Mar | 14 | 2008

Give Your Blog A Haircut

Posted by Jimmy as Blog Tutorial, Linking, Tips, Design We all need one from time to time – how often depends on you. I have this friend who keeps his head almost totally shave so he has to have one every week. Personally, I prefer to get a hair cut every month or so. Same thing with blogs – take a look at your blog. Try to see it from the eyes of an outsider. This could be hard but try it nonetheless. If you can’t be objective, have someone else look at it and give you their honest opinion. Does your ...

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Feb | 27 | 2008

Blog Usability: Navigation Elements

Posted by Guru as Tips, Design As I promised in my previous post I will be listing down ways you can make it easier for readers to look for the information they need in your blog. The truth is that this is all you need to do is give readers several options to navigate through your blog. This is very easy nowadays since most blog tools (Blogger, Wordpress, etc.) automatically generate the code for you. All you need to do is drag and drop and of course specify some fields. Some of the most common and useful ways to help your readers find the information they ...

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Feb | 26 | 2008

Blog Usability: Looking for Information

Posted by Guru as Design One of the great things about blogs is that they are updated really frequently, at least when compared to static websites. Because of the constant influx of new posts you can be sure that a blog generates lots of information. This is a good thing but just like papers that keep on piling up in your desk it can become almost impossible for people other than the writer to look for the specific information needed without specific instructions on where to look. With blogs the site structure is pretty simple since everything is organised chronologically. However this structure is virtually useless ...

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Feb | 22 | 2008

Blog Usability: Page Title

Posted by Guru as Tips, Design One of the most important aspects of blog usability is the choice of page titles. The blog name usually appears as the page title (Note that when I mention page title this means the text that appears on the tab). This is good practice since it will make it easy for your readers easier to find the tab that contains your blog in case they shift to another tab to browse other sites. However, in case your blog name is not that descriptive or somewhat cryptic what you should do is add a phrase to describe the contents of your ...

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Feb | 21 | 2008

Blog Usability: An Introduction

Posted by Guru as Design Blogs have a very basic design with the blog title/header, tagline, content, and sidebar(s). Despite the fact that most blogs basically make use of the same elements the difference between the feel of various blogs is very noticeable. Many blogs with just the most basic of elements use very straightforward navigation but end up really boring and offers no real choice when it comes to looking for more specific information. Some blogs are littered with too many ads and obviously exist mainly to generate profit. On the other hand, there are blogs that really do stand out in terms of ...

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Jan | 09 | 2008

Improving Your Blog in 2008

Posted by Jimmy as Blog Tutorial, Tips, Writing, Design The New Year is about resolutions, isn’t it? Have you made yours yet? Well, at least those pertaining to your blog. One thing that can be said about the blogosphere is that it is constantly changing. Your blog may be good, but it can always be better. There is always room for improvement! If you have not taken the time to think over your “blogging resolutions” for the year, why not join me in going over some very simple yet effective ways to improve your blog. As Jaren said in his post, “start the ...

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Dec | 27 | 2007

Start the Year With a Simple Blog Design

Posted by Jaren as Design and Themes, Tips, Opinion It's the start of the new year and maybe it's time for a change in your blog theme. In my opinion, starting this year of blogging with a new theme, can definitely work wonders to your blog. Now is the time to do away with the clutter and start simplifying your blog. By removing some of your ads, doing away with some of the badges, plugins you have. The more simple your blog looks like the better. When I look a blogs that have too much clutter (full of widgets, graphics, buttons, ads) I immediately get turned off even if ...

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Dec | 18 | 2007

How Easy Is It To Read Your Blog?

Posted by Jimmy as Blog Tutorial, Design and Themes, Tips One of the reasons people frequent blogs is that they find blogs easy to read. If your blog reads like a white paper or an article in a professional journal, the chances are that you might have fewer readers than you could actually have. Have you checked your blog lately? How easy of a read is it? Ask yourself, is your blog easy to read? Here are some tips on how to make it easier for your readers to read your blog. Is it visually pleasing? Take a look at your blog from another person’s point of view. ...

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Dec | 16 | 2007

Blog Themes: Examining Your Capabilities and Motives

Posted by Guru as Design and Themes, Monetization, Writing One of the main considerations when choosing your blog theme is your motive. If your motive for blogging is your own pleasure and don't care whether your blog becomes popular or not, whether your blog earns you profit or not, and whether people will love what you write or not, then choosing a theme is not a problem. You can choose whatever theme you like or not even stick to anything at all and you will still have accomplished your goal - blogging and enjoying it. However, if you are conscious about the numbers or blogging for monetization purposes then ...

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Dec | 14 | 2007

What Should I (Not) Write About: Topics in an Oversaturated Market

Posted by Guru as Design and Themes, Monetization, Writing Last time I mentioned how important choosing a topic is. I also mentioned that on my next post, which is this one, I'll be discussing how to find a blog theme that suits you. However, after having reread an old blog post on Blogging in an Oversaturated Market I realized that summarizing the flowchart he gave on whether you have what it takes to blog about certain topics will be more useful. According to Randfish of SEOmoz there are certain topics that your should NOT even consider blogging unless you pass certain requirements. So before I start explaining ...

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Design and Themes

Is Your Blog W3C Compliant?

Last night I checked my personal blog’s code hoping I can proudly display the W3C Validated Button. Since I use Blogger and do not really do anything to clean up the code (beyond adding Alt-tags to the images I embed) I wasn’t surprised at all to find that my blog contained lots of errors - […]
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Software and Widgets

Wordpress Plug-ins

If you blog using Wordpress and can’t do something that you want done like adding Sphere-related content at the end of your blog posts you might be surprised to find out that there are already plug-ins available that make it happen.
To find good Wordpress plug-ins all you need to do is search for “wordpress […]
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A Friend In Need

I’m helping out my friends from the UA&P - IShareHappiness Blog Team.
Whenever you feel pessimistic, angry, troubled, frustrated, and depressed – what have you – you need someone to talk to. Someone who could help you be more optimistic and help make you feel that there is hope. Sometimes it’s hard to talk to someone […]
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Monetization

Making Money Through Consumer Generated Ads

As I mentioned in my previous post today I will be suggesting some ways you can still profit by joining programs such as Pay Per Post and yet ensure that your readers don’t get turned off.
In my opinion the only way to really do this is by making sure that your blog entries stay […]
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Marketing and Search Optimization

The Blogger’s Guide to SEO

One of the best holistic guide to optimising a blog is Aaron Wall’s Blogger’s Guide to SEO. It is not the most in-depth guide but it covers all the basics (and a bit more) and is written in a such a way that even newbies in SEO will definitely understand. The guide also links out […]
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