On first load the look and feel of this site is quite catching. Given the association that the site's name makes with baking the background of TrueBake.com is indubitably a kitchen table! In any case the color scheme and style looks (and almost smells) right given what the purpose of this site appears to be.

Aside from the background the next most catching elements are the image frames, made to be stylishly fuzzy and look like either wood or cardboard. However it's easy to notice that the actual image we may expect in these frames is actually missing for all of the articles displayed on the front page. We can only feast on the image of potatoes from the topmost featured article. However even following the link to that article reveals a page which has no image on it either.

The suggestion I'm building up towards here might already be guessed. If we're given such nice image frames we've got to be given some nice images for them too, and for the sake of consistency and adding some of that attractiveness to article pages, the article pages should contain the image as well, the larger version much like the one displayed in the featured article about potatoes on the homepage.

Aside from that there are a few more detailed suggestions. What if that nice search box was put on the top bar instead of below it? This could allow the site to be put further to the top making more of the content visible above the fold. If it's easy enough, it might be something to try, for space efficiency's sake. Otherwise I think it looks great even as it is.

Secondly, on the top of the article pages there is a bar displaying "Posted in | no responses", but the color of the category and responses links is too similar to the background color making them harder to discern. It's safe to say the link color should be adjusted to something brighter or the same should be done with the background color.

Finally while the site seems to have more than 7 articles visible on the homepage there is no "next" or "previous" link or any kind of pager that would allow browsing other articles. They can only be browsed by clicking on categories. And the pages of those categories don't have category titles.

Other than that there's a standard critique I make of ads at least wherever we're given two square ads within actual content which sometimes end up disrupting the style of the article page.

Design Rating: 7/10

Focus:

The name of the site sounds slightly strange in that it's unclear what "true" bake actually means, but one might suppose it means baking things right, with the help of this site of course. While there is no introduction or about page or any kind of similar marketing it must be admitted that in addition to the name, article titles which restlessly keep repeating "how to bake" pretty much spell it out. Bottom line is that the purpose is still clear and the focus strong, as is already quite typical from this web publisher.

Focus Rating: 10/10

Content:

There's over 30 articles about how to bake a variety of foods. Just reading the categories reveals quite a variets.. beef, chicken, bread, cakes, cookies, ham, pizza etc. Speaking of category list "cookies" seems to be misspelled as it says "coockies".

The articles start with a description of what is cooked, how it can be useful and so on and proceed with instructions. The outline of article sections seems to vary from article to article though most seem to follow a general outline starting with ingredients, steps or procedure and additional information. Some have sections for various styles of baking the same food.

I would suggest using more of the list form for presenting instructions and procedures as this is easier to follow and more attractive.

Content Rating: 9/10

The look and feel of GrowGuides.net is fairly pleasant, consistent and of course its green color scheme is fitting to its topic as well as the background leaves on the top and the beautiful green plant on the left. It's good to see advertisements adapted to the color scheme as well making them feel better integrated. The mix of orange on titles and borders works quite well with green and gives the site a more bright and positive feel. I also like the RSS button and its position beneath the plant image.

It's overall a neat package with not much to complain about, except perhaps the amount of ads on some pages especially where square ads end up stacked up on top of each other or disrupting the flow of the "share and enjoy" button bar.

I've noticed that the articles are tagged, but there is no tag cloud anywhere so this might be a valuable addition to make.

I think it would be a great idea to add images of plants, veggies etc. that are being talked about in each grow guide so that someone browsing the site can simultaneously learn to recognize or learn visually how each plant looks like. It would also probably add to the visual appeal of articles. This would of course have to be done in a consistent manner across articles and in a way that wont be disrupted by advertising.

I would like to make further suggestions for improvement, but that would probably involve a sort of a redesign that would make the site look more unique and impressive perhaps including such things as a real logo, additional styling of sidebars etc. However this works and is overall not a bad presentation.

Design Rating: 7/10

Focus:

The design style, domain name and titles of the site and articles are quite consistent in terms of conveying the theme and purpose of the site as obviously being about guides to growing.. stuff that can be grown I suppose (including, according to categories, flowers, fruits, plants, trees and vegetables). As such the site is pretty much left to be self-explanatory without any introduction or about page that could perhaps outline some highlights. But nevertheless the purpose is clear and quite singular.

Focus Rating: 10/10.

Content:

I've counted 71 articles so far about growing various flowers, fruits, plants, vegetables which is a pretty good database of information. Articles usually start with an introduction to the thing being grown including its highlights and properties. Some articles follow an outline starting with needed materials then procedures and location while others have numbered steps, albeit numbers are expressed in words which might actually have some advantages. Maybe a good thing would be to standardize on a single outline across all articles as a feature. I personally prefer the numbered approach because it gives more of a "step by step" dynamic to articles which is what most people might expect "guides" to offer.

From a sample I reviewed articles seem to be well written, somewhat engaging especially in the beginning with commentary on the plant being grown and continuing with relatively condensed set of instructions and information regarding the process involved and important preconditions such as the choice of location.

Content: 10/10

First impressions are of a simplistic site with a professional logo and a neat navigation menu. Those happen to be the best things about it, but alas I don't come empty of suggestions and improvements. There's plenty of opportunity here.

First of all, the main menu is quite good even as it is although its vertical size may require people who still use resolutions lower than 1280x1024 to scroll down for the lower menu items. However, it doesn't fill the full width of the sidebar leaving the sidebar border hanging and creating an impression of unnecessary clutter. Fixing this may be a simple matter of adjusting the paddings and width of the drop down menu widget. The border of the sidebar could also be removed. It may be worth experimenting with this, but the idea is to tie up all the loose ends and have everything nicely aligned.

Also regarding the sidebar, the search box on it is too wide to fit within the borders of the sidebar so it sticks out. If the border were to be removed this would be fixed. Otherwise the search input box should be reduced in width.

The main menu seems to display categories and in sub-menus the articles in those categories. This leads me to expect that clicking on the category itself would list all articles in it, but instead it lists only one of them which can get confusing. Perhaps it's not a major issue given that all articles are apparently shown in the menu itself, but it's worth noting. Displaying all articles as drop downs only may also lead to an issue of not all articles fitting the screen and scrolling while keeping the drop down open can get tricky.

Another issue is that it is easy to confuse article titles and titles of sections within those articles in the homepage teasers because the two look too similar to each other. For instance for a bit I thought that "Xbox Live Features" was a title of an article when on a closer look (and a hover with a mouse over the real title link) reveals that this is just a section title, but the actual article is "Free Xbox Live Codes". This issue also adds to a perceived clutter of the homepage as the article and section titles on the homepage interchange with irregular distances. There is also no distinction between the introductory text and the articles.

Making article titles larger than the section titles (which are currently the ones which are larger) and changing their color to something distinctively different would already be of much help. Additionally teasers could be restricted to display only the introduction and no further sections which would make them display even more neatly on the homepage.

Speaking of teasers I noticed that below the teaser for "Free Xbox Live Codes" it says it has 3 comments, but clicking on that reveals no comments on the article page, just "Login to post comments". It's possible that anonymous users don't even have the permission to read the comments, not just view them, which I would venture to guess isn't the intention of the administrator. Otherwise displaying the number of comments seems unnecessary.

Speaking of the article page, the square ad that displays on it has a too low margin between it and the text around it. The result is that it looks more crammed, especially when the image ad displays when it almost touches the letters of the text. Also, the square ad below the article could be styled to fit the colors of the site or at least the colors of the sidebar ad.

All this said, it may be worth experimenting with additional improvements to the design. It might be a little too bare. Perhaps some sort of a distinction between the main content area and sidebars could be added in addition to the fixes mentioned. Maybe a header could be made more exciting. An introduction text could be put in a nice box. Something could be put in the footer which is currently empty.

Design Rating: 5/10

Focus:

While the name Symatech reveals only the tie to technology the introduction makes an attempt at describing the site. There is also a slogan "We help make your life simple" which could either refer to the fact that technology tends to make lives easier or the focus of the site to making complicated things sound simpler. Unfortunately the introduction leaves something to be desired in terms of connecting with the slogan.

In any case looking at a sample of articles and categories it seems to be a general technology resource that dives in a little deeper into more advanced areas such as cryptography, databases, programming, UNIX and so on. Whether it is a general resource or there really is a specific approach or bent to the type of content that can be found should be briefly clarified in the introduction.

Focus Rating: 7/10

Content:

More than 200 articles are available via drop down menus some of which explain certain subjects in technology and others additionally offer practical guides to doing something such as deleting cookies from a web browser. They often use bullet lists and are split into sections. It almost seems like a small encyclopedia of technical information as it covers such advanced things as types of memory (like DDR2 SDRAM), types of storage interfaces (like RAID or ATAPI), networking systems (TCP, DNS, SSH etc.), UNIX commands and so on. So it can be helpful for someone looking to become a little more tech savvy.

Content Rating: 10/10

EasyCookingGuide.com is colorful, "organic" and somewhat elegant, but also immediately reveals some issues. Images of food resources in the header is quite fitting. The way they are split by white blinds and the way left sidebar follows the first green image in alignment is what gives it some elegance. Green search box below that looks like the sidebar is also a nice touch.

The most immediately visible issues pertain to overlaps that happen in the sidebar between menus and a mild overlap in the "share and enjoy" area below posts between the "share and enjoy" title and the corresponding buttons. What appears to be happening in the sidebar is that the height of list menu elements is fixed so some menu link titles don't fit in and instead expand to the next one overlapping with the next menu link. A simple solution is to just remove height:16px; from the .nav li a element in CSS.

Regarding the overlap in the "share and enjoy" area below posts it seems to be caused by display:inline; in the .sociable ul element in CSS. It tries to display the title "share and enjoy" and the buttons that follow in the same line and apparently fails. Just removing display:inline; seems to fix the issue. And while we're at posts I would suggest increasing the spacing between posts (last post ending and next post beginning) and perhaps removing that red bottom border or moving it closer to the "share and enjoy" buttons. This should make things a little more elegant.

Category pages and article pages are quite fine though I would really suggest cutting back on those ads. Articles have three large ad squares in them which aren't even styled to fit in (it appears they use default google adsense colors). In some articles this ruins styling of the "share and enjoy" area and sometimes even chops up the article into pieces completely split by the ads (as is the case here).

Different colors of the name, mail and website input fields in the comment form is a nice touch.

It's a little odd that the "previous entries" and "next entries" links at the bottom of the post listings is in what appears to be dutch rather than english as the rest of the site.

Finally, copyright info in the footer doesn't really fit the background. Unlike the site titles in the header which is big and bold the size of text in the header is naturally too small and thin to fit the background with so many colors split with the white strips. Best thing might be to choose one color instead and use solely that or perhaps make a gradient between the current colors which would at least fade more nicely.

Design Rating: 7/10

Focus:

From site domain name and title to its design and article titles there is strong consistency and clarity of purpose of this site as a cooking resource mostly about specific instructions on how to cook particular meals. There is no about page to provide some background info, but it doesn't seem quite necessary given the obviousness of what the site is about. Not much more to say here.

Focus Rating: 10/10

Content:

Articles usually begin with highlights of a particular meal it is about and then proceeds with instructions split into contextual sections corresponding with types of food or main parts of the process. In some articles it may be useful to offer a step by step process in list form rather than strings of sentences in a paragraph (since that tends to catch the eye and is easier to follow, especially when using as a reference), but even as is it should do the job. There are just over 80 articles in EasyCookingGuide.com which is pretty good. That's 80 different meals!

Content Rating: 9/10

WhyGuides.com in general looks nice and simple with a stylish logo and well aligned blocks of content. The strip beneath the header only contains a home link, though it may be a good idea to also link the logo to the homepage. Sidebar begins with a prominent site search box but feels somewhat interrupted by the ad. If ad was put in the same styled box as the search and "latest why guides" blocks it might fit in better.

Content area looks good with each teaser containing a same sized image with a nice gray border around it. However beneath the teaser list there are two blocks which could fit perfectly and possibly look better on the sidebar instead. The "about us" block could be put just below site search and the video box just below "latest why guides".

The article pages tend to have some issues with ads with two or more large square ads displaying per each page with very little margin and often disrupting the otherwise clean flow of content (overlapping content paragraphs or headings or pushing the "share and enjoy" buttons around). I usually suggest reducing the number of ads in such cases as I think a single well positioned ad which doesn't harm the flow of content is probably better than three of them which do and in the process probably annoy some visitors.

Design Rating: 8/10

Focus:

After reviewing MightyGuide.net and WhenGuides.com it's clear WhyGuides.com is a part of a series. It might even be a good idea to indicate this explicitly across all such sites, perhaps in the footer somewhere. In any case, just like the previously two mentioned sites, the name of the site and the titles of articles match up consistently and clearly making the focus well presented.

There is also an about block with a brief description of the site as a collection of best guides and tutorials on various niches. It might be slightly better to use "topics" instead of niches for a more general audience since "niche" seems more of a marketing term. Also, mentioning the guides are free is redundant since they are clearly accessible without charge and few would even expect otherwise nowadays.

Focus Rating: 10/10

Content:

Over 200 articles answering "why" questions there has got to be something intriguing for almost everyone and there certainly was for me. This type of articles somewhat reminds me of "did you know" types of questions and answers. Some seem just like intriguing trivia and others are actually quite useful or important. Some might not be completely factual however and reflect a cultural belief or opinion, but if taken as such are still potentially valuable.

Articles are presented in multiple sections with headings and aren't too long which makes them easy to read.

Content: 10/10

A more typical, but attractive look adorns WhenGuide.com with a big and bold title in the header and a brown, black and white color scheme. The header also contains an animated banner ad which could probably present its message even without animation which I would assume tends to be better appreciated by typical users (or at least me).
The menu just below the header seems to be linking to first four categories of content which seems a little odd or shall I say incomplete. I would suggest an alternative approach to that. Completely remove the said menu and possibly put a search box instead of it. Then put a drop down menu for categories next to the home link in the menu above the header.

Besides an ad, the sidebar features a search box (which is probably better off somewhere on top such as in a place suggested above) and a neat listing of whole 30 of recent guides, a survival guide video and a category listing. The category listing is however displayed in half of the sidebar width making the sidebar look inconsistent. It's as if something else was meant to be put right next to it on the other half, but wasn't and probably doesn't have to be. It's probably best to make the category listing display in full sidebar width, that is, the same way recent guides are.

Most article teasers in the main content area contain an image, which is always a good thing, but in this case the images are of inconsistent sizes and their positioning tends to be ruined by the ads, such as in the second teaser currently on homepage where it seems the ad has pushed the image down and even some text overlaps it. Displaying ads, especially of this size (300px wide squares), within teasers is probably quite a bad idea and really tends to send the wrong signal in terms of making the reader feel a little bombarded by ads, especially when they actually impair the experience.

There are usually two square ads per article displayed in various positions and sometimes pushing the "share and enjoy" buttons on the side. That's arguably excessive especially given the size of the ads (plus the presence of a third ad at the very top of the sidebar) and their styling which lacks distinction while not being completely blended in either. They stick out, but in my experience they stick out in a not very graceful way. Aside from that, the article title could use a bigger margin or padding between it and the content as well as a larger white space around the images to make it all flow better.

All in all the design/theme is basically solid, but there are significant rough edges which need to be dealt with.

Design Rating: 7/10

Focus:

Right off the bat the name "When Guide" sounds a bit odd and really necessitates context to make sense. In absence of an about page this context is mostly provided by the actual article titles all of which have something to do with "when". This makes it clear enough and also causes a perception of consistency to a particular theme, even though actual topics of these when guides cover a quite broad range.

About page may still be a good idea, but its inclusion here isn't terribly missed. The only thing that could possibly cause a bit of confusion is the menu below the header in that the user would probably expect this to be a main menu (therefore listing all major sections of the site), when in fact it's just first four categories the rest of which are listed in the sidebar.

Focus Rating: 9/10

Content:

There are some quite interesting articles or guides among over 100 that are available, but not all of them are actually guides. Some of them simply answer a question that begins with when and some just describe the situations in which such a question is usually asked without actually answering it such as one about "When will I die?" question. Still, clearly, not all questions can be answered for everyone albeit a guide to a process of answering them for ourselves can be provided which is arguably what's missing in that particular article.

It can hardly be denied however that there's some useful stuff in these articles and that it will probably answer many questions as the site continues to grow. I would imagine it can get quite a bit of direct search engine traffic from people directly asking particular "when" questions and some of these articles provide an efficient answer.

Content Rating: 9/10

MightyGuide.net features a mighty clean design, somewhat atypically putting the logo at the top of the sidebar rather than the header which remains reserved for the main menu. This works well and makes it look more unique as well as efficient. The site tends to give out the attention being paid to detail. In that same spirit, however, there are a few imperfections which I would like to point out.

First, the "read more" button in the "about us" block doesn't seem to work work, albeit there is a prominent "about" link in the main menu at the top.

Secondly, I would make the search box just a little brighter so it is better visible on the dark background on which it lays. Especially on certain LCD screens (like mine), they currently almost blend in to the background if the screen is looked at from a lower angle. Even though, in addition to being a nitpick, all of this really depends on the screen type and settings, it may be best to be safe.

With regards to the article view, there are issues with the ad boxes as the margin between them and the content seems too low and one of the ads sometimes messes up the view and don't always show consistently in the same way. For example, on this page the second ad box is practically in collision with the "share and enjoy" buttons and for some reason jumps off to the right. Having a second ad box might not even be necessary, but if it is kept there is apparently some tweaking to be done in terms of margins and position. And while we're at tweaking ad colors could be adjusted to match at least the ad title colors of the ad in the sidebar. Also, the ad in the about page trumps the available text a little too much. It might be better to use a much smaller format there.

I would also suggest changing the section titles within articles to headings (h2 or h3) instead of using the html "strong" tag making them a little bigger which would make the sections stand out and the article overall more attractive to read.

Finally, I've noticed that many articles that can be accessed via tags and categories menu have nice squared images in their teasers yet none of them are showing with such an image on the homepage. Having an image display in teasers for all articles on site would add to consistency and make homepage and other listings more attractive.

Design Rating: 8/10

Focus:

The name, "Mighty Guide", by itself isn't very clear. However it does fit the purpose of the site very briefly although effectively outlined in the sitewide "about us" block and in the about page. The naming of article titles and the format of articles as "how to" guides ties up the content of the site into a single consistent theme which makes it appear very well focused and gives it identity.

Focus Rating: 10/10

Content:

There is over 300 guides or how to articles available on site put into 22 categories and accessible via the tag cloud so there is plenty to find. Articles tend to be relatively brief and split into multiple sections usually starting with an enticing introduction about why would someone want to do the guided process in question and then proceeding with more information and instructions.

However, given that these are how to guides and often contain step by step instructions it may be a good idea to use numbered lists or subheadings more for each step which would be easier to follow than when the steps are buried within the text of the section.
This is especially important if we assume that the reader wants to actually have the guide open in one window or tab while trying to do what the guide is about elsewhere therefore interrupting the reading often. If each time such a reader gets back to the article he or she has to scan within the text to get where he or she left off it can get frustrating and make him or her look for another guide.

Content Rating: 8/10