Today is the first day of school after winter break for me. I am really excited for this new term to begin, cause it means new classmates, new friends, and hopefully new eye-candy (girls). That being said, I’m dressing myself up today. I plan on spending some time on my hair, and wearing my contacts. I’m getting out of my lazy mood and really going to make myself look the best I can. This is something you should not only apply to yourself, but your blog as well. You have new visitors coming everyday, and whether or not they are going to like your blog comes with the first meeting of it. Make your blog design unique, clean and comfortable for a new subscriber, just as you would if you were starting a new school year or a new job. Here are some issues with blog designs that will help you gain some points with the newbies to your blog.
Compatibility - I stumbled upon this problem on my blog yesterday when I was at the internet cafe. Their computers didn’t have Firefox, which is the only browser anyone should ever use. Unfortunately, I was stuck using lame ass Explorer 6.0. All my pages were having trouble viewing the way I always saw it in Firefox. My sidebar was below all my blog posts. This was not good for my advertising. So, not everyone’s browser will always be compatible with your blog scripting. Try and make it to the point that it is as clear as possible. Also, recommend your subscriber’s download Firefox. If you are running a Wordpress blog, it uses a lot of CSS. Internet Explorer has serious issues displaying this correctly.
Ads -Yes we do need to use advertising or sell something to make money on our blog. Just try not to overdo it. I am in the process of cleaning this up myself. My side bar is loaded with them. It makes my blog look unprofessional and dirty. Your subscribers also do not enjoy ads. Don’t ad pop ups or pop unders, no matter how good the payout. It is never worth it. How would you like it, if you are talking to some hotty, and then your best friend walks in between you two and starts flirtin’ that babe. Pop-up. Same thing, okay?
Get off of Blogger - For god’s sake, get your blog off of Blogger. I use to run a horrible blog on Blogger. If you want to make a money making blog, you need to put some money into it. Get yourself hosted and using Wordpress. I suggest Dreamhost (if you sign up now with the code “OSIS”, you get $50 dollars off). For other web hosts, check out my Web Hosting link. Wordpress is ages ahead of Blogger. It is more intuitive, and you are much more likely to get a bigger blog readership from a blog that uses Wordpress, than one that uses Blogger. SEO is much easier to manage with Wordpress as well.
These are just some issues, I will be covering more design issues in a further post. Make sure you subscribe so you get it the second it hits shelves.
