NeonScent

9 Effective Solutions to 3 Deadly Blogger Mistakes

Grace — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:35:02 +0000

Everyone makes mistakes; no one is perfect. It’s always good to make mistakes– as long as you learn from them. These blogging mistakes are as common as they are deadly, so if you’re making any of these blogger mistakes, be sure to fix it!

Clashing Design and Content

This is what I call “No Flow”. The “Flow” (way humans read) is left to right, top to bottom– unless something disrupts it and confuses the reader. An example would be a sidebar located on the right covered in flashing advertisements. This also means that the most important things should be placed near the top left region of the page. Make sure you go with the “Flow”!

Solutions

Unclutter and Unclash, please. Hide the time of your post. Hide it now! At least hide the seconds part. And tags– if you decide to display them– more than 5 tags is too much. That just adds unwanted clutter (and drowns the real content). Categories/subsections are a much cleaner way to arrange your content.
Properly align all your elements. Having the author, category, date, and “leave a comment” in one line isn’t very effective.

Stick to one colour scheme. Build your brand. Coordinate all the colours of your blog– there are way too many ineffective designs out there with clashing colours. Yes, red can go with blue. But having a dark blue background and content area with red headers hurts the eyes. Note: Adding yellow doesn’t help!
You can choose from a wide range of premade templates, or pick your own colour palattes from scheme sites like Color Combos, Kuler, Color Schemer, COLOUR Lovers, Genopal, Pixie… there are many other sites that offer similar features– you’ll have to choose the format you like.
Learn to enjoy and use the essence of space. White space. Any space.

Give us eye-candy. Post an image that relates to your blog post. Sometimes it can make the difference between a few more leaving visitors and a few more subscribing readers. Draw the viewer’s eyes to your post. And if they like what they read, they’re more likely to check out some of your other posts and visit again. So make sure you choose an interesting image!

Get a new look. Are the headers drowning into your other content? Do some of the elements of your design look out of place? Are you simply bored of your design? Get a new one! (Check out 111 Awesome Places for Free and Premium Templates.)

Long, Boring Articles

This means that the reader should be able to grasp the main points of your article within an average of 5 seconds. Most articles which cannot be scanned over–in less than 10 seconds–are usually skipped over, unless there is promising or attractive content in the introduction.

Solutions

Write list posts. Start by stating all your ideas in short, distinct statements. Then go on to explain your points under each of them. Why do you like icecream? What kind of chocolate do you like? Would you choose candy over teddybears?

Example:

Scannable articles do make a big difference when compared to non-scannable articles. Some people, like me, scan through the article to see if it’s worth reading before actually starting to read.
A buzzing header that mentally says “Read Me!” is a very hard thing to achieve; not a lot of writers or bloggers know how to make a magnetic or buzzing header. Here are some tips:
- Get to the point; what is the article about?
- Sweeten the deal. Use the power of words to grab the reader in.
A clear topic is a very important thing if you want to be a successful writer. What is your piece of writing about? Should people be treating it as an important document or treating it People read it… then what?

As opposed to:

Scannable articles do make a big difference when compared to non-scannable articles. Some people, like me, scan through the article to see if it’s worth reading before actually starting to read. A buzzing header that mentally says “Read Me!” is a very hard thing to achieve; not a lot of writers or bloggers know how to make a magnetic or buzzing header. A clear topic is a very important thing if you want to be a successful writer. What is your piece of writing about? Should people be treating it as an important document or treating it People read it… then what?

Doesn’t the first one look more friendly and easier to read?

List posts are fun, easy, and effective. But they’re often overused, so remember to write list posts in moderation. Having all of your posts consisting of lists can also get boring– for you and your readers.

Bold or Italic certain points. Your main ideas can be bolded for ease of scanning. Your “Caution: Do not ever…” messages can be bolded. Anything you think is important can be bolded. But keep in mind that your effect will be lost if you bold 2 or more consecutive sentences at a time. The rule of thumb is: only bold a maximum of one sentence every paragraph (usually the first) or every 4-6 sentences.

Get to the point. Don’t wander too far away– you can talk about a scenario or an incident, but be sure to get back to the point, quick. Or else you’ll be loosing readers!

Too-Short “I don’t have time” Posts

Sometimes, you just won’t be able to figure out what to write. You’ll be staring at a blank page for a while. Depending on your blog’s niche, an extremely short post once in a while is fine. But if every one of your posts consist of an image and one sentence describing it, you may have a problem. (Emphasization on “this depends on your niche”.)
Here’s how to fix and present ‘too-short’ posts.

Solutions

Add an image. Similar to the other solution, but with different purposes. Illustrate your point with the image or find something that just relates. You might need the extra volume. After all, you want visitors to awknowledge that you’ve spent a lot of time and effort on your blog.

Insert “fluff”. Fluff is something to increase the volume of a piece of writing. Even statistics and quotes can be considered fluff. Be careful not to fluff every post you write; viewers are going to have you figured out in a few posts.

What other common blogger mistakes bug you? What other solutions do you suggest to these common blogger mistakes?

111 Places for Awesome Free and Premium Templates

Grace — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 02:21:42 +0000

The web is big and it’s bright, but the best designs often get submerged in everything else. A good design is required if you run your own spot on the web.

I’ve looked into the common and not so common corners of the web to present to you: a carefully hand-picked list of awesome free and premium templates and themes for WordPress, Blogger, Joomla, and Drupal. If you’re a designer, you can always tweak a template or theme to bring it even higher.

And to make life even easier, the average prices for premium themes are also listed. (Note: Membership packages offer wider price ranges)

Here are your free and premium WordPress themes, Blogger templates, Joomla templates, and Drupal templates…

Free WordPress Themes

Premium Joomla Templates

35 Beautiful Free and Commercial Joomla Templates
Creative Joomla ($14-$20)
CMS Lounge ($25+)
Mambo Design (€25/year) (Mambo)
Joomla Designs (€25/3 mo)
Pixels Paradise (€25+)
Joomla! Shack ($29.95-$39.95+)
Design for Joomla ($10-$30/membership)
Joomla Bamboo ($40+)
Themes Club ($50/6 mo)
Rocket Theme ($50+/membership)
Joomla Xtreme ($55-$65+)
Template Monster ($30-$65+) (Mambo)
Joomla Templates ($55-$65+)
Templates.com ($60-$65+)
Joomla Bear ($15-$99/membership)
Template Plazza ($39-$189/mo)
Template World ($49.95-$199.95)
Joomla! Junkie ($0-$249/mo)
You! Joomla ($5+/template, $0-$200/membership)
Shape 5 ($0-$255/membership)
JoomlArt ($0-$499/membership)

Free Drupal Themes

Premium Drupal Themes

Drupal Choice ($20/theme, $49+ unlimited)
CMS Lounge ($25+)
OS Skins ($25+)
iTemplater ($30-$45+)
Template Monster ($30-$65+)
Templates.com ($61-$65+)
Theme Stock ($89.99+)
Top Notch Themes ($200+)

If you know any other resources, please post it in your comment!

How does This Look Rock?

Grace — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 02:20:11 +0000

A new look at NeonScent! I aimed for a clean, simple layout to bring out the content.

A heavier emphasis is now placed on subscription services; the feed image is more than twice as big, the Subscribe button for email subscriptions is a darker colour. You can subscribe to NeonScent via an RSS feed or via Email to receive updates straight to your inbox.

The titles are now big and blue– they have a contemporary feel and show up large and clear in most screenshots. (Which is always a great feature to have, in case you want to quote yourself on something or purchase a review from someone else!)
After my brief breakdown, how do you think this look rocks?
Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

NeonScent

9 Effective Solutions to 3 Deadly Blogger Mistakes

Clashing Design and Content

Solutions

Long, Boring Articles

Solutions

Too-Short “I don’t have time” Posts

Solutions

111 Places for Awesome Free and Premium Templates

Free WordPress Themes

Premium WordPress Themes

Free Blogger Templates

Premium Blogger Templates

Free Joomla Templates

Premium Joomla Templates

Free Drupal Themes

Premium Drupal Themes

How does This Look Rock?