As with tradition of the JeanCosta.com blog, Thursday’s is Review Thursdays. If you want me to review your website, then read the post on how you can get a free constructive website review.
Website Review of: http://www.fitnesslifeclub.com
What’s the purpose of this website?
The purpose for this website is to deliver knowledge about health and fitness. The website also tries to provide its readers, the possibility to achieve the ultimate health.
Who is the owner of the website?
The man behind the website, is Pat King, who is a nationally renowned health and fitness Guru. Pat King has a over 12 year history working in the health and fitness industry, and enjoys spreading the message of the importance of living a healthy lifestyle.
Pat King has an amazing story, and its worthwhile reading about Pat King.
Website Content
The content is decent, and there are some decent articles, but I think Pat King can do better. I will explain more about this later.
One thing I noticed though, that some posts are clean, text wise. And some posts are heavily italicized. Here is an example of what I am referring to, on a recent post, Are You Too Old To Benefit From The Gym. As you can see the entire post is italicized. Its not very reader friendly.
Menu Bar Navigation
The Menu Bar Navigation looks good, clean and easy to navigate around. One thing on the menu bar that is missing, is an About Page link. There is one on the left hand side navigation, but it should really be on the menu bar.
Another thing I feel the Menu Bar Navigation is missing is an archive page. Similar to the one I have here on my blog. By having an archive page. I as a new reader to the website, can quickly associate with the blog. I think it is very important that every blog have an About Page, and also an Archive page. These two pages allow readers to identify closer with the blog. And lets them decide, “ok do I want to continue reading this blog? Do I want to subscribe?” I think you get my drift…..
Side Bar Navigation
There could be some big improvements made on the side navigation.
First of all, its great that Pat King has alot of different categories, it means he has alot to talk about on different subjects within his niche, but at the same time, the way the navigation is setup, is bad for the readers. Think of this simple concept, the more on a list, the harder it is to find what I am looking for.
Here are some solutions that I would suggest to Pat.
Break it down, and divide each category into its own division. Think of it like doing a skeleton outline
A. Main Topic
Category
Category
Category
B. Main Topic
Category
Category
Category
Another Solution, which I think would be the better solution is to just redo the whole side navigation system all together. Perhaps go with either a 3 column setup, or expand the current navigation system, and have it setup similar to mine. So it sub-divides everything, and users can quickly identify what they are looking at. If you do redo the whole side navigation system, be sure to think about the future. Where do you foresee your blog going in the future? Be sure to make it so that your new navigation side is expandable for the future. Off course that is if you decide to go ahead and change the navigation system layout.
At this point of your website stage, don’t go and delete your files, just to make the changes and organize the categories. Deleting and rearranging the article’s categories structure would be bad as far as the search engines is concerned. Just simply try and clean up the way that the links are presented.
RSS Subscription
It’s good to see that Pat King is offering a way for readers to subscribe to an RSS reader. Kudos to him for that. But I would improve on the way the subscribers box is appearing. Make it stand out, cleanly off course. So that people who don’t know what RSS is, can also associate with it, and realize that by putting their email address they are subscribing to the blog.
Web Statistics
I took a look at the source code of the website, and did not notice any stats monitoring. Unless where the website is hosted at handles this, I would recommend to pat using Google Analytics. It’s a great tracking tool to monitor website stats, that provides alot of information that is very handy for webmasters.
Final Comments
Heres where I will discus what I was eluding to in the content area.
I see alot of future potential for Pat King to establish himself as a credible go to guy for health and fitness advice. The fact is he already has the credentials for it, but he needs to relay that to his users.
Heres what I am suggesting to Pat, for him to get more personal with his blog. I see that Pat already has a youtube account, and has posted a few videos. I really think Pat needs to embrace his youtube videos more and use that as a leverage for his website. Pat already has the credibility that he is a health guru. So he needs to capitalize on that big time, and brand himself.
First of all, Pat needs to brand his videos that he has on youtube, he needs to water mark them with his url address. Thats very important to do. If pat can make quality videos on youtube, and create a popular youtube channel, than he will surely be on the path to success.
Youtube and the posting of videos can be very time consuming. But if its executed properly, and you create videos that people want to watch, then the hard work will pay off. Can you imagine the effects of a video that has 100,000 views in one month?
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Jean - Thank you so much for such a detailed review. I know that I can only grow and become better by being open to the criticism of those whom have talents that I do not, and this is what will ultimately lead me to helping other on the level that I am seeking.
Your shared knowledge and wisdom is VERY much appreciated. Time to get to work on these items.
Pat
Great review, as someone who’s had some contact with Pat outside of this site (I won a contest held by him), Pat is an expert. Not something that is easy in any field, he just needs to get the word out betetr. A much easier hill to climb than if he’s not an expert and is simply good at marketing. People can see through that.
Awesome detail and I do agree on some points and maybe some minor CSS changes will do the body good