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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

SOB Business Cafe 06-23-2006

June 23, 2006 by Liz

SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking–articles on the business of blogging written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the title shots to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Lorelle VanFossen discusses what she considers as she’s doing an informal study to find out the best days and times to post new content on her blog.

Lorelle on WordPress lorelle_wordpress_com

Keith Dsouza continues his series on the right software for blogging with a post on helping us choose the right blogging software and templates.

Choose the right Blogging Software and Templates

Ann Michael reminds us that all change involves conflict, and explores passive aggressive behaviors.

Manage to Change

Jason at Mental Tech pulls software from his archives to offers us free alternative software for popular office and photo-editing programs.

Mental Tech

Related ala carte selections include

Cheryl at Mad Baggage offers us hope for the Fairy Peguins. Linux lovers should like this.

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like.
No tips required. Comments appreciated.

Have a great weekend!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Filed Under: Content, Design, Marketing /Sales / Social Media, Personal Branding, Successful Blog Tagged With: Ann-Michael, bc, blogging-templates, change-behaviors, Fairy-Penguins, free-software, Keith-Dsouza, Lorelle-VanFossen, Mad-Baggage, Mental-Tech, passive-aggressive, posting-content, ZZZ-FUN

Free Blogspot Templates

June 22, 2006 by Liz

Finally Free Blogspot Templates

I remember when I started my blogspot blog, how hard it was to find any good templates. Now you’ve got some great ones to choose from.

GreatQuestionable? Find: Free BlogSpot Templates
Type of Article: Resource of blogspot templates
Permalink:
http://freeblogspottemplates.blogspot.com/2006_06_01_
freeblogspottemplates_archive.html
Target Audience: Every Blogpsot user

Content: It’s about time someone had mercy on Blogspot users and made some templates with pizzazz. Finally Blogspot goes Web 2.0. This site has archives back to February and has some really cool choices. All they ask for their hard work is that you link back. Not a bad trade for the originality that is offered. Take a look by clicking the title shot below.

Free Blogspot Templates

Why not take this weekend to re-brand your blog or your business? Try new a template to add life and maybe change a bit what you let your readers know about you. A new template can be a great way to catch the attention of new readers . . .

UPDATE: PLEASE READ THE COMMENTS TO THIS POST: mela Says:
That guy at freeblogspottemplates is taking templates found at other sites, stripping them of the link/credit to the site it was found at, and then inserting his own link/credit into the template.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
Great Finds: Over 875 Free WordPress Themes
The Ultimate Blog Directory Handbook: Over 1800+ Submission Sites
Great Finds: EchoEcho on and on and on
Great Find: Easy File Backups

Filed Under: Blog Basics, Design, Successful Blog, Tools Tagged With: bc, blog-promotion, Blogspot-templates, Blogspot-themes, curb-appeal, Design, Emily-Robbins, Great Finds, How-to-Blog

6 Steps to a Branded Business Blog in Record Time

June 21, 2006 by Liz

Branding IS Who We Are

Personal Branding logo

It’s enough to say that a person’s perception is that person’s reality. What a person believes is what that person knows. Most folks don’t think about a difference between the two. Why should they? That’s philosophy. Life works out just fine without having to stop to think about such things, doesn’t it?

What did I just say?

In my own way, I said that customers decide who we are by what they perceive. They are the folks who define a brand. So the best plan is to make sure their perception matches what we want our brand to be, because in their eyes our brand is who we are.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Business Life, Design, Personal Branding, SS - Brand YOU, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, blog-promotion, brand-niche-marketing, business-blogging, customer-relationships, personal-branding

Great Finds: Over 875 Free WordPress Themes

June 13, 2006 by Liz

WooHoo!!! All in One Place

Just updated on May 31st — Believe me, there are WAY more WordPress themes and variations here than the title of the post says.

Great Find: Comprehensive list of 875+ Free WordPress 1.5 and 2.0 Themes / Templates available for download
Type of Article: Resource of link throughs to WordPress templates
Permalink: http://www.emilyrobbins.com/how-to-blog/comprehensive-list-of-615-free-wordpress-15-and-20-themes-templates-available-for-download-266.htm
Target Audience: Every WordPress user

Content: Emily Robbins at How to Blog did the work. It shows. Emily not only made the list, she gives the details. She tells you which templates require word 2.0, which offer 3 columns, and which include WordPress widgets support. She even makes notes on specific themes, such as those that are appropriate for photobloggers. This list might not be as pretty as the WordPress Theme Viewer, but I don’t think there is a more useful list available anywhere. To find the list click the title below.

610 comprehensive list of 685 WordPress Themes

Ready to brand your blog or your business properly? Try new WordPress Theme that says what you stand for.

Congratulations and thank you, Emily. Give this woman links and links. She’s earned them.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
The Ultimate Blog Directory Handbook: Over 1800+ Submission Sites
Great Finds: EchoEcho on and on and on
Great Find: Easy File Backups

Filed Under: Blog Basics, Design, Successful Blog, Tech/Stats, Tools Tagged With: bc, blog-promotion, curb-appeal, Design, Emily-Robbins, Great Finds, How-to-Blog, WordPress-Templates, WordPress-Themes

Do You Know Where Your Eyes Go?

June 5, 2006 by Liz

The Eye Is Quicker Than . . .

Customer Think Logo

We know that we have only a blink, a mere second, for a visitor to decide to stay . . . or go. What they see is the gating factor. They take the page in and the decision is theirs.
A few days ago on Seth Godin’s blog, he showed the results of an eye-tracking study. It’s worth a few seconds to see how those “eyeballs,” that marketers talk about, actually take in what they’re looking at. Click the title to go over to youtube tape on Seth’s blog.

What I learned from Eye Tracking

Is it what you expected? How does a designer design for that?

Gives the term page view a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related Articles
Success in a Blink and a Blink Test
Blog Design Checklist

Filed Under: Customer Think, Design, Marketing /Sales / Social Media, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, blink-test, blog-promotion, Customer Think, Design, eye-tracking, page-view, research

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