Blog Page Critique: She She Shoppers

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: She She Shoppers

Bloggers: Rowena and Jena

Page: About  

She She Shoppers is a fashion and lifestyle blog based in Chicago. It was co-founded by Rowena and Jena, two moms who are out to help other women stay stylish, savvy and sane while juggling their responsibilities.

The page’s mission is to grow the brand, grab the media’s attention, and expand sponsorship and advertising opportunities.

Rowena and Jena are open to all types of suggestions including layout, color, font, copy, etc… They are excited to get feedback and make recommended enhancements!

Visual:

• I like the bold color in the background and header on your site. And it’s great that you used a similar color for the hyperlinks to make them stand out. But if you’re looking at this page as I show in the screenshot above, one of the first things I notice is the large square of white space between your About title and your social media buttons. In design, this is called “trapped white space.” The best way to get rid of this is to remove the Pin It button from your pages and just keep them on the blog posts.
• Even though there’s no image in the main column before you have to scroll down, you do have a picture of you two in the sidebar. That’s good! While you wouldn’t necessarily want to add another one picture of you guys here, what about an image of Chicago to reinforce your Chicago connection? Even better would be a Chicago image that screams fashion or the Chicago lifestyle.
• I like how the sections for your bios have bright pink headings and a headshot. I’d see if you could change the main title of your page to also be pink. That would help balance the page so all the design elements and color aren’t near the bottom.

Navigation:

• With an About page, there are only so many places you can link to and your location in the navigation menu is spot on. I’d link to this page from your About blurb in your sidebar too!
• While it’s great that you have hyperlinks on your page, they all lead away from your blog. Add some that link to popular posts, posts on fashion or other things potential advertisers might like to see. It could be as simple as linking to a style category when you use the word “stylish” in the first paragraph.
• One link that’s a bit confusing is Rowena’s freelance writing link. It opens up a new message for me to email you. However, as someone who might be interested in your writing services, I would expect it to go to a page or site where I can see samples of your work. Be careful not to miss a step. You’re going from potential interest straight to assuming they’ll contact you. You need to connect the dots and convince them you’re worth contacting. Create a page that highlights your experience, what type of freelance writing you do and samples of your work. THEN you’ll be more likely to have people willing to fill out that email once they see how awesome you are.

Content:

• Starting at the top, the word “about” looks so lonely! Besides my suggestion about color, why not have it say “about” at all? Your navigation menu should stay “about” but you can change your post title to be more reflective of the She She Shoppers brand. Maybe something like “Fashionistas from the heart of Chicago.” You get the idea!
• Scrap the word “hello.” It takes up space and sounds a bit generic. You want to keep people interested right from the bat so get straight to the meaty part of your content.
• I might stay away from saying you started in April 2011. That’s less than two years and advertisers might shy away thinking you’re inexperienced (even if you’re not). Waiting until you hit the two year mark may make your site seem more established and credible.
• I like how you start off with a description about the two of you together. But before you get to your bios, add something about what your blog has to offer. You’re speaking to new visitors in that you’re telling them why they should stick around. And you’re indirectly speaking to potential advertisers by showing them what you offer your audience.
• Okay, don’t hate me for being picky (it’s the editor in me), but I notice that after some sentences you use a double space and in others you use a single. Consistency is important in creating a professional-looking site and little things like this help. While I may shock some people by saying this, ALWAYS go with single spaces. Double spacing is a hold out from the typewriter days when text was monospaced, meaning that an “i” took up the same amount of space as an “o.” The double space was added to ensure people knew where the sentence broke. Today’s fonts don’t have that problem (“io”- see?) so you don’t need to do it. Just look at any magazine and you’ll see! So back to this page (sorry ladies for the aside!), make sure every sentence is single-spaced and your page will immediately look cleaner.
• In your first paragraph, you mention “chi chi” but you have no reference to Chicago yet. I think saying the word Chicago somewhere before that will make it more clear that’s what you’re referring to.
• I like the bios- they are short but give good background. There’s a typo in Jena’s though (“I loves”).
• One thing that could improve your bios is to add a closing sentence in each one that ties you back to the site. “I love helping our readers ….” or “My ultimate goal with this blog is to …..”
• You mentioned a goal is to expand partnership and advertising opps but I don’t see any mention of it on this page (and there’s no Advertising page for that matter). I’d add a small section letting potential advertisers know that you offer ways to partner for advertising opportunities, sponsorship and more. Then direct them to a page where you have more details. Since you talk about Chicago, perhaps even offer a special rate for local businesses.
• For your email address, I’d simply hyperlink text to open an email (like you did for “freelance writing”).
• Consider finishing off the page with links or buttons to your social media profiles. By the time someone gets to the bottom of your blog, they can no longer see the ones in your sidebar. This helps direct readers as to where to go next too!

Let me know your thoughts on the critique in the comments below. If you have an extra moment, head over to She She Shoppers and give Rowena and Jena some comment love.