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.

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!

MeAndMyDrum launched on February 20th and they already have over 100 posts. It started off with posts about current events but within a month they began to blog about blogging and haven’t looked back since. There are many posts worth reading. I’ll let you visit the blog yourselves to read them all, but I’ll give you a quick rundown of my initial thoughts of the overall blog.

If you’ve read some of my blog reviews in the past, you know that I like to give some feedback to help them improve the site. I don’t like the reviews that just list everything that is great with the site. On that note, I think the right sidebar is currently space wasted. There is a lot of icons and images that just seam unnecessary. Being new to the blog, I figured the best place to start reading would be the beginning. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find an archives section to quickly get to the first posts. Other than those little points, I think the posts are definitely worth the read. The way I’ve gotten around those petty gripes is to subscribe to the feed. That way, I’m sure not to miss the quality posts that I’m sure are to come. I was happy to see that it is a full feed. All too many blogs these days only give a sneak peak into the post on the feed and make you visit the site to finish reading it. This blog integrates their love of drumming into their new found love of blogging. It is obvious that they have become passionate about blogging based solely on the quantity of posts they have manages to whip out over the last 90 days.

My recommendation: head on over to MeAndMyDrum to get another perspective on the blogosphere. Don’t forget to tell them I sent ya.

Happy Blogging!

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.

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.

Why did I pick his site? Well, he commented on mine letting me know about his linkback routine. That and the fact that he has references to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy spattered throughout his site. I have a couple subtle references here on BlissLogs, which gives me a promotion idea. More on that in a future post. Back to Johnny Fuery. . .

I’ll start with the cons because I always like to finish with the good news, and because I don’t have too many cons with his site. The first con is the same thing I have with many blogs, including mine, ads. Actually, the only ad on this site that I have an issue with is the large Google Adsense vertical ad on the sidebar. I’m no designer, but I would work on integrating that ad so it blends in more fluently to the site. Another issue I had was that I couldn’t search his site. After spending some time on his site, however, I realized that he does have a search field, it’s just not labeled very well (or maybe I’m blind ). My last little nit-picking critique is located at the very bottom of the site and probably ignored by many visitors and could be due to my computer screen and not at all an issue with his site, I’ll let you decide. Controlling comment spam is very important to blogs these days so advertising that your site is protected is a beneficial feature. However, if the text in your spam stats bar isn’t readable, it does little to benefit your site. Here’s a screen shot of what I am talking about on Johnny’s site.

Now on to the Pro’s; and his pros are what is generating traffic to his site. If I was to describe why I’ve come back to his site multiple times in one word, it would have to be: “Content”. He posts regularly, and has been for quite some time. This blog has been around since 2003! Johnny has had a few changes in the blogs focus over the years, but his informative content has been a constant. Early on, the blog was all about technical findings of this Smart Guy, Real Estate postings, as well as some personal posts spattered throughout. Lately, his posts have been slanted toward the monetizing your blog clique, which is a hot topic for many thousands of bloggers these days. His information on these topics are honest and helpful for the young blogger. I know I was complaining about the “look” of his site above, but those were very particular instances. The overall look of this site is clean and easy to navigate. I like the two column theme as it makes it easy to find what your looking for.

All in all, Smart Guy, is a site that I will be visiting regularly based on his content; and based on his 50 feed subscribers, more people are coming to that conclusion too.

I have another blog that makes sponsored posts for payperpost, blogitive, blogsvertise, creamaid, and any other PPP scheme that I come across. I’ll be the first to admit that that blog is more concerned with quantity. I have not lied on any of those sponsored posts, but the genericness of those posts might place it as being less credible for my readers. Quantity, not just in how many sponsored posts it can spit out, but quantity in that it rarely goes above the minimum word counts for each post as well. I’ve seen many opportunities on these PPP schemes that have the following requirements: Write a minimum of 300 words about this website, include this link, with this anchor text and you have 60 minutes to do it in. How much investigation and detail can you get into in those 60 short minutes? All of these other pay for blogging opportunities seem more interested in the SEO beneficial anchor text, rather than detailed information as to what the reviewed site offers.

The ReviewMe service just seems more inclined to promote quality articles. From the advertisers freedom to find a blogger that meets their requirements to the time the blogger has to research and fully understand the product being reviewed. Not to mention, well I’m mentioning it now, so . . . also to mention the lack of a tone requirement for the ReviewMe service. Many PPP schemes tell you to be positive about their site or product, while ReviewMe just wants an honest review.

(note: I have used the term “scheme” in this post many times. This in no way is meant as a derogatory comment. I merely wanted to convey that they are all architected similarly.)

If you liked this article, you can Get Reviewed At ReviewMe!

It’s time to pull out the big guns, or big button; should I say? I’ve seen this button on other blogs and it makes me want to subscribe, so here it goes.

They say you need to make your RSS feed button visible. I’d say that has now been accomplished.

A higher RSS subscription rate would mean more money from ReviewMe, which would be nice. Not just a higher rate per review, but also a higher ranking which would lead to more reviews, hopefully. For those that do subscribe and visit daily, you will see content that reflects my new initiative of providing tips of how to make money at home. A majority of my past posts indirectly relate to making money at home by giving tips to improve your blog and get more members.

If you are under the impression that you don’t have time to read one more blog, you should read my article on RSS Feeds – Bloglines to see how easy it can be to subscribe to many blogs and stay up-to-date on a daily basis.