This is a paid review and is my honest opinion. My opinion is in no way biased by being paid.

Has anyone heard of Snobtrader? I didn’t think so, but maybe you should hear about it now. Snobtrader is a stock market blog that looks to be pretty new but has some pretty good content on it.

The blog is written by Julius (A.K.A Snobtrader), a 17 year old guy that has been investing for three years. His age could be a deterrent, but with my limited (and when I say limited, I mean limited) knowledge of the stock market, his content looks okay.With the tagline make money by reading my blog and tracking all my trades, Julius certainly has to provide some good content to deliver on that pledge.

The other plus is it appears he really knows his stuff. By looking at his Covestar chart (picture to the right), you can see that he’s been way above the market levels for a while (the red line is SnobTrader while the blue is the market average). It always helps when you’re getting good advice from a guy that actually knows what he’s doing (and in this case it appears Julius does).

Snobtrader talks all about the stock market , specific stocks and results. The blog seems to have been up for three months so is still rising. While there are a bunch of positive things that can be said about the blog, I do feel there are a lot of factors holding it back.

Constructive Criticism

When contacted for this post, I was asked to put out the good, bad and ugly. Well I’ve given the background and outlined a positive (his content), but I do feel there is an overwhelming amount of things on the blog that need to be fixed so the blog can realize its true potential.

The Blog

The first thing I would fix is to get off Typepad (which he is currently on). Personally I don’t like the blogging platform and combine that with a mandatory hosting cost for it and I’d rather use Wordpress. I suggest that the blog be moved to a Wordpress installation (he could get some good cheap hosting at Bluehost or another shared host like that).

I feel this would improve the look and usability of his blog as well as perhaps improving his load time and navigation time (both are fairly slow for me right now).

The Content

The only qualm I have about the content of the blog are the pages. His about page is fine but Julius should split the contact information off into another “contact me” page.

Also I wouldn’t display an unfinished “links” page. I would wait until my page was finished then display it. To go along with that, I would move my “disclaimer” to the footer. The disclaimer is a turn off to some people but I can see why it should be there. I just don’t feel it should be above the fold as it can be a deterrent.

The Design

This is the section that needs a lot of work. As you can see by the screenshot below the design is very bland and not very visually appealing. If Julius is serious about his blog, Id recommend he get a custom theme designed for his blog when/if he moves to Wordpress (or even if he stays on TypePad). A more graphical theme that isn’t so plain would really benefit the blog.

A logo and header is definitely needed either way. The title is just plain text right now and as a result the blog doesn’t have a unique and distinct feel. A logo and header would allow for better branding of the blog and set it apart from it’s competitors.

I would also create an RSS area to allow people to subscribe to the blog. There is a Feedburner email form tucked away in one of the sidebars. I’d move this up and couple it with a subscribe to RSS button to encourage some constant RSS readership of his blog.

Adsense may work as monetization for now but if the blog gets much bigger (or even now) Julius should think about adding some affiliate offers and/or private ad space (direct ad sales) to the blog as well. The one ad block (skyscraper) seems to have just been stuck there and I feel Julian could maximize revenue by using affiliate programs or selling ads to people himself.

I’d also move his twitter down (or even take it off). Twitter update feeds may be cool, but they do slow down your blog, and I haven’t found them to be that useful.

Finally, I’d switch out the favicon from the default TypePad one to a custom one. It takes two seconds to create a custom favicon but it’s worth doing so. A custom favicon shows you care about your blog and also helps people recognize your blog when looking at the url.

Wrap Up

All criticism aside the blog is started and that’s the first step. It has some distance to go but if everything gets fixed up Snobtrader could be a name all you stock enthusiasts see sometime in the future. I know some of you may think I was a bit hard with this review, but I’m just trying to help by giving an honest opinion. I wish Julius the best of luck with his website and I hope it turns out for the best.