Name: Emz
Site: Circus
Review completed on: 07/06/08

Another webmaster who is making use of celebrity images I see. This time around it's a montage of Avril Lavigne images. To your credit the images have been cut out perfectly and overall it doesn't look too bad, but at the end of the day you're using celebrity images. What a pity. From the looks of it you can hold your own in the graphics department, and I'm sure you can come up with something nice without having to rely on celebrity images. After all, celebrity layouts are so yesterday.

Now, the colours you've chosen for your layout do somewhat match those used in the Avril image, but all the same I'm not sure if I like them. Black, white and dark grey together can look great in some instances, but not in this case unfortunately. How about something cheery instead? As it is now the colours do a lot to give your site a depressing kind of vibe. What you could have done instead is take advantage of the more minor colours featured in Avril's image, like the blue on her jacket. Using your dropper tool you could match the colour on your palette, grab the colour code and apply the shade to various areas of your layout. (As a body background instead of the grey maybe, or the background for your blog headers.) There are some pink circular objects (lights I assume) near her head - you could use this pink somewhere too.

Your navigation can't be missed, that's for sure! Same goes for your blog headers. Nice one. Sadly there's an issue with your text - white text against a black background is a bit of a no-go for me, especially when said text is considerably small. I suggest making the text size larger so that your visitors will find it easier to read.

About

Circus- A travelling show with Clowns, Acrobats and Animals.

No kidding! I think everyone reading this would've already known the meaning of the word 'circus' without you having to explain it. The explanation is pointless and better off removed from this page.

You've had quite a busy 'e-life' haven't you, going from one domain to the next, one host to another. What you've left out here is how long you've actually been making websites for. How long?

Affiliates contains one affiliate link followed by an application form. Just one link here? What about all the affiliate links on your sidebar? These should be here too. Also, change the header from Affilates to Affiliates.

Awards - this page consists of a message saying that you have no awards at the moment. If you have none at the moment, why even create the page?

I was expecting to be presented with a written account on your History page, when instead all it consisted of were four links to your previous sites. You could always delete this page and stick the links on the main About page instead, seems more appropriate.

You have an okay selection of buttons available on your Link Me page, although I encourage you to provide a variety of sizes, not just 88x31.

Me - oh, finally! This page should have come first and foremost - this is your site after all, I'm sure your visitors would like to read about you before the history of your site.

This certainly isn't an autobiography that's for sure! More like a random babble fest, but it's okay to say that because you've more or less admitted this yourself on the page. It was interesting to read though, despite the lack of structure you've still managed to provide some information about yourself, mainly your likes and dislikes.

I want my tongue pearced. But I would be too scared to get it done. =.. And my lip pearced.

Pearced = pierced. I've survived getting my tongue pierced - three times in fact - and I can vouch for the fact that it's an absolutely horrible experience. The worst part is seeing the clamp and the massive needle they use to pierce your tongue with. I had it done once and took it out a few months later, then decided to get it re-pierced. A few months later I got a second piercing, so I had one on the left side of my tongue and one on the right. I took both out a couple of years ago, along with the nine piercings I had in my ears. Not sure about lip piercings, but I bet they hurt like hell! Hate to think about the pain involved.

By the way, russel brand needs to be changed to Russell Brand, and mitch ashley needs to be capitalised.

You could afford to add some more information about yourself here. Favourite bands? Hobbies? You're into drama - tell us more about that. Do you take classes somewhere? Do you want to be an actress when you grow up?

Content

Also known as the You section, as the header on the actual page displays. How about changing the navigation link to You as well? It's definitely more appropriate than the nondescript "content".

Oh, you have an Articles section. Very good. Only one article here so far, maybe you'll add more? You make a number of good points in your Mother / Father Of The Year article. I guess they pick a celebrity to be mother/father of the year because they're well known, they're famous, so more people will take notice. If a regular person was given the title I doubt anyone would notice, let alone care.

Throughout the article you've got families as "famalies", so be sure to change it to the correct spelling.

Man, this is reminding me more and more of your hosts' site. Her content is almost identical to yours. I'm not accusing you of copying so don't get me wrong there, I'm just pointing out the similarities that's all.

The Extras section offers a plugboard, a competition page, and a poem written by you. Pity the competition involves celebrity layouts! I see only one person has entered, going by the tagboard. Is it just my computer, or are the name / email / message fields on the tagboard missing? They're not appearing on my computer. Maybe that's why no one else has entered so far, either that or the fact that celebrity layouts are no longer popular.

Some interesting poems you have here, heh. Especially the third one, very descriptive to say the least! Good on you for putting them up.

On your Backgrounds page in the Graphics section, you say "I did not make any of these, I got them off my old piczo website, i did however make the 2nd one :D Credit goes to the creaters of the others :) "

I'm sure the creators of the backgrounds wouldn't be too happy to discover you're redistributing them. How would you feel if you saw your graphics on offer at another site? Saying "credit goes to the creators" simply isn't good enough. It would only be good enough if you asked the creators' permission before putting up their graphics, as well as providing a link back to the original source.

I like your Bullets. The actual page is headed up with "Buttons" though, so you need to change this.

Downloads contains the usual brushes, smilies, icon textures and fonts. Not sure why people even bother redistributing fonts when people can easily go to the actual font sites to get them. I have nothing to say about the rest of the content in this category. Seen it all before a million times over.

I like your pink smilies. You should add some more in a variety of colours.

Tutorials - eh? You already have a tutorials link on your main navigation. This is an unnecessary double up.

The last page here is HTML Codes, with a notice next to it saying 'no link yet'. Well, why put it up in the first place? Please no HTML codes...seriously, so many sites out there already provide codes.

Tutorials

Three topics covered here - CSS, Cutenews, and Jasc Animation Shop Pro. Out of these, your Cutenews tutorials were the best, however I'm sure Cutenews provides its own installation instructions via a Read Me file...

Myspace

Another small section, containing three main links.

On the Codes page you provide the usual codes that Myspace users can use to change the look of their profiles. There's one here to make a profile one skinny column. Yuck! Weborexia running rampant on Myspace. Who'd want that?

Your Myspace Layouts initially look like backgrounds. There's no preview for people to see the rest of the layout, only the background. The first background looks fine, kind of robotic in a way. I'm sure Kraftwerk would approve. The second background isn't so great - the bottom of it has a rectangle with the same pattern on it, overlapping and ruining the alignment of the leopard spots. That has to be the worst explanation ever. Hopefully if you have a look at the background yourself you'll be able to see what I mean! I suggest you display full previews of these layouts (not just the backgrounds) at My Layout Host. This site is ideal for Myspace layout creators.

Look, contrary to popular belief I don't actually like coming across as mean here, but I have to be honest. If I'm not completely honest with you I would have not only failed as a reviewer, but I would have failed YOU by not giving you the feedback and the tips you NEED. The first step to improving yourself is finding out where it is you're going wrong.

Although you've had several websites, I get the feeling that all the same, you're still fairly new to the personal site scene. There's so much more to having a website than offering the usual stock standard graphics and tutorials. As it is now your site is a carbon copy of so many other sites out there, and that's a shame. Personal sites are supposed to be outlets in which the webmaster can display their creativity by providing original content designed to appeal to the visitor, to hold them in. Make your site stand out from the rest! Ditch the graphics and tutorials - everyone has these. Focus on increasing the amount of information about yourself. Write some more poems and articles! Include some interactive content for the visitor.

Nobody's perfect and we all have to start somewhere. I get that. You learn from your mistakes, and it's still early days for you as you're a relatively young site owner. I've taken this fact into consideration and have decided to give you what I think is an extremely fair rating of two point five. I sincerely hope that you'll take at least a little bit of my criticism on board and strive to make your site stand out from the rest.

Obviously this entire review is made up of my own views and opinions. Your site is your own and you can do what you want with it - but ask yourself, are you really happy with having a site identical to so many others out there? Wouldn't you like to change that?