Blog Review: About Blog Contests
gLF requested a Free Blog Review of the blog, About Blog Contests
So here it is…
What is About Blog Contests?
Oops, there is no About page to tell us about this site. The first order of business needs to be adding one to the site. Even if you want to remain anonymous a quick and simple blurb about the purpose of the site is a good idea. All we really can tell about the site is that it lists contests around the Net.
Site Design/Theme
About Blog Contests runs under Blogger and, as such, faces several limitations. However, the template used here is several notches above the standard Blogger templates. It’s an attractive, Web 2.0-ish, 3 column look with the content on the left and two right sidebars.
Navigation is quite good, dividing contests into open and closed and value categories.
As usual, I don’t like the way Blogger handles comments and I’ve stopped reviewing blogs that use the default Blogger comment system since Google’s most recent changes. However the review request for About Blog Contests was received before I made this policy change. They may want to consider using the Haloscan comment system if they want to improve user interaction. Of course, on a blog of this type it may not be necessary.
There is no obvious monetization although I suppose some of the contest posts could be paid. Would this blog monetize well? Perhaps. I could see it working well with various freebie, survey and contest entry affiliate offers that paid on a per lead basis. I’d suggest dumping the Media Grid Work free ad widget since 95% of the content it shows is spam.
Content
Content on a blog like this comes and goes as contests begin and end so it’s hard to nail down specific, outstanding, articles but I did find a one article of note. gLF is offering Free Advertising! to those who want to submit a 125×125 ad. I think all the spots are filled now but this is a great way to promote your blog with other bloggers. I’ll have to think about borrowing that idea.
The contest write-ups are short and to the point, just what you’re looking for in this kind of site.
If you’re wanting to see what current contests there are around the blogosphere you probably want to check their home page regularly. If you have a contest to promote you might want to pass this along to gLF via the Contact page.
Overall
About Blog Contests is well focused on a niche, blog contests. As expected, it suffers a bit from the inherit limitations of the Blogger platform. An About Page and perhaps an outside commenting system would be my recommended improvements.
Get Your Site Reviewed
If you would like your site reviewed by me for free, just like gLF did, use my Free Blog Review page to request one.
Hi Frank,
It’s been months and months since I made the jump from blogger to wordpress. But, I have to say that this site has by far the most attractive blogger theme that I’ve seen yet.
I also saved this site to my del.icio.us in case I decide to run a contest in the future.
Hi Todd,
The theme is quite good. You usually don’t see them that good on Blogger.
Thank you so ever for your great review! My little thanks:
http://aboutblogcontest.blogspot.com/2007/12/free-blog-reviews.html
Media Grid removed, I was testing it, but it seems to be something useless (3600 diplays and only 3 clicks…)
Searching for a way to insert About page and to manage comments…
Thanks again and see you soon!
Thanks for the mention on your site.
I hope you find a way to get an About page in there. I’m not sure how other Blogger users have done it but I’ve seen them around.
Indeed, very nice theme! but isn’t the side bar too wide?
Hi Y.S.
The sidebar would be right on the edge of a 1024×768 screen width and it does horizontally scroll correctly in both Firefox and IE7. Since most users these days have at least this resolution this usually isn’t a problem from a usability standpoint although it can impact monetization.