Ok, basic impressions here, and only one woman’s opinion and all that.
First, visuals. It’s not clean. I love the drawings, please don’t lose the drawings, but on the homepage the background image vs the recent posts is kinda giving me a sensory migraine. If you love it, keep it, but you may want to play around with other themes, and look for one that lets you have all of your images in a less one on top of the other way. And I don’t like the bleed through from your background image into your text box, but that’s personal opinion.
On your post pages there is no “home” button. This may seem silly. But you can just hit the back browser! You seem to ask. Not if I got to your post about Duck Genitals by googling, and then I fall so in love with it because the content is awesome that I want to bookmark your home page. How do I get to your home page? I’m too incredibly stupid to notice that the title is a home link! I can’t! Arrrrrrggggh!
You probably just haven’t gotten to this point yet, but you need to play with your widgets. (And my, doesn’t that sound naughty!) I’ve fallen madly in love with Duck Genitals, but I have no button to share to facebook, or tumblr, or any such place. Sure, I could open a facebook post, copy paste the link, blah blah blah, but I am like millions of internet users and I am supremely lazy! If there’s no clicky button, I will probably not share it.
Related to the clicky buttons is a Wordpress button that states “Press This.” I also have a Wordpress blog, one that still has increased users from being freshly pressed. I could so cross-press Duck Genitals and try to get you a few views, but there is no clicky button thingy!
This is also probably a paid blog thing and may not have a fix, but I hate that I can’t simply leave a reply because I’m logged in on Wordpress. Despite being in the community, I have to put in my email and blah! Not one click easy like lazy girl wants it!
There is also no “follow” button, other than email. Wordpress is a huge community. Many other WP users may wish to follow your blog. Now, I know that since my site is free, the follow feature automatically shows up. I don’t know diddly ‘bout the pay blogs, but I think another AW person found a way to add a “follow” clicky to his paid blog. You should look into it. It’s the best way to get repeat traffic.
Speaking of which, if you are looking for traffic, cross posting is cool and easy. When I post, it automatically posts to my facebook. I also set up a Tumblr account, and it ended up doubling my amount of early readers. I don’t twitter much due to lack of smart phone, but I hear that generates traffic as well.
That’s a whole lot of stuff. Let me end by sharing what I like. Love the content! Love the background image, just not where it is. Love the drawings, and the post style that lets you chose exactly where to put images and image size. And I love the name of the blog.
Wow. You ask for first impressions and I wrote a novel. Please feel free to ignore hyper woman with a bent for being over-helpful.
