Invitation to critique my blog

[Jonathan Mead]

Hello, I'm relatively new to these forums. I've been an avid reader of stevepavlina.com for almost a year now though. Well, with a lot of soul-searching I've decided to start my own online business/blog. I'm still working on the design, but I've made the first couple of posts. My blog is going to be centered around Personal Development as it relates to philosophy, spirituality, goal achievement and intelligent self-mastery.

Please have a look, I know there's only a couple of posts, but I just would like to know what people think so far and get some ideas as to what I need to work on. Thanks for reading!

My Blog:
Jonathan Mead

[Gewyne]

Its hard to tell right now due to the lack of layout and articles. The article you have wrote was interesting but I would suggest getting around 5 pages up and running before asking for feedback so people can get a feel for your site and subject matter.

So far so good though.

[Jonathan Mead]

Thank you Gewyne! I'm definitely working on more content, I have a lot of great ideas for topics and will continue to keep writing. Thank you for reading.

[Peter S C]

Hi Jonathan,

Well done for taking the first steps and creating a blog. I have a few suggestions that I think would work really well for you:

• Create a unique header image
  
• Begin your articles with an eye-catching photo
  
• Include headings in your articles to make them easily scannable

Good luck!

Peter

[Jonathan Mead]

Thanks for the suggestions Peter. I plan on creating a header soon, I'm a graphic designer, so that helps. Using eye catching photos is a good idea as well. I think I'll sign-up for istock again.

What do you mean by headings in your articles, like bolding the text at the beginning?

[1000feet]

It looks interesting; I'll be keeping up with it.

I don't think you need headings yet, but for longer posts you could insert subtitles within the text to help people keep track of the structure.

[Jonathan Mead]

Thanks for your feedback, I'll be working on the design, about me and getting some new material up today. I'll keep you all posted! =)

[yogesh sarkar]

Apart from the suggestions Peter has given, I would suggest that you either setup a contact us/me form or put up your email address so people can contact you. This is especially important since you are blogging about personal development and few people might want to contact you personally, rather than post their comments in public.

Apart from this, you might want to add categories to the side bar from the beginning to give your blog a proper structure.

[Ralph]

Looks good Jonathan. You'll want to divide all your posts into categories later as you write many posts regarding wider variety of topics. Site will be much easier to be browsed The widget to the right seems to be just yelling "hey, fill me up dude!"

By the way, could you take a look at my website?
Thanks in advance.

[Jonathan Mead]

Thanks for the feedback Yogesh and Ralph. I'm doing some work on the design and will start adding category links on the right as well. I don't know how I forgot to add a contact link. Well I guess I do know, this is the first time I've attempted anything like this.

Thank you for taking the time to give me your thoughts. Ralph, I'll definitely check out your site and let you know what I think.