Free Ads at Sweet Hack dot com (and a Review)

I thought I would take this opportunity to write a free review of SweetHacks dot com. I’m taking this opportunity to both introduce you to a new blog and at the same time let readers see what to expect of a review from Things That Are Fun!

First Things First: Free Ads
First I’d like to tell you about a great idea I just read about over at SweetHacks dot com.  To spread the word just a little more about his site, we have been given a chance to get some free advertising.  Just send an email with “Free Ads” as the subject and tell them your choice of ad location and that’s it.  It sounds like you may be able to influence your ad location, so a little link love never hurt.  Anyways, you can check out the rest of the details on the Free Ads Here.

What is Sweet Hacks dot com All About?
Sweet Hacks dot com was start back in May of 2007 (actually the first post was 2 days after our first post).  The intention of the blog was stated right from the beginning: to provide readers with information on consoles including Hacks, reviews, developments and mods.  And since that first post, Sweet Hack has stayed on course throughout the life of the blog and all its postings.  You can find information about Gaming consoles,  Video games, iPhones, Laptops along with all the modifications you can do to them to have them suit your needs.  There are some very interesting articles on here about the latest technology, here are a few examples I enjoyed:

• Water Damaged Laptop - Get it Sorted
• Don’t Buy XBox 360 from Wal-Mart
• 103 Inch HDTV and XBox360 Rules!

Suggestions
After browsing around Sweet Hacks dot com for a while, there are a few things I would like to point out to Abdalla Ahmed (that’s the site author).   The layout of the site is pretty easy to follow.  Some people don’t like the 3-column look, but I don’t mind it.  SweetHacks dot com is split into 3 columns: Content, Ads, and menus/navigation.  So here’s a few of my suggestions for the site. Whether my suggestions are right or not is up to you, this is mostly just my personal opinion:

• Header Image- This is the first thing you notice when you come to the site. I could tell at first glance that it appeared to be a technology site of some sort, especially after looking more closely at the tag-line in the corner “The Technology and Console Blog”.  My first suggestion would be to increase the size of the tag-line and perhaps change it to a different color to stand out more (perhaps white).  Second, since the site isn’t just about iPhones, I would add image of some of the consoles you are dealing with (Xbox, PS3, etc.).
  
• About Me - The second section of Sweet Hacks dot com that I went to was the About Me section. Personally I would clean this up a little more while providing the reader with a little more information about the site itself.  If a new reader came and wanted to find out what your site was all about, this might be the first place they would check.  Also providing some background information on yourself might be useful (such as any qualifications or experience you have with this topic, or why you decided to start this site).
• Advertisements Page- I think you have a great advertising page.  The reader / potential advertiser is given many different options depending on their goals and budget.  The one area that I think might improve this section is a visual aid for the advertisements.  Adding a picture of where the ads are placed on your page will help the reader visualize it (like you see in the google heatmap image).  I know that would have helped me when signing up for your current ad contest and picking which ads I wanted.
• Footer - On my previous design of Things That are Fun, I did not have much of a footer, but it was suggested several times to me that I add one.  I think it has helped the layout of my site tremendously, and believe adding some information in the footer will do the same for Sweet Hacks.  Many websites have started putting some information in the footer of their site, with information there possibly including:
  • a link back to the top of the page
  • Subscription Options / Feed
  • Recent Comments
  • Top Posts
  • Recent Posts
    

Reasons to Keep Coming Back (aka Subscribe)
Well obviously if you’re not into technology and console information then this site isn’t for you.  I personally see this site as a supplement to Engadget.com.  You can get very similar information but from a different perspective.  Sweet Hack dot com has also been know to hold a few contests that give away some very interesting prizes.  If he keeps up the posting frequency (Over 100 posts so far in about 3 months), I can only see the readers increasing.  Hopefully some of the suggestions (which are mostly cosmetic) I made will improve the site even more. 

** As a side note: I won’t be putting ads within any sponsered reviews that are ordered on Things That Are Fun! Since this is a free review I didn’t think it would be a problem.