Thanks Vinay and Sree for those wonderful, insightful review, in fact some of those points gave totally a new perspective, im definitely looking into it.

@Vino – It’s Social Media Management, SEM is so uncool, I’m not into it.

@Saptarshi and Vinay – I may not think about revising the color scheme now, as you will agree that’s quite a lot of work, but yes, the Red color is deliberate. Green, Pastels, Yellow, Off whites are all you’ll see on any corporate SEO/SEM website, and even though it’s cool, I wanted to break out. Im not trying to fit in to the “normal type” or the “oh yellow…that’s a SEO blog” type ! Who knows, may be someone is thinking – “Which is the SEO blog you can think of ? – DSB yes,,that red color..blog with the guys photo..with lot of articles” – And I think I’d be happy at that.

I think all of us will agree on the fact that the design is for the first time guys – ” First timers….5 seconds….Impressed or not ?” is a question to all of us with blogs.
Cos, the ultra cool, savvy, knowledgeable crowd..
- Will track down the RSS feed..
- WIll bookmark it even if there is no button.
- WIll subscribe even if it’s a bad layout.

So first timers v/s loyal readers – was a debate in my head while designing..and I think I’ve struck a good balance.

For the first timers –
1 – Out on your face colors and branding – Good brand recall value.
2 – Good amount of content spread out to convince.
3 – Easy access to “the hooks” – subscriptions, feeds and social network.

For the clever crowd like the bloggers out there –
1 – Amount of articles spread out to convince you.
2 – Community in comments – The bandwagon effect.
3 – I take you for granted. Im not going to market anything to you, take it if you like it. I think I’ve revealed it all.

Jokes apart – thanks a lot guys ! Enjoyed it.

I am no designer, no seo expert, and no usability expert. Still throwing a few cents (remember the economy slowdown!), hope it helps.

I don’t like the red color scheme. Black and grey are fine with me, but not the red.
Marketing text – everyone commented.
I like the logo in white. I am with Vinay : looks better on the left with a lot of whitespace around it. Is that tag line really needed?
Have the Email subscription input box below or above the search box, and have an RSS button also there. Probability for people to sign up for your email service is much better.
You might want to optimize/reduce the number of words in your marketing text. Nobody would read it otherwise. Optimize it for reading and keyword. You can have the marketing text (if you need the text) as a single line below the logo and search/email boxes, but within your red header.
Include a privacy policy (adsense needs it, officially!)
Display categories and tags – if you believe in it.
You may want to change the blockquote image color to fit the new theme color.
Get your Theme XHTML and Stylesheet validated. It’s tough though.
Use some AJAX comments plugin for comments. I forgot to fill in the name and all first and submitted! When I clicked back button nothing was here in the box! I am too smart , so had a copy in the notepad!