I have been asked to review The Rambling Thoughts Blog and offer constructive criticism to help improve it.

The blog is written by Australian Blogger Neerav Bhatt. His an interesting guy who has lived in a number of countries including the UK and New Zealand. He started blogging after having worked in the areas of outsourced web development/SEO/web standards for several years he decided to apply his skills to write blog articles at the Rambling Thoughts Blog and monetising them through a variety of sources.

Reading the Rambling Thoughts Blog I had a few thoughts in no particular order:

Template: I like the blog template. Its clean and easy to load. Its got links to key areas at the top an a right taskbar that contains key things including supporters, subscriptions , categories and several other fields. I would suggest though the following:

• Simplifying the ride sidebar recent articles is too far down to grab immediate attention of someone reading so if they are interested in the content they are already going to be scrolling down to see what is contained in the blog anyway. Recent comments could probably go anyway I have never been a fan of having them on a blog for the pure reason that they can appear out of context and convey something they arent meant to be.
• To use a newspaper term, its important to have something to grab the attention above the fold and I would suggest that either the banner ad at the top of the page or the blue box with details about the blogs and the author can be condensed as while regular readers are going to scroll past a casual visitor arriving at the page may be deterred. This isnt a problem if they are entering directly to a single post, just the main page.
• I like how the most recent articles on the front page are featured at their full length while the remainder displayed are only previewing the article with about three lines each. Its possible however there are too many articles there to be effective and perhaps a dial up user landing on the front page might find it a little slow to load with pictures and videos.

Content: There is a lot of content in the blog an d it covers a huge range of subjects that includes when Neerav ran as a candidate for election to TV and DVD reviews. It is an interesting range and it is well thought out with considered posts and supported in many cases by relevant pictures. It some ways it has the feel of a magazine and for a blog with a diverse range of subject matter, it is a good feel to have. The standard of the actual writing is good and free of spelling and grammatical errors. Much of the content is based on current events and is therefore a topical read at any time.

Advertising. The blog does have advertising which can be a turn off for some readers which includes banner ads at the top of every page and also between the post and the commenting field. There is also a few in post google adsense ads and also sponsored text links in the right side bar. As well within some posts there are also affiliate links that can be clicked to buy the item. The important thing to note is that the advertisements are not overdone and that they are not overly intrusive to the reader. I would suggest as I mentioned above rethinking the amount of the content showing above the fold but otherwise its fine and certainly not overboard

Target Audience: The blog is written in Australia and offers advice or discusses current events in Australia which may limit the potential audience. This however is balanced out by some of the content having broad appeal so I do not believe the target audience is seriously limited.

And finally, having had time to sit and read some of the articles on the Rambling Thoughts Blog I have realised one thing. I need to add it to my feed reader as I am going to be coming back to read more of the Rambling Thoughts Blog