In the blogopshere, there are many different platforms for blogging software, along with different places online to blog. One of these popular places to blog is Blogger.com — a free, easy to use, and flexible blogging site.

Many people think that with a free blogging service, you cannot make its design unique and outgoing enough as the paid blogging sites/platforms. For those that think that… it’s not true! You can make your free Blogger.com site look as professional and artistic as other blogs. With this in mind, I would like to bring your attention to a site called BloggerThemes.

This theme site’s categories include:

• Art
• Fashion
• For Kids
• Tech

…and many more!

The theme download files from BloggerThemes are completely free, and are easy to integrate onto your Blogger.com account.

Please feel free to leave any feedback regarding this theme site in our comment section. We would love to read how these themes have worked for you and your blog!

Happy Blogging!

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When I first started writing this article, it started off as ways to improve your site’s success.  Then when I was witting the conclusion of the article, I noticed that it was more about controlling the image of your site.  Here are seven tips which can control the way your blog’s image is protruded to it’s visitors.

1.  Design

I don’t know how many times this has been said, but design really plays an important part in a lot of things, not only websites.   Apple is considered the “hip and cool” computer to use, this is in part because of their advertising, and also because of their design.   When you ask any person if they like the design of any Windows based computer compared to an Apple made computer, you are more likely to have the person tell you that they like the Apple design.   Recently Tropicana redesigned their packaging.  The result was a 20% drop in sales.  This shows how much of an impact design has on people.

2.  Knowing Your Audience.

Knowing who your audience is, is one of the fundamentals in writing.  You have to know where to meet your audience.   If your site is called Simple Photoshop Tutorials, you don’t want to skip steps in your tutorials which a more advanced user may understand.  W3shools.com is a great example of a site which knows their audience.  They will give a step by step description as to what elements and attributes do.  On the other hand, PHP.net assumes that you know a lot about the language.  The examples that they give will leave out important aspects which the writers assume you already know and understand.   Understanding who your audience is will make for sure you are connecting with your audience.

3.  Be Consistent

Consistency allows your users to connect with the site.   They know what to expect when they visit your site.   If you visit the site for Wired magazine, you are expecting something either related to the magazine’s latest edition or something along the same subject.  If you are blogging about current events, don’t start talking about your favorite comic.  The user won’t know what to expect next from your blog and may be turned away.

4. Add Your Personality

Don’t be afraid to put your own options in your blog.  After all a blog is similar to your personal journal or diary that you are letting the whole world read.  Going back to the news example, if you are a blogging about current events explain how you feel about the events.   If you don’t like a certain subject, voice your ideas and why you don’t like that subject.   Your visitors will appreciate your views, and be willing to share their own also.

5.  Interact With Your Visitors

Most popular blogging and content management software, like Wordpress or Drupal, allows you to enable comments for visitors to give you feedback.   Replying to these comments, especially if you think it’s a great comment, will make a connection between you and your site’s visitors.   Even updating your blog entry to include additional information given by visitors is a way to interact with them.  Just remember to give credit to the visitor.

6.  Write About Something You Enjoy

Blogging can get very stale and old really quick.  To keep this from happening, write about something you enjoy doing.   If you enjoy building model cars and think that you can offer tips that will help other people who enjoy the same hobby blog about it.   Not only will you find it more fruitful and enjoyable, but you can interact with the your visitors a lot easier.

7.  Be Knowledgeable On Your Subject.

Blogging is more than just typing an article.   Knowing the subject will help you out along the way.  When blogging about electronics, it will be easier for you to connect with your audience if you know the difference between Ohms and Voltage.  If a visitor thinks you are rambling on about something that you don’t understand it will show.  It will also effect the image of your blog over time.  It only takes one bad apple to spoil the whole basket.   If one user thinks you don’t know what you are writing about, then that user starts spreading word that you don’t know what you are talking about, it can hurt your blog a lot.   At the same time if you choose to interact with your visitors, being able to respond to complex questions will earn you additional respect.

The seven tips above won’t give you over night success, but it does allow you to control your site’s image.   Controlling your image means everything in the business world.  By making your site look well it builds a reputation, and with that reputation you are building a user base.   That user base will continue to grow if you can control the way your blogs image looks to the world.   Sites like Digg, Facebook, MySpace, and others didn’t become a “superstar” site over night.   They were able to make themselves look really good, and built a user base on this.   If we compare MySpace and Facebook, we can see that these two sites, although very similar, have completely different images.   Based on those images, determines what type of user’s they draw to the site.  Just remember, your blog’s image means everything.

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WebProNews recently had a very short but informative video about ads.  In the video, there was talk about how many ads should you place on your page, and how well you should blend the ads into your sites design.   As expected, the video stated that you should balance the ad to content ratio, and don’t have 20 ads for a two paragraph article.  As people try to make money off of sites, this may seem like a strange practice, where newspapers and magazines have a lot of ads per content.  There are some things that are bad about having to many ads on your site.  The two that come to mind are slower page load times, and annoying customers.  When you have a lot of ads on your page, naturally the page will take longer to load since the user’s computer has to retrieve more data.  This can lead the the next issue – annoyed customers.  The web is mostly used for two reasons, one is entertainment, the other is research.  In either situation, the visitors to your site doesn’t want to take forever for your site to load.   Also, if the customer doesn’t think the ad to content ratio is low, they may see the site and either loose confidence in the site, or even worse think the site is there just for the ads.  Either way, it isn’t the repetition you want your site to have.

Another point they do bring up in the video is ad blending.  Jennifer Slegg (the interviewee) stated that ad blending is a good idea, but it seems that the practice has become too well done.   Stating that ads are blending into sites very well, Jennifer informs the viewer that your ads start loosing their effect at that point.  She suggests that web designers find a balance between making your ads stand out enough to know that it is an ad, and blending them into your site design.

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Hi all! I apologize about the lateness of me getting these links to you. There were some minor server problems yesterday that hindered my posting, so I have provided some current links for you:

Rise Of The Blogging Service Industry

Google Updates Blog Search Algorithm

How Twitter Makes You A Better Writer

How To Move Your Blog To WordPress

Is your blog prepared for Earth Hour ‘09?

Happy Blogging!

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A lot of this wintry weather means only one thing… more blogging. I hope these links find you warm:

Can Meta Tags Help Search Engines Find You?

How Do I Promote a Local Blog?

5 Ways Blogging Can Make A Difference For You In This Economy

eBay Founder Now Working On Twitter-related Service

Keep an Up-To-Date Copyright Notice on Your WordPress Blog

Happy Blogging!

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Earlier last month (December), the latest release of WordPress (version 2.7) became available for download. If you have downloaded it already, you have have noticed some interesting cosmetic changes to the admin panel as shown in the image below.

Below are a few insights of the new version, and would be a good read for those who have not yet made the switch:

Dashboard
The sections from previous Dashboards are still there, but now in a columnized arrangement. You may even click/drag elements around on the Dashboard to an interface that better suits you. If you do not utilize a certain element and want it turned off, you can toggle it on or off by hovering your mouse over the far-right where you will see a drop-down to select it’s visibility setting.

A new feature that you may see is “QuickPress.” This allows you to make a post if you do not require any of the additional features that are found on the “Add New” posting page. The only functions of the QuickPress element are: Title, Upload/Insert (image, video, audio, media), Content, Tags, and Publish. If you are working writing a post that you will refer back to later, you may always save it as a draft from the QuickPress element as well. This is a great feature if you’re a blogger on the go!

Add New Post
The interface for the Add New Post section will look very similar to WordPress 2.6.x. Thus, giving the user/writer continuity for the most frequented section of the WordPress admin panel, and also keeping it simple and clean.

Turbo
You will notice on the top-right-hand side of the admin panel a “Turbo” link (right next to “Log Out”). This link will prompt you if you would like to install Google Gears and integrate them with your WordPress interface. However, this not recommend if you are blogging from a publicly used computer since it copies various design elements of the WordPress themes to your computer. More on Gears for Wordpress can be found on the WordPress Blog.

Prior to performing the upgrade on a live blog, I would highly recommend creating a test site (or subfolder/domain) of your blog to test the new version’s functionality. This is extremely crucial, especially if your blog contains and utilizes various plugins as some may not fully work in this new version.

Please feel free to leave any feedback that you may have on 2.7, and how it has either improved or disproved your blog.

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Below I have provided the first Thursday Links post of the new year. I hope that all or some of these may feed your blogging soul:

The Art of One Butt Cheek Blogging

Chinese Bloggers Reach 50 Million

What are Your Blogging Pet Peeves?

Is Live-Blogging Dying?

How Much of Yourself Do You Reveal When Blogging?

Happy blogging everyone!

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With so many new blogs popping up every day, it’s critical that you’re able to make your blog stand out from the crowd somehow. One method for standing out is to feature a unique and creative design that gives your blog a distinct appearance. Here is a look at 20 blog designs that do just that.

Chris Burrows

Josh Tilton

Ma.tt

Wishingline

Studio Racket

Spadewerk

Octwelve

Pienternet

Mapy Blog

Henry Hoffman

Mostly Lisa

Mark Forrester

Larissa Meek

Pointless Ramblings

Basmati Tree

Dollar Short

Psicodelia

Jamie Oliver

Rob Across America

Brad Frost

For more on the topic of creative blogging see:

• The Simple Trick to Ultimate Creativity on Your Blog
• Kill Your Blog Now!
• 10 Ways to Help the Creative Flow

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Most bloggers like to change their blog theme from time-to-time to maintain a fresh look for visitors. Ideally, you’ll probably want to make major changes to your theme every 1 or 2 years and not constantly, but that is a topic for another discussion.

If you use the most popular blogging platform, WordPress, you have basically 4 options from which to choose. Each of the 4 offers its own unique pros and cons, and hopefully one of the options will be a good fit for you and your situation.

Free Themes

One of the reasons so many bloggers use, and love, WordPress is because there are literally thousands of quality themes available for free, and more are being released every day. There is a great variety of free themes, and you can find one for just about anything you can imagine. However, the downside of using a free theme is that it will not be exclusive to your blog and it may not give your blog the optimal look and functionality. The most popular free themes are easily recognizable because they are used by so many blogs. What this means to you is that you will have a bit of a harder time standing out from the crowd with a free theme.

Who Should Use a Free Theme?

Free themes are ideal for personal blogs that are intended to be a hobby rather than a business. In this case, you’re not attempting to make money with a blog or to brand a business, so a theme that is used by other bloggers is almost a non-issue. Also, new bloggers who are just getting started or “testing the waters” may want to use a free theme temporarily until they know for sure what direction they want to go with their blog.

Premium Themes

In the last year or two there has been a huge growth in the number of premium themes that are available. A premium theme is sold be a designer/developer for a set price. For example, you may pay $100 to buy the rights to use a premium theme. Other bloggers will also be paying to use the same theme, so it will not be exclusive to your blog, but it will also not be as common as many free themes.

Who Should Use a Premium Theme?

Premium themes typically feature a very high quality design for an affordable price. They’re the middle ground between free themes and a custom design, and so they’re a great fit for anyone who is serious about their blog but unable or unwilling to pay for a custom design. Additionally, most premium themes will come with some type of support or assistance from the developer.

A Customization of an Existing Theme

Both free themes and premium themes can be customized by anyone to create a more unique look for a blog. If you have a little bit of experience and knowledge of WordPress and CSS, making some customizations to a theme is not that difficult. For example, changing color schemes will only involve making some simple changes to the stylesheet. Adding a custom logo or header image can be done by making some changes to the header.php file.

Who Should Use a Customized Theme?

Anyone that isn’t afraid to do some experimentation with their theme can benefit from added customization (of course you’ll want to save a backup of the existing theme in case you make any changes that you want to undo). A basic free theme can quickly turn into a much more effective theme with a few customizations.

Custom/Professional Designs

Rather than making some changes to an existing theme, you have the option to hire a designer to create a completely unique theme for your blog. This is of course the most expensive option, but if it’s done well it will also have the best results for your blog. There are plenty of designers out there who are willing to do the work, and there is a pretty big variety in terms of price and quality.

Who Should Use a Custom/Professional Design?

Any individual who is making a good income with their blog should consider having a professional design. In many cases it will be money well spent. Most of the top blogs have unique themes, and poor quality design could keep you from reaching your blog’s potential. Additionally, business that have blogs should also consider professional designs, as the theme will be a reflection on the business.

What type of theme do you use?

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I mentioned last week that I’m a fan (and a user) of MetaFilter, the community website. MetaFilter predates the entire concept of “Web 2.0,” but manages to maintain all the things we like best about large communities on the web, while avoiding the possibility of a bunch of crappy Ron Paul posts or questionably relevant links to stories about how some programmer is really upset about… well, whatever it is programmers get upset about.

We can all learn a lot from looking at the things MeFi does right:

A Negligible Membership Fee. MetaFilter charges a one-time, five-dollar fee to join.   The fee was implemented in 2004 as a result of overwhelming membership requests. It’s a brilliant idea; Five bucks isn’t much, but it is enough to ward off trolls, and to encourage people to join only if they really want to. The hassle of dealing with PayPal is by itself enough to keep out the riff-raff.

Compartmentalization. One of the big no-nos on MetaFilter is self-linking; the strict policy against it can get you banned if you try. But founder Matt Haughey appreciated his users’ need for a forum for their own projects, so he created MetaFilter Projects, where self-linking is not just encouraged, but pretty much necessary. It’s yet another in a list of sub-pages designed to relieve the front page of non-essential posts and too-specific minutae, along with Ask MetaFilter (sort of a community advice column) and MetaTalk (for discussion of MeFi itself… a sort of MetaFilter Meta).

Design. MeFi’s design is so distinctive that its members often only refer to it as “The Blue.” (They also call AskMeFi “The Green” and, occasionally, MetaTalk “The Grey.”) There’s nothing striking about MetaFilter’s design, but with its cool blue concept and serifless font, it’s definitely memorable.

Self-Policing. Because the blog is subtitled “The Best of the Web,” and early users fostered a community based on quality, courtesy and a strong adherence to that subtitle, MetaFilter has a powerful reputation for self-policing. A system of tagging and “favoriting” posts allows users to both alert mods to bad posts and reward good ones.

Quality Posts. All of the above factors result in a series of immersive, readable posts every day. It’s not like Reddit or Mixx or Digg or Stumbleupon; at MetaFilter, the users strive to contextualize their posts, often providing multiple links to related material, so that each post is like a reading list on some specific topic. And even when the posts are just single links to things like YouTube videos (ahem), they’re still pretty good.

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