Website Critique - Next level?

[Sandstone]

I have been responding to website critique posts and am now hoping that others will return the favor.

What do you think when you visit my blog? Psychic Awareness

Is it visually appealing?

Does it hold your interest?

What needs to be added/deleted/changed?

What do I need to do in order to take it to the next level?

Thank you so much for your time.

[Economica]

I find the site visually appealing enough to give the content a chance.

The tagline, ' Practical psychic advice from an ex-atheist' makes me feel that I am in your target audience as I am an atheist and a fan of (famous debunker of psychic phenomena) James Randi. To be honest you have the briefest possible window of opportunity to convince me that it's worth spending any time on your site as I am that skeptical of psychic phenomena, so one thing I immediately look for and fail to find is further confirmation that the site indeed has me in mind. Given your tagline, I expect to find a story of how you used to be a skeptic like me and what made you change your mind, but I don't see that anywhere on the landing page. Without that bridge to your content, I am turned off.

That said, I'm not sure I would advise strongly pushing that angle. I expect it is a herculean, if not sisyphean, task to try to convert skeptics through anecdotal evidence, so unless you believe I would be able to do something to see for myself what you have experienced that convinced you, I don't foresee success in taking the site that way.

So the tagline misleads me - but perhaps it works well for others who don't expect what I expect from it. Just sharing my impression of your site.

What I also see is inspiration for how to monetize a site by prominently featuring Amazon links to recommended reading which is exactly what I'm considering for my site! May I ask how that is working out for you so far? (Sold anything yet?)

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Edit: Minor visual points: I find the yellow color a bit too pale for my reading ease, especially at the end of each post where the font size is small. Also, the heading font size in your right and left column (e.g. FOLLOWERS) is a bit too small for me. Very minor points! Good job on the visuals.

[Sandstone]

Economica,

Thank you so much for the wonderful feedback. I understand what you are saying about not having anything to really grab the skeptical person.

Yep - I dislike the yellow color as well. I will go in there today and change it.

Thanks again for your well-thought out review. It really, really helps!

Sandstone

[Economica]

You're welcome!

(Did you see my question about how Amazon monetization is working out for you?)

[Sandstone]

I have had some clicks but no purchases. That doesn't surprise me as I have not been in the building traffic phase yet. Instead I have been focusing on design and content. I would encourage you to give it a try.

[Annie Zero]

I may be repeating what the above poster said (because I didn't read it), but here's what I think about the layout:
- it produces a horizontal scrollbar and that's always a turn-off for me. A very considerable amount of people still don't have super-wide screens, it's smart to keep your content under 1000px in width.
- the yellow is too bright. The light gray links (for example here) are a bit too light to be read comfortably.
Everything else looks great, though maybe the styling of the Daily Wisdom quote should be reconsidered.

In the sidebar you may want to move the Followers box a little lower and bring higher something else that's more important, maybe an About box or the Popular posts list.

(I currently don't have anything to say about the content, sorry. I have a certain opinion about spirit guides and your post about them goes largely against it, lemme know if you want to hear my opinion.)

[Sandstone]

Hi Annie Zero,

Thank you for your feedback. I fixed the daily wisdom text. The yellow links will be fixed tomorrow. I will rearrange the sidebar too.

I would love to hear your take on spirit guides.

Thanks again for your feedback!

Sandstone

[awaqas1]

I think you should try a background color that is not so dark, and may be even take out the yellow border. I think it will direct more focus to your content. Personally I think the background it too dark and too distracting.

Also I think the simpler the design the easier it is to pay attention to content. for example if you go to gmail homepage you can see their current design and then on the bottom of the page there is a link to preview their new page see the difference it just more simpler and cleaner. Other then that it looks good I really like the blue headings with yellow color very simple and clean.

Best wishes

[Sandstone]

Thanks for the feedback, awaqas1