The Exchange - Critique My Blog

The Exchange - Critique My Blog


The Missal received a favorable review over at Critique My Blog, for which I'm appreciative.
Now I'm going to return the favor. Not simply because I can, or because Billy gave me a favorable review.
But because I think that such a review is deserved. And those of you who know me also know that I would in no way give anyone a favorable endorsement unless I truly believed they had earned and deserved it.

I have been visiting Critique My Blog at least every other day since I saw it profiled on the Bestest Blog. Not simply to see what Billy might say in reviewing this site but also because I have found his blog to be an excellent resource in more than one way. First of all I think that Billy's idea of doing short critiques is an excellent marketing and promotional tool, especially for those sites, like this one, that are new to blogging and could use every means at their disposal for promotion and communication with both new and established readers. So as a promotional tool the idea is an excellent one and the method by which it is undertaken is solid in execution.

Secondly I think the reviews posted are mostly very fair and insightful. The reviews posted are short, and not in-depth reviews, but that is to be expected and I'm sure that Billy has far too large a workload reviewing every blogger that wishes their site to be reviewed to post in-depth reviews of every single blog. Yet the reviews are nevertheless very useful and Billy manages to distill the important aspects of most people's blogs into a few short but descriptive and utilitarian sentences which give a practical synopsis of blog content and presentation.

Third, the site is an excellent tool for the discovery of new blog sites. I have through use of the site discovered several interesting and useful blogs which I have transferred to my own Links to Other Blogs page in the sidebar of all of my cross-linked sites. In addition I have added the link to Critique My Blog to my other links as well, into my favorites folder in Internet Explorer, and will be adding the email syndication. However my one criticism of Billy's site is that I saw no link provided for RSS syndication (I may have missed it but I did not see one). If one were available then I would add the address to my personal RSS Reader. In that way I could use my RSS Reader to easily scan for new sites of interest even if I didn't have time to visit every day. In many ways I consider Critique My Blog to be every bit as useful as a discovery and research resource as the Bestest Blog. So Billy, if you don't have RSS or Atom I hope you will get it in the future.

And last but not least I think that Critique My Blog does an excellent job of driving traffic and readers in both directions simultaneously. That is his reviews drive traffic to your site and if your site is cross-linked to other interesting sites then that same traffic will be driven farther forward and a'field, as well as back in the direction of Billy's site in order for the reader to discover similar finds. The idea behind Billy's site is deceptively simple and yet functional, useful, extremely efficient, and beneficial to both reader and blogger alike. My recommendation is to take advantage of this resource, as both a reader and a blogger. You won't be disappointed.

Jack

Critique My Blog link: http://critiquemyblog.blogspot.com/