Look, I know it's Product Blogging 101, but it always amazes me when I see a product blog like this one that has:
a.) No description of what the product is
b.) No direct link to the product website
So now, after visiting that site, I know that Wakemates are ready. But I have no idea what a Wakemate is, and short of manipulating the URL by hand, I have no way to get to a website that will tell me anything about them.
Since I'm on an iPad, it's orders of magnitude easier to simply hit the back button and write this comment, before forgetting about whatever this product was forever.
You realize that this is a site full of entrepreneurs, who are here to talk about the business aspects of these links, right? If not, I'd recommend re-reading my comment in that light.
As a product company, having somebody actually on your website and interested in finding out about your thing is extremely valuable. It doesn't matter that it's technically possible to find a link to the homepage. The fact that it's not trivial, as in linked from the logo, is what we're discussing here.
If you have a blog about your product, every post needs to contain a way to ensnare random visitors who stumbled in from wherever. The ideal way to do this is a prominent sidebar or header with the product name, a 5-word description of what it does and why you need one, and a big shiny button labeled with your call to action.
That's the "product blogging 101" bit that I mentioned above. That's why these guys need to fix their blog. They're bleeding interested visitors, and that's a big deal.
I completely agree with you: the blog should be better linked and branded. I run into blogs every day that have absolutely no way to get to the main site without changing the URL, and it's incredibly frustrating. I wasn't trying to disprove your overall argument regarding "product blogging 101", merely point out that your specific claim of having to change the URL is false (even if it is clearly non-trivial, relatively speaking, to find said link) and likely had no bearing on your decision to write your initial comment rather than investigate further.
Frankly, your comment came off a bit snarky and holier-than-thou, which is what I was responding to in the first place. The basic merits of proper blog-site interlinking and branding were not meant to be brought up for debate. I take no issue with your points, merely the manner in which you chose to deliver them. Your follow-up here was much more thorough and useful.
The blog post itself has no links sidebar. You have to click on the blog header, and then search for the links sidebar, where there are very small links.
Make some more prominent links, and it'd be great if you had a sidebar with an image of the product and a short description of what it was.
I'm looking at the blog (in chrome) and definitely am not seeing a link to the homepage. I came to the comment section to make the same suggestion jasonkester already made (I manually went to www.wakemates.com to find out what the heck it was)
a.) No description of what the product is
b.) No direct link to the product website
So now, after visiting that site, I know that Wakemates are ready. But I have no idea what a Wakemate is, and short of manipulating the URL by hand, I have no way to get to a website that will tell me anything about them.
Since I'm on an iPad, it's orders of magnitude easier to simply hit the back button and write this comment, before forgetting about whatever this product was forever.