Please Review my Travel Blog stingytraveller.com

[jeracoo]

Hi my names Matt and I've just started a travel blog and I was wondering if anyone here can have a look at it and tell me how to improve it. I'm using word-press so I've been finding it a bit hard to get everything the way I like it but I'm getting there.

I know I need to fix up my ads, I just haven't had the time, it's exam time at the moment. I'm also learning about SEO, though I think it will be a while before I can get this right.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers from lovely Brisvegas, Australia

[antihero13]

First off, I want to say I'm very jealous of you for being able to go to all of these neat places and see such great things in your lifetime! Hopefully I'll be in a position where I could travel more pretty soon. With that being said, here are a few suggestions for your blog:

-I'm sure you're aware of this and/or this is what you referred to in your initial post but the ads on the right side of the home page are too wide, creating a narrow column for the posts on the left. Move those ads to either the top or bottom of the page and try to get more vertical ads for that right column, if you're going to have any there.
-Related, but consider having the posts wrap/flow around that "Where I've Been" box, essentially putting everything in one column. Either that or consider (a) moving that box somewhere else or (b) making it smaller.
-By my count there are 14 posts on your homepage. For a blog like yours with that sort of content that's too many for one page. I'd do maybe 6-10 per page.
-What distinguishes the "Home" and "Travel Blog" sections? Your blog is the website and vice versa. Those two pages are pretty much the same to me, so I'd get rid of the "Travel Blog" page on the menu.
-Have you taken very many pictures of the places you've been? If so, I suggest you make a section where you post pictures of interesting things you've seen throughout your travels.
-In my opinion, topics like "Hiking Tips" and "Must Have Travel Items" transcend just a normal blog post where it would get buried under newer posts. Topics like those deserve their own sections because they're general advice.
-For all pages fix the spacing between paragraphs. Some of the paragraphs are quadruple spaced. Try double spacing between all paragraphs.

Overall, good work. Just make those little changes and you should be set. Happy traveling.

[jeracoo]

Thanks for that, I've fixed up my ads now removed the travel blog section and am considering creating pages for my travel tips.
I can't work out how to get rid of the quad spacing or change my fonts, I've tried editing the style.css but it doesn't seem to do anything, oh well I'll just keep trying.

Thanks for the great tips antihero13

[jeracoo]

Where'd that awesome review go? I could have sworn I saw one that talked about my slider and not using stock images.

[ShivJaiswaL]

It looks good with simple white layout. Slideshow is good.
i would like to add some SEO factors :

Found no Author meta tag.
This tag contains too many characters.
Description relevancy to page content is terrible.
Found no Robots meta tag.
Found no Keywords meta tag.

[aditd]

I like the template. Also the information ( articles that I looked on ) are very well written. And I like the fact that you introduced a map for articles.
Nice job.

[eggo]

I like the site a lot. It's very clean and looks nice and professionally done. My only suggestion would be to make the logo a bit smaller and shrink the banner that is right below the black bar that spans across the top of the screen. It's not that I don't like the logo, I just don't think that it should take up a lot of space. Great work and keep it up!