Successful Blog

Optimal Elements: Two Column Blogs

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A Guest Post by Louise Baker

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Let’s face it – there’s no aspect about your blog that is more important in the long run than its design. No matter how good your content, no one is going to want to read your blog if they can’t get past the design. As blogging becomes more mainstream and advanced, design elements are becoming more and more flexible, allowing people to do whatever their imagination desires in terms of their blogs’ layout. Unfortunately, this has led many bloggers taking the route of overcrowding their design. Two column blogs are considered to be the most streamlined and clean type of design, and there are many tweaks that can be made in order to optimize this layout.

Designing a two column blog is all about working as clean as possible. Blogs are like periodicals, and the idea behind this realm of design is to make the content as attractive looking and easy as possible to read, so as not to alienate any visitors. Since two column blogs are somewhat minimalist compared to 3 column blogs, you have a much larger area to work with regarding content. This will allow you to mess with font sizes and photo layouts until you come up with what you feel works best. Finalizing a design is all about trial and error, and often comes down to personal opinion. Regardless, it helps to have a few associates or friends critique your layout.

Since two column layouts tend to have less sidebar room than other types of layouts, the framework itself forces you to be minimalist, which is a good thing. Instead of crowding your sidebars with widgets, comments and the like, make an effort to design them to be as clean as possible. There are other areas on your blog that you can sneak in a few widgets, but you should strive to keep your sidebars clean.

Remember that the most important part of your blog is the content, but the design will determine how the content is viewed. Choose fonts, sizes and other variables that really seem to stand out to the reader. The design is not meant to be focused on. In fact, its main goal is to let the content shine while helping out backstage. If your design is clean, your content will pop. Take this into consideration and your next blog will look clean and professional.

Here’s an example of a clean, well-designed two column blog.
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Louise Baker ranks online degrees for Zen College Life. She most recently wrote about the best colleges online.

Thanks, Louise. A clear path to information is so important to online learning sites.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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“Is your personal Web site an embarrassing entrance to your online house?”

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A Post on Web Identity by Sheila Scarborough

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If someone wants to know more about you before deciding to do business with you, they do not want to have to sort out your all-over-the-place lifestreaming babble on Twitter or Facebook or your 3 different blogs (at least no one probably wants to dig through mine!)

They want to be able to go to one place and quickly figure out what you’re all about.

The question is, in the fragmented social Web, which is the one site where people can go to find out what they need to know about you and your talents….and is that site an accurate representation of your various talents, skills and current interests?

I’ll bet that place is not your personal Web site.

You know the URL I mean: www.YourName.com that you bought years ago, stuck into a basic site design template with a few links and a photo – WooHoo 2005! – and then ignored because you went off to start a blog (which was vastly more entertaining and malleable than a dumb old static Web site.)

Here’s the problem….if you Google yourself, where does that website show up in the search engine results? If you’re like me, it’s at the very top, sometimes even above the blogs, LinkedIn profile, etc.

Your most disheveled online self is the first one that many strangers see. It’s not only your digital bra strap showing, it’s your pants on the ground!

Google my name, and the first thing that pops up is my clunky, unloved, ignored Web site that I set up to be a freelance print writer’s portfolio exactly 9-12 months before I realized that I didn’t want to be just a print writer. Since I’ve lost interest in the original purpose, I’ve lost interest in the site.

Sure, it is one-stop shopping for all of my projects and I do keep it updated, but it is a visual wasteland and I’m too cheap to spend any money on it. I’m embarrassed to include the URL on my business cards even though it would be easier for my customers to find me there. I have the URL in my standard email signature, but I often erase it before I hit “Send” because the blog URLs that are also in my signature are much more reflective of my best work “here and now.”

This is absurd, but what can one do with the blasted things? There’s probably a solid place for that site in your online portfolio, but you and I both need to figure out how it fits who we are and where we’re going. The answer is to either suck it up and spend time/money on a redesign, or do something now to make it less embarrassing.

One possibility: why not turn it into a nice jumping-off point for your many endeavors? If people are going to show up at that URL, give them something nice to look at and then get them the heck out of there.

Steal this idea – and I probably will, too – a “business card” landing page on your personal name site that only exists to send visitors over to the real party. For example, look at Becky McCray’s site. She has a (professionally made) welcoming photo on one page, with links to all of the other sandboxes where she works and plays. People can scroll down, pick one and launch.

Obviously, control your own domain name on the Web when it is possible to do so, then put a site there that is worthy of you. You’ve worked hard to have a respected name and reputation; ensure that your personal site reflects that as much as the rest of your online “house.”

Is your personal Web site an embarrassing entrance to your online house?

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Sheila Scarborough writes at Sheila’s Guide to Good Stuff , for Family Travel Guide and the Perceptive Travel Blog. She also covers drag racing for Fast Machines. Tourism Currents is what she’ll be talking about at SOBCon this year. You’ll find her on Twitter as @sheilas

As always, Sheila, I loved every word of it!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Blog Design Types: How Do They Affect Reader Comments?

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I've been thinking . . .
Yesterday, I had breakfast with Steve Farber. Our discussion included comments and conversation on blogs. I mentioned what I’ve been noticing as I begin working with a designer on a facelift for Successful Blog.

The key point is that the longer I study designs I might like the more I realize that design affects how and whether I comment.

It makes sense really. We recognize a restaurant we want to try by its decor. We decorate our houses to reflect what is important to us. Why wouldn’t blog design reflect the blog owner and the audience? It seems a natural next step to think that blog design affects whether I comment.

Not all readers respond as I do, but decades working with readers online and off has taught me that many do. So, I’ve collected these thoughts:

  1. Some designs are all rules or all whimsy. They might be mature and thoughtful, but they have no emotion. They might be fun and friendly, but they have no sophistication. It’s hard for me to find a fit in either. If I don’t fit, I worry that my comments will be misinterpreted. Designers should know I comment on these blogs despite design not because of it.

  2. Some designs are highly structured — all things are outlined and in boxes. I know from print, that some folks find high-structure a comfort and others find it limiting. High-structure design makes me feel there is only one right answer. I’m careful when I comment on blogs with high-structure designs. I think that information bloggers and corporate blog designers should know this about me.

  3. Some designs are wide open — the extreme example is the white page with no lines or boxes. The overall feeling could translate to standing on an open prairie where horizon is visible in all directions. I so like reading these blogs that I thought this was an option I might try, but when I went to comment on one my comment seemed so public. It didn’t mind sharing my thoughts in this venue, but I knew I’d never get in deep discussion. Someone who wants me to get to the point and keep moving should be aware of this response.

  4. Some designs have a sense of openness and intimacy about them. They offer a defined space with atmosphere that offers room to breathe and think, and a boundary from the rest of the world. These designs feel fresh and familiar at the same time. I seem to know I’ll like people I’ll find there before I start to read. Designers looking to build a community blog should understand the attraction of these intangibles.

We know Successful-Blog is about relationships and conversation. Our kind of dialogue takes place in comfortable spaces, in places intimate and nonjudgmental. High-trust environments don’t happen when there’s only one right answer, when the whole world is watching, or when we have no sense of where we are or who we’re talking to.

Great design weds emotion and structure. Great designers weave and craft the subtle and intangible values of a brand into a design. Great design underpins and underscores who you and your readers are. It is the visual expression of the story your blog is telling in the words.

My comments might begin with a thought, but the execution, the actual writing involves a personal, emotional investment — a putting myself out there. A blog’s design helps me understand whether I’ll be supported in that effort. I guess it tells whether my comment is welcome.

How does the design of your blog reinforce the story of who you are? What else have you noticed about how design makes you feel while you are reading a blog?

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Adding a WIDEbar — a 2-column widebar — to a Blogger Beta Blog

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Blogger Beta Gets Cool

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Blogger Beta is finally tying up its loose ends, presenting templates with style, and offering bloggers new functions. Hackers are having fun with making changes too.

Great Find:
Adding a wider-sidebar to your blog
Permalink: http://stubborn-fanatic.blogspot.com/2006/11/wider-sidebar-widebar-sidebar.html

Target Audience: Google Blogger and Blogspot blogggers
Content: Documenting Fanaticism is a real find for Blogspot bloggers. From the moment that you land on the home page, you’ll notice that the familiarity of the template only serves to show you the skills of the blogger who has made it into something more in so many ways that haven’t been seen before. Tabs across the top announce and organize the blog into well-defined site locations:

  • Home
  • beta hacks/talk
  • Book Reviews
  • contents
  • projects
  • quotes
  • software
  • Disclaimer

The blog itself welcomes readers with the following statement:

Welcome to the new layout of my blog. I am very happy to announce that with this new layout, my blog is now fully compatible with internet explorer as well. If you like this layout, learn how to implement it here.

The “here” it speaks of is the Great Find I’m sending you to. Click the title below to get there.

Adding a wider-sidebar to your blog

Blogger Beta has taken hold.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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