Getting Another Review From Co-Blogger

I am very lucky to have received two (2) reviews for this blog in a matter of one (1) week. I actually requested for such reviews so that I would know how my co-bloggers see Owning a Café and pinpoint what I am doing right as well as what’s wrong with it so I can make the necessary corrections. The first review was done by a fellow Filipino blogger and gave me the confidence that I am speaking alright to my target audience, the Internet café owners.

The second review of this blog was done by Dave Wiederrich, a Corporate Communications Manager and a serious blogger, and published in his Ultimate Blogging Toolkit for free and containing his honest, objective and helpful assessment of this blog. He is only doing the reviews as a side job on his regular blogs about blogging so I am indeed very lucky to get the review I requested. I understand from his recent post that the list of blogs for his free review is now growing and getting longer.

Firstly, I wish to thank Dave for his honest and objective review. His assessment of this blog is definitely a big help in my efforts to improve it for better appreciation of my readers. His mention of the similarity in our philosophy in doing our blogs is quite true. He is using his blog to share with fellow bloggers his continuing knowledge about blogging  while the same motivation exists in me in my effort to share my insights about the  Internet Cafe industry with cafe owners, more specifically to those in the Philippines.

I definitely agree with his observations about this blog and will decide to implement his suggestions in due time and as I see them to be in consonance with my purpose in blogging. Now, I would like to jot down my remarks on the comments contained in his review. Let it be understood that I am making the following remarks  NOT to justify the appropriateness of what I have in this blog but more about sharing what new bloggers can explore in their quests for more knowledge about blogging:

• Web Address – It is true that the URL of this blog (http://xicowner.jefmart.com) is not connected with its title, Owning a Café. My reviewer is correct that I could be missing an opportunity to promote the site. The “disconnected” title happened because I started this blog as “An Xicowner’s Blog” on free WordPress.com so when I decided to self-host it in our registered JEFMART.com domain, I erred in retaining the “xicowner” tag. Search engine optimization (SEO) tips from this page says that I should have used “owningacafe.jefmart.com or better if I registered separate “owningacafe.com”. As Dave mentioned and I agree with him that with a PageRank of 2, the site is doing very well for itself.  Exploiting some promotional opportunities with a descriptive URL may help that further.

• Blog Subjects – The review says that from Internet café business knowledge  to accounting and insurance to regulations and technical, Owning a Cafe already contains a wealth of information so topics about blogging in general, business opportunities for young mothers and information on products such as organic mosquito repellent are all quite important, but seem to take the focus away from the depth of “cafe” information that exists. I agree with my reviewer and I will delete some topics but not those about blogging because I specifically advise the café owners who are capable to blog to do so because they have the time and the resources to do it.

• Site Layout – The review found my site layout to be  clean without excessive number of widgets and gadgets that would cause distraction, as is too often the case in many blogs. However, it mentioned about some pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements which are there as part of my study about monetizing my blogs but could cause my losing some readers. In as much as my main objective for this blog is to share some information to my readers and earning small change is just secondary to me, it would be very easy for me to decide to delete those annoying advertisements.

Again, I wish to thank Dave Wiederrich for his free review of this site and I also want to advise my fellow bloggers to seek review of their sites from someone like him. For me, it is always nice to hear the strengths and weaknesses of a blog from objective people like Dave.