There is much information on various Web sites devoted to SEO, WordPress or blogging in general. Many simply display the same information that is provided on other sites, while others provide the information in a badly designed Web site.
This week I look at Matts Nutts which is focused on SEO, WordPress and blogging. The blog provides original posts with a nice clean design that will help others succeed in the world of blogging.
Design 
When I first looked at Matts Nutts I was immediately impressed with the look of the blog. I found it very easy on the eyes with a nice selection of colours. All colours on the blog seem to fit together nicely with none of the colours feeling out of place. I thought even the search bar with an completely different colour than the rest of the blog was a nice touch. It made the search bar stand out with is a nice plus if you would like to find specific information.
I like the fact that the header wasn’t too big and allowed at least one full post to appear above the fold. Many web sites have such a large header that a visitor would need to scroll down to find any of the content. The author has created a good size header to prevent any scrolling for content.
I like how the author shows only a few paragraphs of each post on the main page and then a link to the full post. This allowed me to quickly scan through the posts and click on any that I was interested in reading.
There really wasn’t any downsides to the design of the blog. I didn’t, however, like how the “Categories” section in the navigation bar was to the far right, and on my display, below the fold. I always like the categories to be more accessible as I can then easily view posts for a particular category.
One other issue I found with the design was on the “Contact Us” page. I found the headings in the form to be a little hard to read. The text is too small and light for the background colour. Besides these two design issues, the design of the entire blog was really well done.
Focus
The focus of the blog is mainly on SEO, WordPress and blogging in general. When reading the posts you can easily determine the main focus of the blog.
I noticed that WordPress is covered in more detail than the other two focus points of the blog. The author definitely has much experience with using WordPress and provides great information on using it to create better blogs.
As for SEO, there are several posts relating to this topic, albeit, not as many as WordPress. The author provides some useful tips to optimizing your blog for search engines, especially if you use WordPress.
As for blogging in general, the author provides information on how to mnage blogs and tools that you can use. Many of his WordPress posts can also be used for other blogging engines, so don’t shy away from the blog just because you don’t use WordPress.
The focus of Matts Nutts is well defined and narrowed down to specific topics. Simply reading the blog without knowing the main focus will allow you to determine the focus yourself.
Content 
The content of Matts Nutts is well focussed. The posts are detailed and provide information on the various tools and tips on creating and maintaing a blog. Although blogging in general is discussed at times, the main target audience are those bloggers that use WordPress.
The author publishes posts to the blog on a regular basis, which is a good indication of how much time and effort the author puts into the blog. Subscibers to the blog will be rewarded with at least 3 posts a week.
Unfortunately, at times the spelling and grammar mistakes can take away from the readability of the posts. If there were less mistakes, then the content would be top notch. These mistakes are discussed in the next section.
Spelling and Grammar 
The one downside to this blog is the spelling and grammar. There are various grammar mistakes that may cause visitors to re-read a sentence a second time to understand the point the author is trying to make.
Many of the spelling mistakes are simple mistakes such as forgetting punctuation or the space between words. A simple text editor that includes a spell checker can easily identify the spelling mistakes within the posts. Most of the mistakes, however, don’t make the posts unreadable as they are usually just simple ones that you can easily identify the word the author intended to use.
The one mistake that appears throughout the blog is that of not capitalizing names. There are several posts that list the names of companies or products and the names are all in lower case. Once again, however, a visitor can easily understand the name of the company or product since the spelling is correct.
Overall 
The look of Matts Nutts is very easy to read and navigate around. The colours are easy on the eyes and blend well together, with the exception of the some of the headings on the “Contact Us” page.
The posts in the blog are detailed and provide much information with regards to blogging. The blog indicates that it discusses SEO, however, there aren’t too many posts dedicated to the section, at least not yet.
The one downside to this blog is the spelling and grammar mistakes. Many of the spelling mistakes are simple and can easily be correct with a spellchecker in a text editor. Some of the grammar mistakes could cause visitors to re-read the same sentence over again to understand the point of the author.
Overall, the blog is well designed and very informative, and could help many soon-to-be bloggers understand the world of blogging.
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