18. Unique, fresh and useful posts.
Writing unique, fresh and useful posts also play an important part in the success of any blog. Internet is full of information and data. But people like the news and information sources which are able to give them some fresh and useful stuff and above all correct data. You can say it all about making a good repetition as a reliable source of knowledge.

19. Registering blog in search engines.
It’s a good idea to register your blog along with your site URL and site description in very meaning full way.

20. Tell your friends, colleagues and family members about your blog.
Inform you friends, colleagues and family members about your blog. But try to getter thing in your blog which keep them intact as well. Your social circle also helps you in getting real visitors for your blog.

I would suggest moving to self hosting and wordpress is not the worst platform to use. If you are going to build a name and reputation then it should be something you can own long term.

Color – you definitely need color but I wouldn’t go overboard. You could look at changing your sidebars so that one sidebar is for ‘her’ and the other for ‘him’ – could be quite novel. The page at present is a bit long. I would look to trim the older post using a ‘read more’ option if its available. In fact I would trim those older posts back to the opening quote encouraging the reader to go in and read. I would also look to add in the occasional photo, cartoon or graphic with a bit of color.

To market the blog, It depends on time. If you have time then EntreCard may be a good start. BlogCatlog and perhaps MyBlogLog could also be good options. The blog lends itself more to building a following than paid advertising so promoting subscriptions would be a must. I would also encourage more reader involvement perhaps through Q&A type posts.

Monetizing – this is always going to be the hardest as what works on one site does necessarily work on another. You could see if you could join the Rubicon Project. They display ads from six different sources and pay on a per click and per impression basis – the more traffic the better payout. Their ads are also changing all the time. At present you have a lot of empty white space in the sidebars below the fold so their ads may suit. Amazon ads would fit in well with the theme. Affiliate advertising is always hit and miss but as you have so much white space being selective and placing some of the better ones could be worth a try.

This made me laugh. Although, I have to say that she’d have to be pretty damn hot for this to work, because as soon as read her “advice” they’d consider her to be an haggish harpie.

As for him, all I can say is “grow a pair”, homeboy, you’ve been emasculated.

In short, this site trades in stereotype and sexism. Men are animals (donkeys) and women are training them.

Might appeal to those sorts of people who regularly shop at Wal-Mart, but otherwise…

‘Nuff said.

I have a huge list to work on but I am excited.

Thank you all for your good advice.

Here are items that I dont think the others have posted:

1. Submit your posts to the Carnival of Family Life. This carnival is for people within our niche (marriage, parenting). It has helped to increase my Alexa rank.

2. Once you move to a wordpress blog, you could install a popular posts plugin that will list your most popular posts on the sidebar.

3. As someone else mentioned, related posts are great as well. This also requires wordpress and a plugin.

4. You might want to consider submitting some posts to Babblz.com. Its a social bookmarking site for parenting/marriage bloggers.

5. Maybe add some more color

On the design, get your self a hosted account and install wordpress. I really hate that Blogger look, it looks cheap. I personally think the two half column look like on http://dreamteamtalk.com, would really work well for these guys.

On increasing readership, get involved on other blogs. Consider a video blog on Youtube or a podcast as well. You should have a good rapore and if you do can come off really well on a podcast. Also get a well read blog to link to you, you know like Problogger.net (damm you beat me too it).

Being couples, there should be some good affiliate marketing that can be done. Adsense should work.

Hope this helps.
Molly

14. Add a discussion forum.

I mentioned earlier that his blog will be a community blog. This blog will be for married people, including ever loving moms and hard working dads. It’s a good idea for keeping a forum as well. And invite your reader for sharing their topic of interest. In this way your reader will emotionally involved with all the new happenings of your blog.

15. Make your site visitors your trust worthy friends.

We have many types of friends. Some friends of us are fair weather and some are very trust worthy. Make yourself worthy of trust and come closer with your trust worthy visitors. Contact them through various means and try to win their sympathy.

The visitors are a lifeline of a blog. You are writing for your readers, not for yourself. You have the Emails addresses of your blogs commentators. Use there Emails for make connection with them. For example, send them e-Cards on various special occasions.

CAUSION! Don’t try to use thees Emails for advertisement spamming.

16. Take some initiatives by user self. Be Proactive.

Don’t waste your time while waiting for others to approach your blog. Try to approach them by yourself.

Participate in discussions going on in various communities. Blog networks, discussion forums and individual blogs of your topic of concern.

Interact with your targeted audience or readers. They will interact with you in return.

17. Add Book marking option.

Although subscription based options like RSS feeds & feed burner is also a good way for keeping visitors with your blog. But new visitors option not like a particular blog subscription so early. First they test blog for its relevancy, consistency, importance and most importantly genuineness. By adding book marking option, you can help new visitors in easy remembrance of your blog. In this way your blogs new visitors will become your permanent visitors.

I am still working on other option. So I will also add some other points shortly.

First sight
First thing I noticed was the Navigation Bar from Blogger. From my experience it is a useless thing. Removing it won’t do any harm. It also take away the professional look of the blog making people hit the back button.

At the first sign, I thought it was a place for donkeys and wives which I am not. Advices for wives are Ok, but for donkeys.. that is not wise.

Template
Template is not so good, let the sidebar have a different background. Header should have a good separated from the content. One bigger sidebar is better than two small sidebars. If the sidebars are there, then decrease the width of content and increase width of sidebars.

Platform
I don’t think you selected Blogger platform because of the scarcity of money. Switch to WordPress as fast as possible. If you choose Blogger because of some fact, you are really mistaken.

Content
The post headers are not so descriptive. Let them describe posts. Giving good advices is the best point. The blog really cover good advices for husbands.

Conclusion
The bloggers have good potential of writing, they should try guest blogging. Having good posts, the blog can grow big with positive changes in template, platform and everything esle.

I am happy that I can give this much advice as a 14 year old blogger. ;-)

The premise of your blog is engaging and interactive: promote it on the front page.

That said, here’s 3 thoughts on your design.

Keep the poll

Unlike many of the other people leaving comments, I quite like the poll for two key reasons:

1. It encourages your readers and visitors to interact with the site, which leads to a greater sense of community and reader loyalty.

2. If you’re getting a lot of votes, the poll becomes a form of social proof.

Keep the content’s line height consistent

This was the first negative thing to really leap out at me. Your current post (Christmas Shamboozled) has nice, easy-to-read spacing. But the next post falls apart once you introduce the list… what happened to the beautiful spacing?

My first inclination when I see a slab of text like that is to skip over it. Keep a consistent line height, and allow enough space.

2-Column

I agree with those who have suggested that a 2-column design would work better, since it will give greater emphasis to your content. That said, shifting to a 2-column design will involve some hard choices: what are you willing to ditch from your sidebar?

To answer that question, figure out what your goal is. Are you trying to encourage user engagement? Then keep the poll. Are you trying to market yourself as a resource of advice? Then include links to all your categories. Are you trying to offer your services as advice givers? Then feature that in a prominent place.

Moving the ads to the left column should increase the click through rate. Marriage advice books, Godiva chocolates and maybe romantic travel (cruises), might work well on this site for making money.

Lastly, use some more color, the white and black looks really bland.

1. Get Visitors from their already running Blogs.
It’s important to get loyal visitors from their already functional blogs. Husband’s previous blog has referrals or links to direct visitors to their newly emerging celebrative blog. But I see no referrals in the wife’s previous blog. So should add referral as well. In this way her blog also help in getting traffic.

2. Manage The Categories.
Internet users are more time savy. Average reader stays 96 second on a blog. Managing the work and more importantly categorizing it can help the reader in finding its favorite topic of concern. So this blog seems to be have a handsome amount of general articles, How Tos , Advices and debates. They should be in categories.

3. Change Blog Platform.
Their blog is running on Blogger platform. Blogger is good platform for Blogger. But this couple is really in a mode to come to spot light. So they should think about professional looking, eye soothing, highly reader friendly and Interactive Blog.
Blogger give free hosting but Blogger is not the plate form really personalized blogs. Wordprss give Blogger full control on

1. Making and editing Categories.
2. Variety of professionally looking temples.
3. Wordpress community own best pluggins on the planet earth.
4. In Wrodpress Tracking is easy.
5. Naming of file is more sophisticated.
6. As a whole we see most flexibly in wordpress platform. That’s why we see best blogs including Problogger working on wordpress.

4. Add a pluggin for Related Posts.

5. Add pluggin called (Evermore)
We all know that post containing How Tos, advices and debates are commonly lengthy. Current simulation of their blog is not helping the visitors to focus their topic of interest. By using this pluggin, they can make blog’s Home page clutter free and give space to their 10 to 12 resent posts right on the Home page.
This plugin is found here.

6. Make more room for others experiences.
This is neither a news blog nor a technology blog. It’s a family blog. So treating the visitors as family members will help them keep their loyal visitors. We see stumble upon of strategies are now failing for such type of community blogs. So make your blog more interactive.

7. Invite Guest couples.
Each family has some successful stories about variety of situations. These situations may be regarding emotional, social and financial. So try to find the members of their blog spares and invite then to contribute their success stories. How they altered the breakup, how they solved mysteries of their rebellious kids etc.

8. You have a Green thumb of marriage. Write ever green posts.
For make husband and wife relation ever green, try to write ever green post on having green thumb of marriage. :) try to write timeless post. These timeless posts will help them in making good ranking in search engines and will remain profitable for a long period of time.

9. Be Open. Become Social.
I am not seeing any link or blogroll there. This blog is as a whole belonging to a social topic. So it should be look like social in all ways. Add links of useful links correspond to the topic of your blog.

10. Don’t participate in promotional advertisement right now.
It is not a right time for these things. It’s a time for making and keeping good repute. These affiliate programs may harm your repute even without your knowledge.
(Google adsense related programs are not dangerous.)

11. Try to know the desires of Readers.
Try to know what readers want from your blog. What are their burning desires? You can know this thing simply by inviting them to comment on your post. And by holding poll on various houses hold topics & various happenings regarding your topic of blog.

12. Add Heath related Entries as well.
As many readers of your blog will be mothers. So try to add health related issues common in mothers and their toddlers. In this way your blog will be because a source of mothers and children health recourse as well.

13. Keep an eye on always on competition.
Keep a closer look on the compotators: the family bloggers. Try to offer more than what they are giving right now. Try to find their short coming and improve your blog.

great site would never have found it if it were not for this blog!

Increasing Readership:

Who is the audience?

Looking at the site, my guess would be that it is written to the friends/family of donkey and wife. If that is the case, not much needs to change. If they want a broader reach perhaps consider audience and always write to them.

Perhaps look at Skellie’s article on getting new readers and the importance of audience at Adesblog

Create stronger and more meaningful headlines.

Currently I see:

- Christmas Shamboozled
- Lesson 15: You Talking To Me?
- He Said She Said: Can a Household Necessity be Giv…
- Giveaway
- My Call
- Subtle Reminders
- He Said She Said: Who is Responsible for Finding a…
- Photogenic

For anyone who is not a regular reader, these titles mean very little.

Although Skellie and Darren may spruce up the site now, the owners need to be able to continue writing great headlines.

My first stop would be: Copyblogger, specifically How to create magnetic headlines

Create meaningful categories

At the moment all I can find is: Giveaway, worth the advice, branded – none of which mean anything to me as a new visitor.

Design:

Colour

Include more colour/shades.

Give the page a darker/contrasting background

As the links are in blue, differentiate pages (About, FAQ’s etc.) with another color

Use colour lovers for inspiration

Current Logo:

Great idea – shocking implementation

Get a professional logo; it doesn’t have to cost a lot. Logo Samurai gives you an original logo design for $37. You enter details, three days later you get a logo. One place of many online.

Or check out what’s available on flickr with CC (over 9,500 images today)

Navigation:

When I visit a permalink, let me hit backspace and go back a page; don’t make me have to hit “home” each time. :)

What I definately don’t like is the pool – reason is rather obvious. At the moment it is visualy the most important thing on the whole site, and it shouldn’t be. It is also not at all cohesive with the rest of the design.

Another thing is the logo. As a corporate identity freak, putting together such simplified shape of a donkey and photo of the flower strikes me as insanely ugly and wrong.

Hope it helps – if you want my full design review, please submit adress on my blog or contact me directly :)

Agreed with Rhys on focusing on answering reader questions — make up reader questions if you have to. It’s a great way to build community. I recommend going through answers.yahoo.com to find ideas for real questions people wonder about.

i would like to see an “easy to digest area”, maybe as a monthly video-post. it has a great theme, so videos could be easily both entertaining and useful.

2. How could the design be improved?

more contrast in colour headings. and images to capture reader’s eyes!

3. What monetization strategies would work best at Wife Advice?

have you ever considered making your own products? t-shirts? mugs? e-books?

-Naked pictures of your wife
-Larger RSS button

2.Design Improvements

-Naked pictures of your wife
-Switch to WordPress

3. Monetization strategies

-Sell and ebook on how to effectively get your wife to lt you sell her naked xxx on the web.

Watch the subscribers flow in….

Easy :)