For the blogging assignment, I chose two blogs from influential women in agriculture. Both of these women’s platforms were referred to me as credible sources of information when I was preparing for the National Beef Ambassador competition in 2015. Bovidiva is based out of the United Kingdom and Dairy Carrie resides in Wisconsin.
Below is a short video clip which provides an overview about both of the blogs I am evaluating.
Blog effectiveness reaching audience:
In my opinion, both blogs are doing well at this. The credibility they established through their blogs, has led to both women being asked to speak around the world on behalf of the agriculture industry.
They both know their audience and the menus are tailored to helping readers find exactly what they’re looking for — quickly. Dairy Carrie knows that she has a wider array of people who will be visiting the site: moms looking for recipes, consumers interested in dairy farming practices, personal acquaintances interested in her personal life, etc. Bovidiva, on the other hand, knows that a large majority of her audience is people who are already in the agriculture industry. Blog visitors for Bovidiva are often wanting to access her research. For that reason, her menu is categorized by different materials she has created (research posters, presentations, publications, and videos).
Design aesthetics:
When it comes to design aesthetics, Dairy Carrie (right, below) steals the show for me.
Her design is cleaner and the layout is easy to follow. The menu in the header has drop down boxes that add an ideal amount of organization to the blog. Throughout she has creative photography that is bright and eye catching. Because her background is white, she has a large amount of freedom with her color scheme and this avoids clashing of colors within the photos.
Bovidiva (left, above) has a site that to me is solely content based. There is very little aesthetic appeal. It is a sort of “what you see is what you get” approach. The photography is not bad, but it is of lesser quality and looks like quick shots that were taken on a cell phone.
Contents:
Although I wouldn’t consider Bovidiva the trendiest, or most attractive blog, I don’t think that hurts Bovidiva. The value of her research and data has proven itself. When people come to her site, they are coming for factual information that can help them spread the true story of agriculture — her site provides that.
Her content is diverse and covers an array of topics in the agriculture industry. Site visitors can gain access to her research publications or infographics that she has created which can be used on social media. Those are found in the infographic archive.
Dairy Carrie is also doing a good job of providing quality content. Her content is more varied which is why there is a bigger variation in word count and frequency. Her posts range from information posts about dairy farming and crop farming to a myth busting section. She also an entire section devoted to recipes.
In the tidbits section, readers can find more random content such as gift guides and travel content. This section of content is most likely geared towards the subscribers of Dairy Carrie who are interested in her personal lifestyle and are not just coming to the blog for educational information.
Final thoughts
Overall, I think both blogs thrive in creating content tailored towards their audiences. They are not on the same design level, but both are adequate when the audience is taken into consideration.
Sigmon Simmentals 