don’t need all of the separate KOME pages—have one KOME parent page, and then list the multiple “sections” under this page. Then when I roll over KOME in the page links, a dropdown menu shows me the different KOME page options I have to choose from.

  3. Your page link text is too wordy. Or in other words, your page link titles are too long.

    Second, whether you take my advice above or not, you need to shorten the page link titles.

    • Home
    • About
    • KOME
    • Videos
    • Artist Sites
    • Etc.

    Save the description for the actual page.

  4. Your font is way too small.2 I don’t have the best vision, but with my contacts in I do okay. Except when trying to read your content. Your font is TINY!


    What does this mean? Simple. You need to tweak the CSS and make your body font a smidge larger. I’ll admit that 10 things pushes the font size limit, but your font size is not fashionable. It’s small. Make it bigger.

  5. Your header/banner is too bland for a rock music blog. Seriously. Your blog title has the words “Rock”, “Music”, and “Style”—your banner does not reflect any of this.


    What does this mean? You need a better banner/header. I’m sure your theme has an option to upload an image. If it doesn’t, I think some easy fiddling with the CSS can solve that problem. Either way, you need a good rock banner.

  6. There is too much stuff on the sidebar—most of which is repetitive. The first problem is that starting with Blogroll, the sidebar items appear twice. The second problem is that you have other repetitive elements like the RSS button and Pages. The third problem is the calendar.


    What does this mean? First, find out why all of your sidebar links, starting with “Blogroll”, are showing up twice and fix it. Second, you don’t need to repeat sections that appear in other places. You don’t need three different RSS links, nor do you need your page links in two sections.3 Pick a place for key elements and place them there—if organized well, there is no need to repeat elements. Third, the calendar widget is so dated. Lose it. :)

  7. Thumbnail images are great for adding visual interest to a layout, and for complementing the content. You have a great opportunity to include images but you are not utilizing it. Your blog theme obviously has a thumbnail option. Why aren’t you using it?


    What does this mean If you aren’t going to utilize the thumbnails, I would recommend finding a way to turn this option off. People don’t want to see the same 125 x 125 image for every post, in every place the thumbnail is coded to appear. Better yet, USE the thumbnail option. Post some kick-ass rock pics, to accompany your kick-ass rock blog!

  8. Your Best Vid’s page only has one video, making it singular, not plural. You have tons of great videos in so many posts. Why is there only one video here?


    What does this mean? When evaluating your pages, you need to consider losing this page. Using a video tag or category is a better way to show videos. It seems this page is abandoned (see #10). There’s no shame it starting a page and realizing it’s too much to keep up with. You post videos. Tags and/or categories will filter these nicely.

  9. There is no rhyme nor reason to your categories. Speaking of categories, you have quite a a few of them, and they are pretty random.4


    Rather than reinvent the wheel, I’m going to point you to Problogger: How to Choose Categories for Your Blog. This article spells it out as simply and eloquently as I could. ;)

  10. If you’re not going to keep a page updated, don’t advertise the last updated… date. This is another one of those abandoned pages: Artist Web Site Listing. According to the blog, it was last updated a year ago.


    What does this mean? Basically, don’t bite off more than you can chew. It seems to me that you had very lofty ambitions for this blog and you created a lot of initial content. As time went on, however, all those pages and categories became a bit much to keep up with. This happens to most bloggers and there’s nothing wrong with trimming the fat. Take a look at what works and what doesn’t. Honestly, I will never come to your blog to check out classic rock band links. I will, however, come to your blog to read your latest post and see what great, classic video you’ve posted.

There’s a lot of good content at Rock Music ~ KOME Style. I was pleased to watch some old-school videos that took me back to my younger days, like the two Peter Gabriel songs that are some of my faves. There is definitely some history to KOME and I enjoyed poking around and reading a little about it. Like most blogs that use pre-made themes, a little tweaking is all this one needs. :)

  1. KOME’s newest layout is a huge improvement over the last layout. :) [↩]
  2. I thought my font size was pushing the small limit. ;) [↩]
  3. Okay, I know that 10 things lists the RSS twice, but mine is subtle ;) [↩]
  4. Your categories are more like tags. [↩]

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