“Jeete Raho" is a blessing in Hindi from the elders for a long life. This blog by this name is indeed a blessing to its readers. The blog ‘Jeete Raho’ gives lot of valuable advice on emotional, psychological and relationship related problems.
One thing that stands out in the posts in the blog is the sincerity and earnestness of the blogger 'Indu Chibber Datta'. A reader reading her posts can feel her good heart and a genuine desire to reach out to people and help them. The content is kept simple and pragmatic which makes it very easy for the reader to digests. Indu keeps it precise and to the point. She does not get into unnecessary jargon and frameworks, that some of the other blogs on similar topic tend to get into. So her blog posts always have freshness about them and do not feel tedious and artificial. She has enriched her advice with a few real life case studies as well that are very interesting and relevant. I would like to see more of them though.
In addition to the above content, she also writes poetry and articles on astrology and astronomy. The poetry gels well with her blog, but astrology and astronomy seem out of place. I would suggest she starts a separate blogs for this area. I know lot of people including ‘yours truly’ have made a mishmash of their blogs. But when there are close to a dozen themes, it hardly makes sense to have twelve different blogs, each of which has a posting frequency of once in 1-2 months. However that is not the case with Indu. Her blog has 2 clear and distinct themes that have no relation to each other. So the situation definitely calls for two different blogs.
In terms of look and feel, the blog looks rather plain. Maybe some more effort can be put in to making it more appealing. The title is appropriate for the main content. However the tag line could have been catchy. Instead it is a bit longish explanation of the blog’s name and nature of its content. This could have gone into a more detailed ‘About’ section. There aren't too many widgets cluttering the blog and it gives a neat look. However I feel widgets there are could have been chosen better. As I have mentioned earlier, I do not see much utility in a live traffic update widget. I also feel blogger award badges need not have been displayed so prominently in the main page sidebar. Whereas these badges represent the love of fellow bloggers, this is a blog with a niche and serious content. And these badges tend to give an air of frivolousness.
Let us move on to navigation. The archives and top bar with labels to key topics as tabs provide somewhat decent navigation. But problem with label based navigation is that when there are more than 30-40 posts under a label, the posts tend to come up in multiple pages with earlier posts coming up in later pages. So there is very good chance that reader will miss them out as he/she will have to navigate quite a bit to reach them. That is the reason I have manually created links to my posts on static pages for the different themes in my blog. The popular post widget seems like a good one but the problem is it gives popularity based on blogger traffic, which includes spam and bots as well. So it may not provide a true picture of best posts. Having labels both as tabs and in right sidebar is a redundancy. I would advise to have it in only one of the two. One more think I would suggest is as the number of posts increase, it might be better to have a second level of classification. Otherwise reader might end up finding hundred posts under mental health alone. Ideally one should have only 20-30 posts under each theme.
In terms of interaction, response to comments is handled well. In some of her posts she mentions her e-mail id for seeking personal advice. It would however be nice to have a contact page, where she clearly mentions her e-mail id and for kind of queries/discussion can she be contacted. Since she provides online counseling professionally and the blog kind of complements her profession, it would be good to mention that prominently in the blog and make it easy for a reader to find out how to seek her professional help.
Overall I would recommend everyone to have a look at this blog. Though in the beginning I have mentioned it seeks to provide aid to people with psychological, emotional and relationship problems, it does not necessarily mean people with serious issues only. All of us have ups and downs and have day to day frustrations. This blog can serve as a good self-help blog to tide over them. Her articles on astrology and astronomy are also quite interesting and informative. Find below a selection of posts from her blog.
One thing that stands out in the posts in the blog is the sincerity and earnestness of the blogger 'Indu Chibber Datta'. A reader reading her posts can feel her good heart and a genuine desire to reach out to people and help them. The content is kept simple and pragmatic which makes it very easy for the reader to digests. Indu keeps it precise and to the point. She does not get into unnecessary jargon and frameworks, that some of the other blogs on similar topic tend to get into. So her blog posts always have freshness about them and do not feel tedious and artificial. She has enriched her advice with a few real life case studies as well that are very interesting and relevant. I would like to see more of them though.
In addition to the above content, she also writes poetry and articles on astrology and astronomy. The poetry gels well with her blog, but astrology and astronomy seem out of place. I would suggest she starts a separate blogs for this area. I know lot of people including ‘yours truly’ have made a mishmash of their blogs. But when there are close to a dozen themes, it hardly makes sense to have twelve different blogs, each of which has a posting frequency of once in 1-2 months. However that is not the case with Indu. Her blog has 2 clear and distinct themes that have no relation to each other. So the situation definitely calls for two different blogs.
In terms of look and feel, the blog looks rather plain. Maybe some more effort can be put in to making it more appealing. The title is appropriate for the main content. However the tag line could have been catchy. Instead it is a bit longish explanation of the blog’s name and nature of its content. This could have gone into a more detailed ‘About’ section. There aren't too many widgets cluttering the blog and it gives a neat look. However I feel widgets there are could have been chosen better. As I have mentioned earlier, I do not see much utility in a live traffic update widget. I also feel blogger award badges need not have been displayed so prominently in the main page sidebar. Whereas these badges represent the love of fellow bloggers, this is a blog with a niche and serious content. And these badges tend to give an air of frivolousness.
Let us move on to navigation. The archives and top bar with labels to key topics as tabs provide somewhat decent navigation. But problem with label based navigation is that when there are more than 30-40 posts under a label, the posts tend to come up in multiple pages with earlier posts coming up in later pages. So there is very good chance that reader will miss them out as he/she will have to navigate quite a bit to reach them. That is the reason I have manually created links to my posts on static pages for the different themes in my blog. The popular post widget seems like a good one but the problem is it gives popularity based on blogger traffic, which includes spam and bots as well. So it may not provide a true picture of best posts. Having labels both as tabs and in right sidebar is a redundancy. I would advise to have it in only one of the two. One more think I would suggest is as the number of posts increase, it might be better to have a second level of classification. Otherwise reader might end up finding hundred posts under mental health alone. Ideally one should have only 20-30 posts under each theme.
In terms of interaction, response to comments is handled well. In some of her posts she mentions her e-mail id for seeking personal advice. It would however be nice to have a contact page, where she clearly mentions her e-mail id and for kind of queries/discussion can she be contacted. Since she provides online counseling professionally and the blog kind of complements her profession, it would be good to mention that prominently in the blog and make it easy for a reader to find out how to seek her professional help.
Overall I would recommend everyone to have a look at this blog. Though in the beginning I have mentioned it seeks to provide aid to people with psychological, emotional and relationship problems, it does not necessarily mean people with serious issues only. All of us have ups and downs and have day to day frustrations. This blog can serve as a good self-help blog to tide over them. Her articles on astrology and astronomy are also quite interesting and informative. Find below a selection of posts from her blog.
5 comments:
It is only appropriate that i should be the first to comment here.You have taken lots of trouble despite your hectic schedule & i am grateful to you--also for so many kind words about me and my efforts.
Your suggestions will help me to improve further.I too have noticed that certain posts attracted a flood of scam & i transferred them to draft to allow other deserving posts to come up, although they too had importance.
I hope i can improve my blog according to your suggestions but as you must have guessed i am rather tech-challenged so let us see!
Thank you once again!
Indu is indeed a treasure trove of wisdom and a multifaceted person at that. A very warm but forthright person, her blog truly reflects her personality. A very good review, Karthik!
Since I have been following Indu's blog for sometime, I completely understand your points. You have indeed done a thorough review with inputs that can truly benefit her blog.
Thanks, Indu. Glad you liked my review. Frankly, I am not very techie either despite being younger than you and having spent 5 years in the IT industry.
Thanks zephyr. I agree about Indu. Glad you liked my review/
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