I’ve been reading Ms. Danielle’s blog site for a few weeks now.  I made note of her Microsoft Zune Giveaway Contest by marking that post as unread in my feed reader.  Her blog has seemingly the perfect mix of personal posts and useful blogging posts, which is helping her blog grow.  Her contest isn’t asking for a full review, but I think I’ll give one, albeit short, anyway to see if her blog will play in Peoria.

Danielle started this blog in early March and has provided consistent posts ever since.  I like the balance of personal posts (How not to swing a golf club & The story of Binky) to very useful blog posts (Do blog ethics exist & Why links are so important).  Needless to say, the major strength of this blog is the content.  It’s well written and interesting topics.  As for what I would change?  The only things I would change are in the sidebar.  I realize that advertisements get a better click rate when placed at the top of the page, but this gets a little annoying as I had to page down 2 1/2 pages before I got to any navigational items.  However those things are easily forgotten when I read the next quality article.

So, in summary, Ms. Danielle – Just Another Ego Blog Site does play in Peoria.

On a side note:  She said that she thinks it would be funny if John Chow won it back from her (she won it from him).  I’ll just put in that if I win it, I’ll run a contest myself to give it away to a lucky blogger.

Back in January, Jon Lee started his Web Development Blog. I found it in late February, when I realized my intense interest in blogging, and have been a regular reader ever since. Jon is asking for reviews of his site in order to improve the site and to gain additional traffic. In late March, he took my Geographic Content post to heart and made his own post stating the best city in the world. To go with that theme, and me being from Peoria, Illinois; I’ve decided to review his site as to whether the site plays in Peoria. If you’re not aware, this saying was a common term back in the vaudeville days. Wikipedia explains it better than I could so here is a snippet:

The saying, “Will it play in Peoria?” is traditionally used to ask whether a given product, person, promotional theme or event will appeal to mainstream (also called “Main Street“) America, or across a broad range of demographic/psychographic groups.

It has become a shorthand phrase in American business, with historical ties to Peoria, a diverse, metropolitan, mid-sized city located in central Illinois.

In the United States, Peoria, Illinois, has legendary status as a test market. Peoria has long been seen as a representation of the average American city, because of its demographics and its perceived mainstream Midwestern culture.

The phrase initially came into fashion during the vaudeville era, believed to have been first asked by Groucho Marx when putting together a new act. The belief was that if a new show was successful in Peoria, it would work anywhere in America.

That being said, a positive review from BlissLogs could be the predictor to a successful blog. I usually like to include just as many items to work on as I do items I like during a review. I can’t really do that with Jon’s site. I was only able to come up with 2 main items that I would change about the blog and one of them was fixed a couple days ago before I could get this post out. That one was to include the use of a favicon on his site. Since that has been taken care of, the sole gripe I have about this site is the manufactured RSS readers. He is displaying a number in his feedburner widget, however that number doesn’t appear to be the legitimate number of subscribers to the blog, which is what we have come to expect when we see that widget. However, that is easily overlooked when you consider all the good that is in this blog.

Then content that Jon provides on this blog shows that he is passionate about the topic. That topic being basically anything technology related. The WordPress theme used is clean and easy to follow. Speaking of follow, Jon was one of the original blogs that I read about participating in the Do-Follow movement. Another feature of this blog that sets it apart from the pack is that he uses the plugin that he created, ShowOff Rankings. This plugin displays the major site ranking ranks for your blog wherever you want them displayed. I could go on for a while as to all the things I like about this blog, but I’ll let you decide for yourself by visiting his site.

I guess you can already tell as to whether jon lee dot see eh play’s in Peoria. Of course it does!

If you liked this review, Get Reviewed At ReviewMe!

Thanks to the new Advertisers Campaign functionality offered up by ReviewMe, I finally get a chance to offer up a review through their service. This sponsored WordPress Plugin Review is a perfect example of what I want to offer my readers through ReviewMe.

IMM-Keywords is a new plugin brought to you by The Internet Marketing Monitor. At first glance, this plugin looks very simple in that it is simple to install and simply ads your choice of meta tags keywords to your posts. At second glance, you realize that this functionality truly gives your blog a shot at Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

There is some debate as to if the keywords meta tag is even considered by search engines any more. Or if it is being used, it most likely doesn’t have the weighting that it once did in search engines. This is due to many webmasters manipulating search results by populating this field with irrelevant data for the sole purpose of improving organic searches. If you are in the camp that believes that it is not used then this plugin probably won’t satisfy you. However, if you still believe that this meta tag is being used then you should definitely install it. I am under the impression that this tag is used but its weighting on your sites keywords is dependent on the use of those same words or phrases withing your blog.

Now for the specifics of this plugin. Installation is a simple as you can make a plugin. Copy the php file into your plugin folder, login to your WordPress Dashboard and enable the plugin. That’s all there is to installation. For those of you that have had a blog for years now, there is an easy way to add a default keyword to every post on your blog. From the Dashboard, go to the Options tab and choose IMM-Keywords. There is one field on this page to enter your default keywords.  The next time you edit a post or create a new post, there will be a keywords field for you to fill in.  It is integrated into the WordPress Admin so well that you may initially miss the field.

The one bit of functionality that I would request for the next version of this plugin would be the merging of the default keywords with the post specific keywords.  Currently, if you create a new post and add keywords for that post, the default keywords will NOT show up in the tag on that post.  I would like those default keywords to show up whether you entered post specific keywords or not.

If you would like to learn more and download this plugin yourself visit the IMM-Keywords page.

It has been over a week since I reviewed Johnny Fuery so I’m due to find another blog that might interest my readers. I’m always on the lookout for new blogs that show an ability to grow and a commitment to contribute to the blogosphere. While perusing Samanathon’s blog, I came across a reference to PureBlogging, who is running a contest to generate reviews of their site. David Culpepper is showing that commitment by offering an 8Gb Apple iPod nano for one lucky reviewer.

I’ll start this review of David’s site by commenting on the look-and-feel of the site and move on from there. My first impression of the look-an-feel is that this site is CLEAN, almost too clean. I was amazed that I could not find one bit of advertising anywhere on the home page. I soon realized that I hadn’t added the site to my white-list on my adblock plugin. After refreshing the site, with ads, I only found one ad that seems to take away from the site. That being the large Google AdSense affiliate section at the top of the sidebar. It is so large that it takes up both columns of this 3 column theme and pushes all navigational sections down, almost completely off of my screen. It would have to perform very well for me to justify taking up that much real estate on my sidebar. Once I scroll down, I find all the expected sections to help navigate the site. On the other hand, David does provide 3 links to subscribe to his feed at the top of the sidebar which makes it very easy to subscribe to his feed. All in all, the look and feel is easy to follow and provides everything we need to enjoy the site.

As for content, that is one area that David is not lacking. His posts are regular and steady with a wide range of blogging tips and pointers. His posts range in topic from Blog tips to blog design to SEO, with the occasional review thrown in for good measure. The blog is young and it seams that David is still finding his niche in the blogs about blogging realm, but there is a clear evolution over the last 2 months that show growth. Check out PureBlogging to see for yourself. Maybe you could even write a review of your own to participate in his iPod contest.