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Great Find: Is Your Design C.R.A.P.?

June 24, 2006 by Liz

This link comes from Cat Morley, of Designers who Blog. It was waiting when I got to my computer this morning. If you know Cat Morley and Mike Rundle, you’ll want to read this article as much as I did.

Great Find: How C.R.A.P. Is Your Design by MIke Rundle
Permalink: http://www.thinkvitamin.com/features/design/how-crap-is-your-site-design

Audience/Topic: Blog and Webiste Design Review
Content: I’ve had the pleasure of working with Mike Rundle. I worked with him when Succesful Blog was with 9rules. Mike designed the SOB badge. He’s considered one of the best designers in the blogworld. So when Mike writes about blog design. It’s worth checking, especially when the person who points out the article is Cat Morely, who is also highly recognized for her design skills.

Mike’s article explains a popular design approach and acronym, called C.R.A.P. coined by designer/author Robin Williams. C.R.A.P. stands for

Contrast + Repitition + Alignment + Proximity

In his article, Mike goes beyond explaining each concept. He provides screenshots and reviews the conceptual points in action — when they’re working and when they’re not. Think of this as a multi-page primer of design basics that you want beside you, when you start tweaking at your template. To read the article click on the title shot below.

  How CRAP Is Your Design

Design can make reading your blog inviting, welcoming, and easy on the reader. It’s one more form of branding and blog promotion. Great design lets readers see that you have an interest in them and a stake in what you’re doing. The finest content means hardly anything, if no one can get past the design to read it.

Thanks Cat, for pointing us to this article, and thanks Mike, for taking the time to write it.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
I’ll be adding this Great Find to the NEW BLOGGER PAGE.
Blog Design Checklist
5 Type Turn-Offs that Are Exit Only
Getting Customers to Stop by to See You
Blog Promotion: Checking Out Curb Appeal

Filed Under: Blog Review, Design, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, C.R.A.P.-design, Cat-Morley, Designers-who-Blog, Mike-Rundle, Vitamins

A Timely Reminder

April 22, 2006 by Liz

When was the last time that you . . .

  • found a new blog in your niche to read? New blogs offer new communities of readers with fresh ideas and new points of view. Join their discussion by leaving meaningful comments and trackbacks. New friends there might read your comments and want to find out what you’re writing.
  • tweaked your blog description and checked your directory listings? Blogging is flexible and adaptive. How much has your blog changed since you last read your blog description? Have you visited the directories that you listed your blog in? Listings have a way of disappearing over time. Even when they don’t, they might need revising.
  • organized your archives as your readers would want them? Great archives are super blog promotion. For more on how to think like your readers see Watch What You’re Doing.

What other reminders might we need now that spring is here?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
Blog Review Checklist
Blogger Forums as Promotion
Blog Promotion Basics [for Everyone]
Audience is Your Destination

Filed Under: Blog Review, Checklists, Marketing /Sales / Social Media, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, blog_promotion, blog_review, communities, directory_listings, personal-branding

Welcome to ePublishingDaily.com

February 21, 2006 by Liz

ePublishing Welcome 90

You’ll notice right away when you visit Martin Neumann’s ePublishingDaily that this is not like other blogs that you’ve been to before. First of all, he’s got a Welcome Mat at the door–a Welcome Mat that says ePublishingDaily is there to help entrepreneurs create quality eBooks–and that’s not a Welcome Mat that’s meant to be walked on, or taken lightly. This is an enterprise and an endeavor that’s going places.

Martin’s serious about those words and these:

The idea behind ePublishingDaily.com is that I believe there has never been a stronger demand for quality information. It’s been proven that people are willing to pay top-dollar for e-Products (especially eBooks) that give them what they want: clear, concise and affordable information on niche topics.

My ideal reader (but I’m happy with any and all readers) is the serious entrepreneurial blogger looking to make their blogging profitable by developing e-Products for sale.

To you, welcome to ePublishingDaily.com – a news and information blog that will keep you up-to-date on the information products industry. A mix between news and commentary, I’ll be endeavouring to provide you the best resources available on the Internet …

The Internet needs quality eBooks from a real journalist.
Good Luck, Martin! You’re just the guy to do it.

If you want to know what’s going on in the world of ePublishing, this is the newsite to bookmark, the industry watcher to keep an eye on.

Click the logo to pay him a visit.

www.ePublishingDaily.com Logo

When will your next eBook be coming out?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Filed Under: Blog Review, SOB Business, Successful Blog, Tools Tagged With: bc

Newsweek Tells What’s Bloggy Hot–NOT!

January 29, 2006 by Liz

Newsweek logo

Today in Blog Watch at Newsweek

Do you know Blog Watch? The tagline is A mainstream-media snapshot of what’s hot (and what’s not) in the ever-widening world of weblogs.

Here’s January 30, 2006 selection.

Hot?
Making fun of celebrity fashion–gofugyourself.typepad.com
A war of words over the New York Knicks–deadspin.com
A Mel Gibson parody that Mel is threatening legal action–melgibsonsblog.blogspot.com

What’s Not Hot?
Blog Watch didn’t mention. Darn. It’s probably what I’m reading.

How many blogs are they watching ? . . . Makes me wonder about their criteria. Think a hat was involved?

I have an idea! Why not have a blogger write Blog Watch? What a concept!

Okay, so it was just an idea. . . . What would I know?
I’m just a blogger, not even a hot one at that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Filed Under: Blog Review, Business Life, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc

Great Find: Blogs about Blogging

December 11, 2005 by Liz

blogging_wurk_net Blogs about Blogging

Great Find: Blogs about blogs, blogger, and blogging by Barry Bell
Permalink: Blogging/wurk.net/
Target Audience: Anyone interested in Blogs about blogging

Content: Somtimes you can read someone’s writing and know you’d have a fun time at dinner with him. That’s how I feel about Barry Bell. In this, what amounts to his Top Nine blogs about bloggers and blogging he gives a tongue-in-cheek review of who should be reading each blog and why they should read it.

Included are Problogger, Jack of All Blogs. Blogebrity, Workboxers, Performancing, Successful Blog, Blogherald, Blog Network Watch, and Pajamas Media. In it he says things that I realize I’ve known unconsciously, but never actually put the words into a thought of my own. One or two of the descriptions were so perfect, they made me laugh out loud with their honesty.

For new bloggers, especially those who’ve not taken a course in marketing this review shows fine examples of product differentiation. All of these blogs basically “sell” the same thing. However, each has chosen to serve a differerent market niche and has developed their blog to that audience with that purpose in mind. The product differentiation is so clear that Barry Bell as a reader can state in a few words who each blog is meant for and what purpose it serves.

Barry has nailed it, and done so in a post that is an easy, fun read. Seven of the eight of the judges give Barry a ten and pass this one into the gold medal final round. The judge from New Zealand, who’s still sleeping–he phoned in a 9.9. The NZ judge does that sometimes.)

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Filed Under: Audience, Blog Review, Marketing /Sales / Social Media, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc

Great Find: GraphicPUSH

December 9, 2005 by Liz

Since this week has been about Design, I thought you might enjoy exploring this Great Find over the weekend.

Great Find: GraphicPUSH by Kevin Potts
Target Audience: Everyone who’s looking for or learning about design
Site Type: Design Site
Content: The quality of Kevin’s work shows in his own site’s design, in the relevancy of the topics and transparent, well-thought, well-written content of his posts. He markets his work with generosity by providing a quality free offer–three sets of beautifully-rendered free icons to spice up your own blog’s design or your desktop.

Notes: Don’t cheat yourself by jumping straight down to click through to the free icon sets. There’s plenty to see, and to learn about, if you go exploring on this site. Be sure to read the 9 rules that he wrote. No I didn’t realize this was a 9rules network member when I found it. I went there for the free icons I could get for you–and was delighted to find so much more.

More Great Blog Designs to Discuss

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Filed Under: Blog Review, Content, Design, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc

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