Chic Ilan: Small Business Blog of the Day

Now that our first theme week is over (Wine Week), we'll be back to searching for businesses from the complete spectrum of what's out there, at least for a week. I loved doing a theme week, and I hope to have another theme week as early as next week. Any suggestions? I'm thinking Restaurant Week, Coffee Shop Week, etc..

In the meantime, I'd like to give some notice to someone who found this blog on their own and asked to be part of it. I strongly encourage anyone with a business who is blogging to leave a comment on this blog or email me. I won't by any means guarantee that you will be featured, but at the very least I will actually take a look at your blog and consider it. It may help to read our guidelines first.

What it is
Chic Ilan is the website for beauty consultant Ilan Kwittken. For $75, Ilan will make a customized 10-minute DVD for you based on a discussion of your beauty needs.

Features
This is a brand new blog, first entry on April 8. Despite the newness, Ilan has littered the blog with posts. The main reason I chose to write about this blog is because there is clearly passion here in the shear volume of content over such a short period of time. This enthusiasm is great to see.

Favorite Post
Ok, I admit the content of this blog is not exactly up my alley. But here's a post on whitening strips, those clear plastic gooey things you put on your teeth to make them whiter.

"I have tried a few of them now, and I must say, I don't like them.  They are never the right size for your back teeth, they only fit the first bunch on the top and bottom.  This leaves the others darker, and it looks weird."

Further Comments
Despite the enthusiasm, this blog could use a makeover. First, the blog is placed inside a framed web page. No matter what link of the website I click on, the URL in my browser stays the same. This makes the individual posts on the site much harder for search engines to catalog and that could cost a site dearly with lost traffic.

Second, there needs to be more original content on the site. One post reprints an entire People magazine article. While quoting a small part of an article is considered "fair use" in copyright law, reprinting an entire article without explicit permission is a violation of copyright unless you have permission from the magazine to do so.

...and this makes me wonder if much of the writing on the blog is original writing or if it's copy and pasted from advertisements for the products that are reviewed? It is common in a blog to talk about a new product (or a new blog), and it is essential for the author to communicate how this new 'thing' relates to them in a personal way.

This brings us to the writing, which isn't terrible, but could use improvement. Just adding a couple of sentences about how this product affects Ilan personally, or affects one of his clients would make a much stronger connection with the audience. Also, polishing the writing by typing the articles in Microsoft Word and turning on the grammar check would catch many errors that spell checking misses (like using 'their' instead of 'they're'). Finally, while using Word, use the Thesaurus. While reading the articles from the month of April, I found 40 uses of the word 'great' within all the posts. The thesaurus will provide alternatives that will create much more engaging and readable writing.

Tags: chic ilan | Ilan Kwittken | beauty

Comments

[Ilan Kwittken]

Hi Brian'
Let me just say, thank you!! I always appreciate a fair and honest view of my work. My blog is VERY new, and I'm new to the blogging scene, so this was like a seasoned pro teaching me what it good, and not so good. The response has been wonderful so far to the info I post. ALL the writing I do is original(i.e. the tips, the points of view). But I should make it more clear, and I'm really glad you pointed that out plus many other issues. I prefer to give my humble but experienced opinion on beauty, which is my passion, and I'll be including a lot more vlog spots with guest consumer reporters. This blog is a free resource for women, and I want it to grow, and include many important issues(not that looking good doesn't matter). I will take all your suggestions and play around with the form. So, again, thank you!! I hope you come back to Chic Ilan in a couple of days, and maybe feel some parental pride knowing you made a blogger better!
Ilan Kwittken author of Chic Ilan

[Ilan Kwittken]

See, lesson number 2. Proof your work 2x before sending. Sorry about the typos!!(LOL).

[Brian Brown]

Typos make us human. :)

One of the great things about having a new blog is watching it improve over time and there's no doubt yours will improve every week.

Cheers.