Help me!
10-01-2011, 09:04 AM
#1
Spike
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2011
Posts: 2
Help me!
I'm in need of some feedback on one of my projects. I began working on a web page for me and my buddies to share our hunting stories with the world about a week ago. I am to the point that I need help I don't know what to do next. If you would take some time and look at my site I would greatly appreciate it. Let me know what your first impression was and what you think would make it more appealing. But if you’re not up for it I understand and would like to thank you for taking the time to read this post. coulThe Weekend Hunters
10-03-2011, 10:26 AM
#2
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Kansas
Posts: 3,905
I'm laid up for a few days at home, so I'll bite...
To be brutally honest, it's the type of blog site that makes people hate blog sites. I know this isn't exactly what you want to hear, but it was awful.
For starters, it's incredibly rambling, and full of grammatical and spelling errors. Some of your statements will ramble for 3-4 lines without any punctuative breaks. Then in the MX-4 "review", you misspell the word "beat". "Beet the sh*t out of them", really? In the golf balls story, "it seamed to me i was the target"... Unless you were sewn to a target, nothing "seams" to you. It SEEMS to me that you have a problem with phonetic spelling. In the "stuck in the tree" story, you also "lift a message for your buddy", maybe if you would have 'LEFT' him a message, he would have gotten it. Also in "stuck in a tree", "I saw about 6-7 nice doe’s but the where a little far out for my liking"... Try "I saw 6 or 7 nice doe's, but THEY WERE a little far out for my liking."... In "golf balls", "wising" should be "whizzing", and "minuets" should be "minutes". In "the only deer in the woods", "privet" should be spelled "private", "make more since" should be "make more SENSE", "his scheduled was kind of full" should be "schedule"...
Also in the "stuck in a tree" story, you say "like I always do every time.". Frankly, no one cares that you lowered your bow so you don't need to emphasize HOW you lower it, and "always" and "every time" are redundant. Then, in one sentence, you basically say "I pulled out my phone to call my wife to come get me and then called her and said to come get me."... Repetitive and rambling, and that sentence is PACKED with grammatical errors. Or in Golf balls, "I hid behind the tree, well, most of me hid behind the tree"... Poor word choices, it was an opportunity to be illustrative, and it just comes off as repetitive. A comma here and there would really help your blog. In "the only deer in the woods", at the beginning, the word "farm" or "farmer" appears 5 times in 3 sentences...
The stories are also awkwardly familiar and conversational. Yes, blogs should engage the reader as if they're sitting in person listening to the story, but it's not a dialog. "By the way," or "So..." etc etc don't have much place. Count how many times you used the word "so" in the "stuck in a tree" story. So I was out hunting. So it was time to leave. So I climbed back up onto the top half of my climber. So now I'm mad. "So what...?"
The entire "the only deer in the woods" story is one of those "you had to be there" stories. It sounds like it's a great story for you and your buddy, but for the rest of us, I guess I'm missing the point? Every story is a good story if it's YOURS, but that's one that I probably wouldn't have put in a blog, at least not presented in that way. It's one of the longer blogs, and it's packed with unsubstantial details. It doesn't matter that it's 50 acres, or that you called him about hunting by yourself on Friday, or that you went hunting on the spot the first time on a saturday morning, or that you saw 4 squirrels and a cat, or that the doe ran 75yrds or was scared by the farmer on the tractor... The point you apparently were trying to make was that you were spending time hunting over a patch that only had ONE deer in it, and you managed to shoot it (not hard to do over 50acres), and apparently it's a funny inside story between you and your buddy. To me, I wasn't sure where the story was going the entire time, and then I was SERIOUSLY sad I spent the time reading it once I got to the punch line. 5min of my life I'll never get back.
You also mention different characters/people, that we have no reference for, no investment in, and often can't see how they tie into the story. Again, picking on "stuck in a tree", when you talk about your wife and "katie", the only real value is that you called your wife, but she couldn't come help you. Mentioning Katie just steers the readers off course, we don't know who she is, nor how she effects the story. We don't know who ryan is, nor tyler. The bottom line is, we don't know who any of these people are, but you are singling them out in name. It takes about 15sec to read that portion, and it DOES seem like you called a lot of people, but there's no bearing for time for how long it took you to finally get ahold of "Tyler", your eventual hero. You'd be much better off saying, "Luckily, I had the forethought to pack my phone along as a lifeline and after about 45min of calling everyone I could think of from my phonebook with no luck, I finally got an answer. My buddy Tyler, who lives X miles up the road said he'd be there asap with a ladder, and to "just hang out until he arrived".
In the golf balls story, you're obviously hunting within a few hundred yards of this neighbor, but you don't know him and/or didn't let him know you were out in that area hunting? Does this guy not like you? Why else would you "be the target" for his driving range? Where is this field? Is it his property? Is it adjacent to his house? The first thing I would have done at the sight of the first golf ball, since even at that point my hunt is blown, would be to holler at the neighbor to "STOP HITTING GOLF BALLS AT ME", then dropped the stand and gone and hunted elsewhere that day. I certainly wouldn't have waited 45min in silence on a blown hunt. Maybe you had some other reason for sticking around, but personally, it just seems stupid.
Even if I could stomach all of that, then there's the reviews. From my perspective, the reviews are worthless. You're admittedly young, and you're no-name hunters, not professional hunters or guides, etc, so it doesn't mean much if you just say "this is the best product I've used". For all I know, that's the ONLY product you've used. You can get around being young and inexperienced if you at least present some data to back up your conclusions, but you don't. Saying a product is great doesn't tell your readers WHY it's great, and what specifically is great about it, or what makes it superior to another product you've tried.
You have reviews of Muzzy MX-3's and MX-4's, but you don't take the opportunity to even mention the difference in performance between the two? You don't mention ANY data, the best you put up is "they give tight groups at 30yrds", or "you can beet (sic) the sh*t out of them and they still work great". Do these broadheads group better than anything else you've tried? What do you call "a tight group"? Since these are fixed blade heads, there's the OBVIOUS question of "how well do they fly?". You could have at least made a comment that "they fly just like my field points". Do the muzzy's fly better than other brands of fixed blades? Do they fly better than mechanical broadheads? In my personal experience, muzzy's are great for flying straight, and they give you the ability to use blinds with shoot through mesh, which is something you can't say for the straighter flying mechanicals, so the muzzy's give you the best of both worlds.
You have a "product review" of a climbing stand where the only things you say are "I love this stand", and "two years later it's still as nice as the first day". So what? Maybe you've only used it twice since then? Why do you love it? Is it more comfortable than another specific stand you've used? Is it more spacious? Easier to transport, easier to hang? When you do a product review, "oh it's great, I'm 25 and this is the only product I've used, take my word for it", isn't a very convincing article.
Similarly, the fox light review compares the worst method ever (carrying a car battery) with one single modern light. The entire article is focused on your poor original set up, then about 5 lines of how you made your decision to buy one. You don't even mention price? Frankly, I don't want to read a review on a product that's still in the factory packaging. Don't post anything until you've actually used it. It's 13 lines that tell me that a flashlight is lighter than a car battery... I just did the same thing in 8 words.
My advice would be either to close the site, or spend a LOT of time reading other successful hunting sites. Maybe hire a proofreader/editor to help catch spelling and grammar errors, and then have someone that's NOT in the stories pre-read the blog to help determine if they're even worth posting. Definitely forget about writing product reviews.
To be brutally honest, it's the type of blog site that makes people hate blog sites. I know this isn't exactly what you want to hear, but it was awful.
For starters, it's incredibly rambling, and full of grammatical and spelling errors. Some of your statements will ramble for 3-4 lines without any punctuative breaks. Then in the MX-4 "review", you misspell the word "beat". "Beet the sh*t out of them", really? In the golf balls story, "it seamed to me i was the target"... Unless you were sewn to a target, nothing "seams" to you. It SEEMS to me that you have a problem with phonetic spelling. In the "stuck in the tree" story, you also "lift a message for your buddy", maybe if you would have 'LEFT' him a message, he would have gotten it. Also in "stuck in a tree", "I saw about 6-7 nice doe’s but the where a little far out for my liking"... Try "I saw 6 or 7 nice doe's, but THEY WERE a little far out for my liking."... In "golf balls", "wising" should be "whizzing", and "minuets" should be "minutes". In "the only deer in the woods", "privet" should be spelled "private", "make more since" should be "make more SENSE", "his scheduled was kind of full" should be "schedule"...
Also in the "stuck in a tree" story, you say "like I always do every time.". Frankly, no one cares that you lowered your bow so you don't need to emphasize HOW you lower it, and "always" and "every time" are redundant. Then, in one sentence, you basically say "I pulled out my phone to call my wife to come get me and then called her and said to come get me."... Repetitive and rambling, and that sentence is PACKED with grammatical errors. Or in Golf balls, "I hid behind the tree, well, most of me hid behind the tree"... Poor word choices, it was an opportunity to be illustrative, and it just comes off as repetitive. A comma here and there would really help your blog. In "the only deer in the woods", at the beginning, the word "farm" or "farmer" appears 5 times in 3 sentences...
The stories are also awkwardly familiar and conversational. Yes, blogs should engage the reader as if they're sitting in person listening to the story, but it's not a dialog. "By the way," or "So..." etc etc don't have much place. Count how many times you used the word "so" in the "stuck in a tree" story. So I was out hunting. So it was time to leave. So I climbed back up onto the top half of my climber. So now I'm mad. "So what...?"
The entire "the only deer in the woods" story is one of those "you had to be there" stories. It sounds like it's a great story for you and your buddy, but for the rest of us, I guess I'm missing the point? Every story is a good story if it's YOURS, but that's one that I probably wouldn't have put in a blog, at least not presented in that way. It's one of the longer blogs, and it's packed with unsubstantial details. It doesn't matter that it's 50 acres, or that you called him about hunting by yourself on Friday, or that you went hunting on the spot the first time on a saturday morning, or that you saw 4 squirrels and a cat, or that the doe ran 75yrds or was scared by the farmer on the tractor... The point you apparently were trying to make was that you were spending time hunting over a patch that only had ONE deer in it, and you managed to shoot it (not hard to do over 50acres), and apparently it's a funny inside story between you and your buddy. To me, I wasn't sure where the story was going the entire time, and then I was SERIOUSLY sad I spent the time reading it once I got to the punch line. 5min of my life I'll never get back.
You also mention different characters/people, that we have no reference for, no investment in, and often can't see how they tie into the story. Again, picking on "stuck in a tree", when you talk about your wife and "katie", the only real value is that you called your wife, but she couldn't come help you. Mentioning Katie just steers the readers off course, we don't know who she is, nor how she effects the story. We don't know who ryan is, nor tyler. The bottom line is, we don't know who any of these people are, but you are singling them out in name. It takes about 15sec to read that portion, and it DOES seem like you called a lot of people, but there's no bearing for time for how long it took you to finally get ahold of "Tyler", your eventual hero. You'd be much better off saying, "Luckily, I had the forethought to pack my phone along as a lifeline and after about 45min of calling everyone I could think of from my phonebook with no luck, I finally got an answer. My buddy Tyler, who lives X miles up the road said he'd be there asap with a ladder, and to "just hang out until he arrived".
In the golf balls story, you're obviously hunting within a few hundred yards of this neighbor, but you don't know him and/or didn't let him know you were out in that area hunting? Does this guy not like you? Why else would you "be the target" for his driving range? Where is this field? Is it his property? Is it adjacent to his house? The first thing I would have done at the sight of the first golf ball, since even at that point my hunt is blown, would be to holler at the neighbor to "STOP HITTING GOLF BALLS AT ME", then dropped the stand and gone and hunted elsewhere that day. I certainly wouldn't have waited 45min in silence on a blown hunt. Maybe you had some other reason for sticking around, but personally, it just seems stupid.
Even if I could stomach all of that, then there's the reviews. From my perspective, the reviews are worthless. You're admittedly young, and you're no-name hunters, not professional hunters or guides, etc, so it doesn't mean much if you just say "this is the best product I've used". For all I know, that's the ONLY product you've used. You can get around being young and inexperienced if you at least present some data to back up your conclusions, but you don't. Saying a product is great doesn't tell your readers WHY it's great, and what specifically is great about it, or what makes it superior to another product you've tried.
You have reviews of Muzzy MX-3's and MX-4's, but you don't take the opportunity to even mention the difference in performance between the two? You don't mention ANY data, the best you put up is "they give tight groups at 30yrds", or "you can beet (sic) the sh*t out of them and they still work great". Do these broadheads group better than anything else you've tried? What do you call "a tight group"? Since these are fixed blade heads, there's the OBVIOUS question of "how well do they fly?". You could have at least made a comment that "they fly just like my field points". Do the muzzy's fly better than other brands of fixed blades? Do they fly better than mechanical broadheads? In my personal experience, muzzy's are great for flying straight, and they give you the ability to use blinds with shoot through mesh, which is something you can't say for the straighter flying mechanicals, so the muzzy's give you the best of both worlds.
You have a "product review" of a climbing stand where the only things you say are "I love this stand", and "two years later it's still as nice as the first day". So what? Maybe you've only used it twice since then? Why do you love it? Is it more comfortable than another specific stand you've used? Is it more spacious? Easier to transport, easier to hang? When you do a product review, "oh it's great, I'm 25 and this is the only product I've used, take my word for it", isn't a very convincing article.
Similarly, the fox light review compares the worst method ever (carrying a car battery) with one single modern light. The entire article is focused on your poor original set up, then about 5 lines of how you made your decision to buy one. You don't even mention price? Frankly, I don't want to read a review on a product that's still in the factory packaging. Don't post anything until you've actually used it. It's 13 lines that tell me that a flashlight is lighter than a car battery... I just did the same thing in 8 words.
My advice would be either to close the site, or spend a LOT of time reading other successful hunting sites. Maybe hire a proofreader/editor to help catch spelling and grammar errors, and then have someone that's NOT in the stories pre-read the blog to help determine if they're even worth posting. Definitely forget about writing product reviews.
10-14-2011, 11:35 PM
#5
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Kansas
Posts: 3,905
After re-reading my post, I know I'm coming off like a total #@$!&, but you guys are obviously staking a lot on this thing, and frankly, if you want it to work, you're going to have to step up your game. I thought I should clear the air that I didn't mean to be harsh just for the sake of whizzing on your parade, but I didn't do a great job of offering up constructive criticism last go-round.
If you want to draw in readers/followers to your blogsite, you're going to need some serious renovation. I love a good story, but you gotta draw me into it and keep me hooked. Grammatical and spelling errors are distracting and will ruin a good story, even if it's "worth reading". Then there's a whole separate category of "not worth reading", or "don't make any sense". Cull out the "not worth reading" stories, then pare down what's left of the "worth reading" stories into a solid mix of "easy sells" (entertaining for almost any potential reader) and "hard sells" (only relatable to a select few potential readers, but nonetheless humorous in nature). Construct these to read more quickly and linearly (easier to follow the plot of Transformers than Snatch), and be a little more subtly illustrative and you'll really have a blog worth reading.
Again, the product reviews as they stand are a total loss for me. Reconsider the format for your product reviews. I personally do a product review service for our local gunshops and archery shops, I'm no world renowned hunter, but giving supporting data, relating the new product to a familiar competing product, pointing out specific strengths and weaknesses, etc etc... All of these are components of a good product review. Sometimes, NOT being a pro actually helps add credibility to your reviews. When I make a recommendation for a pistol to a new shooter in one of my classes, his skillset may not be up to par with the equipment I'm recommending, since we're in DRASTICALLY different handgunning classes. However, if I open a product review by acknowledging that I'm a only "hobby bowhunter", but point out that using a certain bow-site brought my 30yrd groups from a paper plate size to a palm, other beginner archers can relate, and will take heed. Sometimes guys care MORE about what works well for the average guy, like themselves, rather than caring what works best for the pros. Just this week, I was on a trip near Branson, so I made a pitstop to do some trout fishing on Taneycomo (supposed to be great this time of year). The bass pro guy, who pointed out his state records and his successes in bass tourneys, made recommendations for equipment... EXPENSIVE equipment... All I wanted was a decent quality spinning reel that'd get me through a few evenings on a business trip. I bumped into another gentleman that was picking up some bait and he pointed out the reel he'd been using at his cabin along the lake for a few years. Sure enough, it worked great for me too... For about 1/5th the price that the pro-shop guy was trying to sell me.
Long story short, it CAN work, but it's gonna take a lot of work to come back from where you're at. If nothing else, at least you took the initiative to put up the site and try to put some wood on the ball. So what if you missed on the first pitch, some people never even step up to the plate.
If you want to draw in readers/followers to your blogsite, you're going to need some serious renovation. I love a good story, but you gotta draw me into it and keep me hooked. Grammatical and spelling errors are distracting and will ruin a good story, even if it's "worth reading". Then there's a whole separate category of "not worth reading", or "don't make any sense". Cull out the "not worth reading" stories, then pare down what's left of the "worth reading" stories into a solid mix of "easy sells" (entertaining for almost any potential reader) and "hard sells" (only relatable to a select few potential readers, but nonetheless humorous in nature). Construct these to read more quickly and linearly (easier to follow the plot of Transformers than Snatch), and be a little more subtly illustrative and you'll really have a blog worth reading.
Again, the product reviews as they stand are a total loss for me. Reconsider the format for your product reviews. I personally do a product review service for our local gunshops and archery shops, I'm no world renowned hunter, but giving supporting data, relating the new product to a familiar competing product, pointing out specific strengths and weaknesses, etc etc... All of these are components of a good product review. Sometimes, NOT being a pro actually helps add credibility to your reviews. When I make a recommendation for a pistol to a new shooter in one of my classes, his skillset may not be up to par with the equipment I'm recommending, since we're in DRASTICALLY different handgunning classes. However, if I open a product review by acknowledging that I'm a only "hobby bowhunter", but point out that using a certain bow-site brought my 30yrd groups from a paper plate size to a palm, other beginner archers can relate, and will take heed. Sometimes guys care MORE about what works well for the average guy, like themselves, rather than caring what works best for the pros. Just this week, I was on a trip near Branson, so I made a pitstop to do some trout fishing on Taneycomo (supposed to be great this time of year). The bass pro guy, who pointed out his state records and his successes in bass tourneys, made recommendations for equipment... EXPENSIVE equipment... All I wanted was a decent quality spinning reel that'd get me through a few evenings on a business trip. I bumped into another gentleman that was picking up some bait and he pointed out the reel he'd been using at his cabin along the lake for a few years. Sure enough, it worked great for me too... For about 1/5th the price that the pro-shop guy was trying to sell me.
Long story short, it CAN work, but it's gonna take a lot of work to come back from where you're at. If nothing else, at least you took the initiative to put up the site and try to put some wood on the ball. So what if you missed on the first pitch, some people never even step up to the plate.
