Blog Page Critique: Four Hats and Frugal

Welcome to another page critique! About pages, PR pages, product pages and so on are critical in helping you meet your bloggy goals. Each week I dissect a page on someone’s blog as a way to refine it into being more awesome. Read, learn and apply these tips to the important pages on your own blog. Here we go!

Blog: Four Hats and Frugal

Blogger: Amiyrah

Page: PR/Advertising

Four Hats and Frugal is Amiyrah’s blog about her four “hats” in life… being a mom, a wife, an airman in the Air National Guard and a frugal maven. She would like some feedback on her PR/Advertising page. Amiyrah wants it to be simple to understand and show her readers what she can offer in terms of PR and available advertising space.

In regards to finding her PR/Advertising page, readers can click on the named tab at the top right on her main blog page.

Visual:

• While your design has a blue background, that’s really the only color on this page. Adding images, colored subheadings and hyperlinks will all help add some visual interest and help potential advertisers more easily digest the information.
• While most PR/Advertising pages don’t necessarily have images, here are a few ways you could use imagery:
  - Embed a sample or two of the sponsored videos you’ve done (see Jo-Lynne’s Media Kit page from Musings of a Housewife to see a good example of this)
  - Add light or dotted lines in between each section (would have to see how this looks first to ensure it’s not too busy)
  - Link to some of examples of your reviews and sponsored posts and use thumbnails for each of them
• You do have bolding for calls to action on your page, which helps emphasize those sentences.

Navigation:

• As I alluded to in the previous section, using hyperlinks would be a good addition to your page. Send potential advertisers to samples of your sponsored posts, giveaways and more so they can get a feel for your work.
• Be careful using underlined words on the web when they aren’t hyperlinks. People typically assume that underlined words link to other pages so it might be confusing that your subheadings aren’t. Instead use headings like h2, h3, etc. (in WordPress you do this by selecting “heading 2,” “heading 3,” in the Format drop-down in your Visual editor). Also consider making these a different font or color than your main text so they stand out even more.
• This page is easy to find since it’s linked in your navigation menu. Yay!

Content:

• I think you have a lot of useful information on this page. It’s good that you broke each type of opportunity into separate sections as it’s easy for a potential advertiser to scan the page for an overview of opportunities.
• In the beginning, two key things to add: a sentence as to what your blog is about and WHY the advertiser should work with you. That “why” could describe your target audience “if you want to reach moms who…” and/or why you’re a good person to work with. Ex. “I’ve established myself as a…” or “I have been blogging since…”
• Overall, I don’t think you’re sharing too much information (just in one spot I’ll get to next). However, I agree that you have a tendency to be long-winded. Think about ways you can condense your content. For example, many areas could be more concise if they were in bullet format versus full sentences.
• In another places, you can condense your sentences.  For example, you say “Giveaways are open for 7 days starting on Sunday or Wednesday and ending on the following Saturday or Tuesday, respectively, at midnight EST.” Instead, how about: “Giveaways run for 7 days and start on Sundays and Wednesdays.” I don’t really think you need to explain they end at midnight EST at this point. It’s not something that would make or break someone’s decision to advertise with you.
• Once you edit your content based on the suggestions above, you’ll see your content shrink a bit. The one part I think you could mostly eliminate is the third paragraph under Sponsored Videos. Remember that you don’t want to put everything out there in the public because the advertiser might say “no” in their head before they even contact you. If you provide some of these details only once you’re contacted, you now have a contact person. PR companies work with many brands and if you aren’t a great fit for one campaign, you might be for another. The only part I’d keep is the $25 min value and they must ship to the winner. But move that to the Giveaways section.
• Speaking of moving that to the Giveaways section, I noticed that your second two paragraphs under Video Sponsorship talk about giveaways. After you edit based on what I said above, move that information to the Giveaway section where it seems to belong.
• While you want this page to be professional, try to avoid fluffy words when you can. Ex. Singular advertisement= single ad. Simple is better!
• One thing I noticed in reading over your page is that how you capitalize names of sites is inconsistent. For example, you often write “google” instead of “Google” and you have Facebook and Twitter written in lowercase in spots as well. You even wrote your blog name in lowercase at one point. Remember that companies looking to work with you are PR or marketing people (like me!) and they notice these types of things right away. To make your blog look more professional, take the time to write proper names correctly. It’s an easy fix that will immediately polish your page.
• While you share a lot of detail on your page, you don’t really tell people how to find out your rates except for one section. Of course, someone can assume that they can contact you for that info, but for your main calls to action, it’s always best to actually spell it out: “for rates and availability, please contact…”
• Speaking of contacting you, I like that you put your contact email at the top of your page. However, I don’t see a final call to action at the bottom of your page. You DO have one in the Advertising section so perhaps move that to the end.

Let me know your thoughts on the critique in the comments below. If you have an extra moment, head over to Four Hats and Frugal and give Amiyrah some comment love.