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Building a blog, part 3

Read part 2 here

Blogging Logistics, continued:

Give your blog a unique design.

Make your blog design uniquely “you.” It will serve as a visual cue to readers to know they are entering your happy place and can expect a fun read.

A cheap way to alter your blog template is to ask a computer savvy teen or twentysomething to help you “pimp” your blog. Many teens know html b/c of their experience personalizing their myspace pages.

An expensive way is to hire a blog designer. Check out several of your favorite blog designs and figure out who the designer was. Then email them to ask for prices.

Keep the visual distractions to a minimum.

A blog with too many little ads or too many widgets on both sidebars can be distracting to a reader.

Aim for clean lines and good visual cohesiveness. Incorporate lots of white space.

Overall, make sure your nice unique blog design isn’t overshadowed by ads or widgets or flashing bling.

Turn off the music.

Blogs with music playing tend to be distracting. Turn the music off.

This will keep the reader focused on your blog post, not the music.

Also, any readers on dialup will have a hard time visiting your blog if it has music streaming. You want to make sure your blog is easily accessible to all readers.

Save time—blog for the entire week at once.

This is the “secret to my success,” in a sense. I take one day a week and write all the blog posts for the coming week all at once.

It usually takes only a couple hours at most, because each blog post is only 250-400 words. If your post is going long, break it up into two days’ posts.

This is much more time efficient than taking 20-30 minutes each day to blog. Take it from someone who writes for a living.

Don’t waste precious time you could spend on other things. Be efficient with your blogging time.

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Comments

  1. apple blossomWed Nov 26, 06:14:00 AM 2008

    I have to agree with you on the music. I hate visiting sites with music. I usually have my own music going and then get to a site that takes over what I have playing. I hate it. Nine times out of ten my sound is off anyway just because of this.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousWed Dec 03, 06:44:00 AM 2008

    OH yeah, I LOVE doing the whole week of posts at one sitting. It's so great. I just started doing that recently and I'm glad.

    ReplyDelete

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