For my third peer review, I am going to read Rain Mutlu’s blog small steps in a big world
This blog is about traveling and photo sharing, Rain has loved freezing moments to keep them forever and she would be more than happy to share those memories with her audiences, she mentioned that she decided to create this travel blog where she talks about what kind of feelings the places she went to trigger in her and what kind of feelings they might awake in you. I believed this is a romantic idea that will create a bond with readers and express the emotion together through reading blogs.

Speaking of website design, this blog holds simple aesthetic with white and black, author decorates some visual pictures in each post, because it is a travel blog, so I would recommend adding more travel photo to replace other types of pictures, otherwise the online identity is not clear and may leads this website looks like a business or personal blog without certain theme. The scroll bar on the homepage as one of the first things viewers see when they go to her website is a good design that Rain can utilized to capture audiences’ attention, it is an important part to create interest and convey the blog’s identity in a clearer way, thus beautiful travel image is needed. Besides, the menu and category widget, which are very helpful to help her viewers choose what they want to read. Generally, more vivid designs for travel blogs may help increase the participation between the author and audiences, as it would make the reader more interested in this blog.

Moving to blog content, her blog posts are very interesting and I really enjoyed reading her travel experience. Compared to other travel blogs, this one is a little bit different, it focuses on emotional expression rather than traveling itself. In a recent blog, Rain said she wanted to focus on small and unpopular places in certain locations rather than traveling around the world and briefly talk about the must-seen-places, she shares many Vancouver spots, because this is a travel blog, it is better to write about other places rather than local, otherwise the blog theme needs to be more focused. Also, the featured image on the blog post needs more charming, which will attract more audiences to read the content and help her to increase the target audience, otherwise it makes them feel confused about the blog content. A few changes would make these posts even better, the typeface she will use also can be more unique in the future.

For marketability to their intended audience group, I think to create a specific theme and adding more attracting travel elements or design will help her to create a more unique and interesting blog, which become easier to market with a more specific group of readers. By the way, the automatic pop-up window is really disturbing for audiences so I do not suggest to install this. When I was reading a post intently, this window made me feel really annoyed and want to quit this website. Personally, showing Instagram photos on the homepage will help to increase awareness for this blog and bring traction. Some adjustment will attract more fans and prepare for Rain’s future blog marketing and digital monetization.

Overall speaking, Rain’s traveling blog is relatively different than other travel blogs, I will continue to read the website for new posts in the upcoming weeks and hope to see more interesting things!
–who can reject a dreamy trip to Italy?–
some of my photo collection, hope everyone likes it!