New site (blog) for review and feedback please?

[HoundHunt]

I purchased the Handbook a little over a week ago, and have been working day & night, especially once I followed advice and started a blog ( which I knew nothing about ) and built it live, since I didn't know how not too..
So here it is: http://houndhunt.com

Still have lots of content to add, but was hoping for some feedback before I do, so I can make the best of any intro..
Thanks!

[Rosalind Gardner]

HoundHunt,

You have been working day and night! That's absolutely fabulous!

I suggest you hide those categories under which you have nothing posted yet until there is something there. I'm actually surprised that they are showing up at all. Must have something to do with the template you are using... or a widget.

Too, under 'Browse' I looked up a couple of dog breeds that had only the tiniest snippets of information. I'd try to get those 'fleshed out' asap or perhaps hide the 'browse' feature until you do.

Lastly, you may want to change the category name 'uncategorized' to somehting like 'general' or 'miscellaneous'. 'Uncategorized' seems like a place to keep things until you find a place to put them.

All in all, VERY well done. I'm hugely impressed.

Cheers,

[HoundHunt]

yeah havn't slept much this week..

You can see those categories? wierd I couldn't except while in wordpress..
I'll just delete them til/if I use them.

For the dog breeds, I think when you click on that it just shows the excerpts, because each article is close to 300-400 words...maybe I should insert more in the excerpt box, or try to make it show there is more if you click..hmm

I've been reading through and asking questions in the forum for the theme all week...helpful so far, but wow lots to learn.
And I managed to figure out just now how to change the "uncategorized" category that came with the theme..

Thanks for the advice!

[Rosalind Gardner]

I see the issue now. To get to the full article under the 'browse' links, you have to click on the title, which isn't obvious. Perhaps you might underline the title at the top?

The best solution however is to add a "read more" link to the end of each snippet that shows up.

Cheers,

[Griff Grumbein]

Hello HoundHunt, and Welcome to the forum!

You've done a remarkable job for such a short time!

The only small thing I'll add to Ros's comments is that you may want to consider a spell and grammar checker (e.g. on the home page "Welcome to HoundHunt.com" the word their is spelled wrong (thier), and in the last sentence in "Dog Breeds – A List Of Dogs That Will Fit Your Lifestyle Perfectly" starts with a conjunction (But)).

Not trying to nit-pick, that kind of stuff just jumps out at me. (Cursed is the son of an English Major. . . )

Great work so far, looking forward to seeing more!

Please keep us posted on your progress.

P2P!

[HoundHunt]

I probably can't blame that on typing through the night, because my spelling/grammar is challenged at the best of times...
I fixed them, and discovered another error in the process so thanks again!

[Lowell Rieger]

HoundHunt,

Color me impressed. You've done more in a week than some of my mentees have done in a year. You've got a good idea and are running with it. That's the spirit and way to go!

Some general comments:

You have two different rss feed links to two different types of rss feeds on every page. Confusing to me as one of them (top nav menu) is text labeled "subscribe." I took it as an email subscribe but it is an rss subscribe. You may want to change the text to reflect that it is rss.

You might want to consolidate to one feed via Feedburner.

If I click through to an article post the rss subscribes both show but your link to the email signup page disappears. Your email subscribe really ought to be on every page - you can put a widget in the sidebar. Yours looks like an aweber form - you can just drop the form code in a text widget and it will show on every page.

Put it in the "top fold" of the page, above where your categories list is. You never know what page on your site is your visitor's landing page, so give them a chance to subscribe. It's hard enough to get email subs, don't make it hard for the reader to see your form. Think about a free report or mini course series as a subscriber enticement.

I'd like more pictures. I'm a dog person, wanted especially to see pictures of the breeds. I'm sure you're thinking about this? Since it's a blog I'd like it a little more personal. Who's telling me all this good stuff? Ros's Romasters home page is a great example of this.

None of this has to be done instantly, just to think about adding as your site grows. You've gotten a great start and it should only get better over time.
Congratulations!

Lowell

[HoundHunt]

Thanks for the feedback, you've help me plan my work for next week!
I'm new to the whole rss feed thing, and only have it set up as it was installed with the theme so far, but I have it on my list to figure out how it works (and what it is) and your comments are going to help me get it set up properly.
The email subscribe was from phplist on bluehost, and other than installing it, I had to create a new post for it because I wasn't able to install in on the page without it moving everything around. ( Also on the to do list )
After reading your comments, I'm thinking I should maybe fix the rss feed to one, and change the subscribe button to point to the newsletter.. that might be a good fix.
And the pictures is definately a work in progress.. looking for more to add everyday, and hoping to get subscribers to add theirs in the future. The picture process is a slow one however because most of the time spent building the site this past week has been done on a dial up internet access. I'm sure you can imagine the pain..

Thanks again, and if you see anything else that might need a tweak please let me know!

[Lowell Rieger]

oundHunt -

It's good to know about rss. Check wikipedia for an intro. It's one of the major reasons for a blog over a static site.

I don't know how exactly how old your blog is or how much is already indexed in google, but you might want to think about about a more seo friendly permalink structure before you get any farther along, or use one of the seo plugins. Since your site is topical, having the date string in your urls is superfluous, imo.

Make sure you are using a plugin like smart update pinger from Ultimate Plugins so edits and future posts aren't pinged. Too much pinging on a new blog can get you in the doghouse

You mentioned you are using php list. So you are self hosting your list. I think you need to go back and reread the SAH re the pitfalls of that. There are many, not obvious now, but as your list grows a self hosted list will become a major headache.

Regards,

Lowell

[Rosalind Gardner]

Hi HoundHunt,

I was thinking that you might also want to change your permalink structure from date and name based to strictly name based, i.e. rather than ... 2008/06/25/a-few-dog-names-to-get-you-thinking/ just ...a-few-dog-names-to-get-you-thinking/

No particular advantage to doing so, other than having an obvious older date in the post URL might discourage some of your readers from perusing that content.

To make the change, go to Permalink under Options and simply place /%postname%/ in the form blank under 'Custom'.

Cheers,

[Lowell Rieger]

When changing permalinks make sure you are prepared to change your .htaccess permissions if the .htaccess in your root is not writeable.

Wordpress will walk you through this on the permalink change but better to be prepared ahead of time.

Lowell

[Jim Hutchinson]

[HoundHunt]

I thought it would look nicer without, and was a little concerned about having the date in the page link since it could make any product recommendations look out dated, but I was worried about changing from anything in the default sections of wordpress (again). When I first set up, the structure was just for "id#" and when I made a change to another option, i had all kinds of broken links and the email and print functions didn't work. But I agree, and with the your help & suggestions I just managed to make the change with fingers crossed.
Seems to work so far!

[Lowell Rieger]

Houndhunt -

I like the way the links look now.

Just be aware NOT to give a new post or page a name you've already used.

I see you've changed your RSS / subscribe links also.

Keep up the good work and let us know how you're doing.

Lowell

[HoundHunt]

I'm keeping the post titles in a spreadsheet, so hopefully that will help keep me from having any duplication.
Thanks again for all your help.

Hopefully more pictures next week !