Encouraging Your Readers to Share Your Posts With Social Media Badges

You’ve put all that time and effort into writing awesome content. These plugins make it easy for your readers to spread the word, share your content, and hopefully drive more traffic to your blog:

ShareThis is one of the most popular social sharing plugins for Wordpress. You can see it in action on this blog, it’s the little green “Share This” icon at the end of our posts. When you hover over it, you’ll see a box with social media icons in it. Go ahead. Fiddle with it. You know you want to. If you install it, you can customize it for your blog and pick the icons you want to include.

Sociable is another popular plugin, and you’ll see this one at the bottom of our posts too. It’s the row of social media icons under “Share and Enjoy.”

AddToAny also gives you a small Share/Save button  that displays a box full of icons when you hover over it. This box looks like a tabbed widget and includes a tab for “email” and “bookmarks.” You can see it in action here.

Add To Any

Share is very similar to AddToAny. You see a small “Share” button that displays a tabbed-style box when clicked. In addition to social media icons, Share adds options for the user to Print, Save as a PDF or Word document, and email your article to friends. There’s a demo on the Share site.

Share

Bookmarkify is similar to Sociable. It includes icons for 50+ social networks, and “Email This,” Bookmark, and RSS Subscribe options. You can see options and the “themes” available on the Widget Viewer page.

Sexy Bookmarks is social bookmarking eye candy. The icons “slide up” when you hover over them. Yeah, I guess that’s kinda’ sexy. See this page for a sexy demo.

SexyBookmarks

SocioFluid is another social bookmark plugin that’ll make your readers look twice. The icons can be set to change size when they’re hovered over, giving this one a nice interactive effect.

SocioFluid

DiggDigg Don’t let the name of this one fool you. Of course, you get the Digg button, but this plugin also supports the other major social network (including Google Buzz), and lets you choose which social badges to display and where to put them.

DiggDigg

DragToShare Xtended uses a different interface for those of you who are tired of the badge bars and boxes. As the name implies, this plugin lets your users drag images from your blog to a social network icon to share the page. Hard to describe, but fun to play with. Here’s a live demo. DragToShare Xtended currently supports these social sharing networks: Twitter, del.icio.us, Facebook, Digg, LinkedIn, MySpace, Reddit, StumbledUpon, and Technorati.

If you use Twitter, there are plenty of plugins out there to help you reach you peeps with your tweets. Or is it twits? Whatever. Here are a few good ones to get you started:

TweetMeme Button adds a button to your blog that makes it easy for your readers to tweet your post.  It also gives you a live count so you know how many times your article has been tweeted, and it integrates URL shortening. There are other options you can use to customize the plugin. More details are on the Wordpress Extends Download page

Tweet This adds a “Tweet This” button to every post and page. It shortens the URLs, and can  automatically tweet new blog posts. It also has support for other social networks (Plurk, Yahoo Buzz, Delicious, Digg, Facebook, MySpace, Ping.fm, Reddit, and StumbleUpon).

TweetThis

Tweetable helps you integrate all your twitter-ness into your Wordpress blog. It’ll tweet your posts, display your latest tweets in a sidebar widget, display the TweetMeme button, and even lets you tweet right from your Wordpress dashboard. Sweet!

If you’re using the new Google Buzz, WPGoogle-Buzz will put the buzz button on your blog. You can choose from 14 different images and mouse-over effects.

WP Google-Buzz

As you can see, there are a ton of social networking plugins available for Wordpess. Hopefully this list will save you some search time and help you socialize your blog in style. Got a favorite that’s not on the list? Leave a comment and let us know!

If you found this article helpful, pass it on to your social network!

We got a new toy (a groovy HD camcorder…with a remote!) so I decided to do a video update this week.  I really think the remote option should come with every flip-type camcorder. With more and more people doing videos on their blogs and websites, It makes sense to be able to sit in your chair and be able to start and stop recording without getting up or fiddling with your keyboard. I’ll do a review for our video camera after I’ve had some time to get more familiar with it. So far, I’m impressed with it, especially for doing blog videos. But you’ll have to let me know what you think. Does it work here or not?

Progress Overview

Overall, our frustrations with blog design and time management continue to be a thorn in our sides. However, we’re still making progress and we’re pretty excited about what we’re doing. You’ve gotta be stoked about your passion, otherwise, the first brick of frustration would knock you right out of the game. But we’re not going anywhere, except straight ahead, steady and strong.

Looking, Numbly, at a Blank Page

Ever happen to you? It happens to me all the time. I sit down to get some work done, which often means I’ll end up having to do some research to figure out how to do what I don’t know how to do but know I want to do….if that makes any sense. What ensues is an hours-long wild goose chase into the abyss of the unknown and darkened corners of the Internet. Okay, I can hear you asking, “What the hell are you talking about?” This is my set up for…

Challenge No. 1: Getting Something Done When You Don’t Know What You’re Doing

Let’s take, for example, blog design. I have pretty much four options. I can use a free blog theme, purchase a pre-designed theme for my website, I can hire someone else to create one for me, or I can do everything myself. Dilemma: 1) I want a professional-looking site (a non-negotiable for me, probably related to control issues or something) and none of the free or premium sites I’ve found have the look I want or are organized the way I want them to be; 2) I can’t afford to hire someone to create a site for me; 3) I don’t know HTML, CSS, PHP, JQuery, SQL, NFL, UFO, or any other alien sounding, blog-design coding stuff. That’s when I have those lovely, blank-page stare-downs…which I always seem to lose.

Challenge No. 2: Learn a Foreign Language in One Hour Per Week

Back to the blog design example. Logic tells me that I can either way simplify my blog (perhaps making it look much less professional – a No-Go for me) or learn the foreign language of website design. Dilemma: 1) I could care less about learning the language required so I can design my website; 2) I don’t want to compromise on how my site looks or at least I want to compromise as little as possible; 3) I’m presently working a full-time job plus overtime. In the end, I just want my blog to look how I want it to look. I know there are those of you, right now, saying to yourself, “yeah…but HTML is so simple!” Well, jumping out of a plane and falling 10,000 feet to my death is simple too! The point isn’t about how easy or hard something is, the point is to find the fastest and shortest distance between point A — where you are now — and point B — where you want to end up.

Challenge No. 3: The Art of Chasing My Tail

Time marches on. You can never go back and redo any slice of time once it’s gone. That means you have to make the best use of your time every minute of the day. I hope everyone appreciates this as much as I do lately. Dilemma: 1) How do you get a website designed in your spare time when you’re the designer and you don’t know what you’re doing?; 2) How do you research something so you can actually make progress when you don’t even know where to begin researching?; 3) How much time should you spend doing research when you don’t even know what is the best use of your time? All of this is a vicious cycle, that, once you’re trapped in it, is very hard to get out of, and very hard to make progress.

Sadly, this story doesn’t have a happy ending. I’m not writing about all of this so I can wrap it up in a nice, tidy package with a bow and give you all the answers to the challenges I’m facing. Mainly, because I have no freakin’ idea what they are! But this, my friends, is exactly where I am today (and Tammy is facing much the same challenges). Prioritizing my time means probably having posts here coming out every-other week or so, because time is so limited. It’s best to spend it chasing my tail…or rather trying to make some kind of meaningful progress by focusing on finishing and launching my blog. I marvel at those of you who can throw together a website and an ebook in a month and be up and running while I’ve been working at this for over a year…rock on! But then I have to remind myself that I have a full-time job, I’m working overtime, and that I took the time to set up an LLC (and all that goes with it), which most people don’t take the time to do. It’s not required, but I wanted the extra layers of protection because of the nature of my business.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on here. We’re very frustrated at times, but were just as enthusiastic and determined to succeed as ever. Last, but not least, Tammy and I are thinking about doing some video posts in the future to try it out and because I think it would be faster to update everyone on our progress. We’ll see what happens. Meanwhile, I wish you all the best of success and thank you for stopping by here. The fact that you take the time to come here and connect with us, by commenting or even just reading, is very appreciated by us. Until next time…

For next week: We will continue to work on the designs for our blogs. We both need to decide exactly how we want our blog to look and act so that we can start finalizing the design aspects and start focusing on content.

Currently, Tammy is doing contract work for Lionbridge, which means she’s working part-time from home. She has also been researching and setting up accounts with wholesalers, hoping to find some physical products to sell to her target market.  She’s also been researching various e-commerce options. Expect to read more about this in the near future. I’ve been working overtime at my day job which makes it more difficult to move forward as fast as I would like. However, I have a job working 40 hours per week and I accept that fact. As much as I want to quit my day job and work for myself, we have bills to pay and other financial responsibilities so I’m not going to get ahead of myself and quit prematurely. I know that this is the route that some take and that’s okay if they can make it work, but I wont risk my credit score and stable finances by rushing this process. I’m just going to keep making as much progress as I can within the limits of the circumstances I find myself in. One thing is certain, the only thing that can stop me from reaching my goals is if I stop making progress. As the saying goes, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Then it’s a matter of taking another step…and another…

Tammy and I have both started playing around with developing our blog themes. With the recent successful conclusion of our logo design contests at 99Designs, we now have the logos for our sites and we’re trying to figure out how to get our blogs to look and function the way we want them too. Sometimes it’s hard to know when it’s better to pay someone to do something for you or to do it yourself. Neither of us know how to code a blog. Headway makes a lot of it easier but we still have to weigh out whether we should take the time to study the stuff we don’t understand yet or pay someone to customize our sites for us. Since we don’t have unlimited funds, that decision isn’t so easy to make. I don’t have a lot of spare time so paying someone to customize my blog to my specifications might make sense. But I want to learn how to do it myself, so I don’t mind taking the time to learn. But, again, spare time is something I don’t have a lot of laying around these days. So we’re trying to balance this out by doing whatever we can first and see where it leads us. If we have to pay someone for a little help, we’ll do it when we reach that point.

Other than blog design, I’ve begun posting to my blog, and again, here is that time issue. Should I focus my time only on blog design to speed that process up, or take the time to write blog posts which will put me ahead when I officially launch my blog? Right now, I’m opting for doing a little of both. Ultimately, it won’t matter once I launch my blog (I don’t think). But, at this stage in my business creation,  I feel like I’m walking a tight rope.

Next Week:

• More site design activities
• More blog posting
• More wholesale research
• Start setting up social networking accounts (time permitting)

ProBlogger — Created and maintained by Darren Rowse, this seminal classic blog about all things blogging, is a paragon of blog education. Simply browse the main page and you’ll see many posts with titles that are ripe for your further education and perusal. You could easily spend hours hear learning all about blogging, from design and functionality, to attracting readers and providing for their needs. This is blogging dreamland! Try this link to get you started — Blogging Tips for Beginners: Best of Problogger.

Also, don’t miss out on the classic ebook, 31 Days to Building a Better Blog. Picking up this ebook before you create your blog can make a world of difference in how you design it and how successful your blog and your business will be. This is a MUST PURCHASE for anyone starting a blog for business purposes (or any purpose, really)! These are some of the best blogging tips in one ebook from one of the first bloggers to start making money through blogging. Darren Rowse has put years of experience and learning through trial and error into this ebook. At a time when most ebooks command fees pushing $100, you can purchase this ebook for pocket change even though it actually is worth $100! Whether you’re just starting out or want to improve your established blog, this book will help you do it, if you take the time to apply what you learn.

Lynda.com — From their site: “Whether you’re into digital photography, web design and development, motion graphics, or just need to brush up on Excel, you can learn all the software skills you need to gain a competitive edge with our online tutorials.” I’ve used some of their material and it’s 100% first-rate! They have in the neighborhood of 720 online training courses which include video with step-by-step instruction and optional exercise files that are used during the training videos. They use working experts for each of the training videos. You’re getting direct, hands-on training that you can instantly use and apply in your craft, whether you have experience or if you’re training to learn a brand new skill.

If you’re serious about blogging or starting an Internet business, you might decide it’s worth a little money to learn a new skill that you can later translate into a service that you can get paid for providing. If this sounds like you, then you may want to check into the following classes through Lynda.com: Web Design, Blogging (including Twitter), Wordpress.com, MySQL, CSS, HTML, XHTML, PHP, SEO (Search Engine Optimization),  Podcasting, and much more! They have various payment plans; from month-to-month plans currently priced from $25.00 to yearly plans, currently starting at $250.00. Taking these classes may not give you a college degree, but if you apply what you learn, you’ll easily develop new skills that can translate into better-paying jobs or the ability to offer services through your newly designed blog. Besides, $250 is a lot cheaper than taking a full load of college classes and what you learn will be more focused to a specific skill. Think about it! I’m convinced that once you try one of their offerings, you’ll see the immense value of Lynda.com. Before you know it, you’ll have created your own successful work from home online business! Go to Lynda.com and watch some of their free offerings to see how great their training is. You’ll love it!

Internet Business Mastery Academy — If you are designing a blog with the intention of starting an online business, this may well be your best option. In signing up for classes at the Academy, you will learn all aspects of starting an Internet-based business from scratch; setting up a blog, selling a product that your customers actually want, making your product available as an instant download and ready for immediate customer consumption. I can personally vouch for the effectiveness of the courses in the Academy since I’m a currently-enrolled student, myself.

If you would like step-by-step instructions for starting your online business as well as dozens of resources, you can find them in the Internet Business Mastery Academy along with video tutorials showing exactly how to use them. To get a 30-day, no-risk, trial membership to the Internet Business Mastery Academy, simply click on this ad and receive a free audio course –it’s a good intro to the Academy and you will receive instructions on joining after signing up for the free audio course. If you decide to join, please consider using the affiliate link to give the hosts of this lecture credit for referring you.

ClickNewz! Internet Marketing Blog with Lynn Terry — From her site: “Lynn Terry is a full-time Internet Marketer with over 12 years of experience in online business and marketing. ClickNewz is where she shares news on the latest eBiz trends and marketing strategies, as well as her unique case studies, creative ideas & personal reviews…” I think it’s safe to say that if you visit ClickNewz and browse around, you will be impressed. Such high caliber education at no cost! Can you afford to pass this up? I think not. And to get you started in the right direction, here is an excellent introduction for implementing SEO (search engine optimization) into your blog posts: SEO Content: Choosing Keywords & Phrases.

The Smart Passive Income Blog with Pat Flynn — Pat is a graduate of  the Internet Business Mastery Academy and a wonderful example of success. One day he found himself unemployed, months later, he was making more money after starting his own business then he was before he got laid off from his day job…and he was working for himself. We interviewed Pat and I must say, the interview is an inspiration for anyone who want to start their own businesses so they can quit their day jobs. You’re going to want to read our interview with Pat, so here is where you can find it: Quitter Profile: Pat Flynn. His blog is ripe with theories about developing “passive income” that Pat has put to the test. You can follow his escapades and learn right along with Pat. While you’re there, don’t forget to sign up for his newsletter and receive a free ebook on writing and launching an ebook. This site is required reading…and there may be a quiz later.

MIT Open Courseware — How would you like to take classes at Massachusetts Institute of Technology? Most people can’t afford it, let alone be admitted. What secret wonders exist in the classes at such an esteemed educational facility? Well, I’m going to give you a chance to find out…for absolutely no charge! Yes, kids, you heard me correctly. I have it on good authority that MIT has opened access to its course materials, which includes free lecture notes, exams and videos. Obviously, a great number of courses may have nothing to do with blog design or starting an Internet business, however, many courses are directly related. And even though you will get no credits or recognition from the completion of any course material, this is priceless information that, in the right minds, can be put to the most profitable use…whether for blog design or saving humanity. For anyone who aspires to have a higher education, remember, it’s not how you get an education, it’s what you do with it. This is pure gold so do stop by and make use of MIT for further education. You’ll be glad you did.

1stwebdesigner — Here you will find a graphic and web design blog that will provide you with inspiration, resources and tools. Here’s a specific example: 110+ Massive WordPress Video Tutorial Collection. If you want to learn more about designing a blog, browse around some of the blog posts here. I guarantee you will find great information and tools that will serve you well as you learn more about blog design.

Smashing Magazine — From their “About” page: “Smashing Magazine delivers useful and innovative information to Web designers and developers. Our aim is to inform our readers about the latest trends and techniques in Web development.” Though I haven’t yet fully explored the site, myself, I found them after finding this specific, eye-opening post: 10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines where they cover various elements of web page design and how to best implement these best practices. They also dispel a couple myths about web pages. When you are actually ready to start designing a blog, you simply must read this post first.

Please take the time to visit all of the resources listed here. I cannot emphasize enough just how valuable each one is. I know there are plenty of other really great sites and resources out there. So now it’s your turn. What’s your favorite site, tool or resource for blog design? Drop a link in the comments and tell us why it’s awesome.

And, of course, we want to officially unveil our new logos here so you can see the winners of our contest and get a sneak peak at what will be an important part of our new businesses. Go ahead, read more. You know you want to.

What is 99Designs?

99Designs is one of the resources we learned about through our membership at Internet Business Mastery Academy.  At 99Designs, you can run a “contest” for a design project, and have designers compete to win your contest. You can choose what type of design contest you need, depending of course on what you need designed. You can run a contest for anything from a simple logo, to a Wordpress theme or promotional material like brochures.

There are 4 basic steps to launching a design contest at 99Designs:

1. Create your design brief. You will be asked some standard questions about your needs that will help designers understand what you’re looking for. You’ll also have a chance to describe your business, your target market, and your likes and dislikes.
2. Set you budget. Depending on what type of project you need, there is a minimum “prize” you will award the winning designer. The only other fee is a listing fee of about $39 to post your brief on 99Designs. Prize amounts typically range from $100 to $600, depending on what you need. The minimum prize for a logo design is $150. For other project types, 99Designs provides a list of a minimum and recommended prize amounts
3. Work with the designers. Once your project brief is posted on the 99Designs site, designers can submit their design entries for your contest. As the Contest Holder, it’s your job to give the designers feedback on their designs so that they can improve them and try to give you exactly what you want.
4. When the contest is over (typically 7 days, but you can extend the duration if you need to), you have 14 days to pick the winning design and award the prize to the winning designer.

Benefits of Using 99Designs

If you do a search for “logo design” in any search engine, you’ll come up with at least a gazillion search results. So why should you consider 99Designs? Depending on your needs and your budget, it may or may not be the best option for you.

Here are the main reasons that we decided to use 99Designs for our logos:

• At 99Designs, you can have an unlimited number of designers working on your project. For our logos, we wanted to see a bunch of different ideas from a bunch of designers. While this isn’t guaranteed to happen at 99Designs, it’s definitely not going to happen if you hire one designer to create your logo.
• Affordability. The minimum prize for a logo design contest is $150. We both started out offering a $150 prize. We also both increased our prize to $200 a few days into our contests in order to attract more designers and give the “competition” a little incentive. But, if you browse through some of the contests on the 99Designs site, you’ll see that you can get a lot of good contest entries for the minimum prize amount.
• Unlimited revisions (theoretically). When you hire a designer or a design firm, you typically get a certain number of revisions for your quoted price. When you run a contest at 99Designs, you can give feedback to each designer as often as you want and get an unlimited number of revisions until the contest ends. From our experience, most of the designers will continue to revise their designs based on your feedback. Of course, some designers will limit the amount of time they’re willing to invest in your contest, especially if they don’t think their design is a potential winner.
• 100% money back guarantee. If your contest ends and you don’t like any of the designs enough to pay out the prize money, you’re not obligated to declare a winner. If that happens, you’ll get all your money back. Here are the details of the 100% money back guarantee

If you think you might want to use 99Designs, make sure to scroll to the end of this post for some tips that will help you get the most out of your contest. But for now…

The Winners of Our 99Designs Logo Contests

If you’re new to A Couple of Quitters (Welcome! It’s about time you got here!), here’s a quick summary of what we’re up to. Both of us are in the process of starting our own businesses online. For our businesses, we need blogs and we needed to have logos designed to use on those blogs. Scott’s blog will be at BehaviorAndMotivation.com and mine will be at EcoFriendlyBasics.com. We recently ran our logo design contests at 99Designs, and here are the logos we chose as our winners:

The winning design for Eco Friendly Basics:

The winning design for Behavior and Motivation:

We’re both really happy with our logos. We’d love to hear your feedback. Leave a comment and let us know what you think!

Tips for Getting the Most From 99Designs

• Write a good Project Brief. This is how you communicate your needs to the designers. If you have a specific idea you’d like to see developed, or a color scheme you like, make sure to include it in your project brief. The more info you give, the better your chances of getting a design you like. If you want to see the project briefs we created for our 99Designs contests, you can see them on the 99Designs website. Just click on the big orange “Read the Brief” button. Scott’s Contest – My Contest

• Communicate clearly and simply. Both of us ran into some language barrier issues working with some of our designers. Keep in mind that some of your designers may not be native English speakers. Keep your language simple and clear to avoid misunderstandings and get your point across.
• Communicate often. When a designer submits an entry for your contest, they expect to get feedback. You can leave star ratings for the designs, but it’s even more helpful to communicate directly with each designer (they each have a personal page for this purpose) and give them feedback about their design. From our experience, most of the designers are very happy to get your feedback and are more than willing to make revisions to try to “nail” your design perfectly. If you don’t leave feedback, designers will be more likely to avoid your contest. They want to win. Your feedback helps them make their entries more likely to win.
• Guarantee your contest if you like what you see. Once you have some entries, if you know you’ll be awarding the prize (and you won’t want the 100% money back guarantee), you may want to guarantee your contest. What this means is that you guarantee that the prize will be awarded at the end of your contest. For the designers, it provides an incentive to continue working on your project. It might also attract new designers who may only enter guaranteed contests. Be aware that if you guarantee your contest, you give up the money back guarantee, so don’t do it until you have at least one design you’d be happy with.
• Consider increasing your prize. Each project type has a minimum prize amount. You may get the perfect design for the minimum amount. However, if you want to attract some of the more experienced designers, you may want to consider offering a little more prize money. If you start with the minimum prize, you can always increase it if you’re not getting entries you like, or not getting enough entries.

If you launch a contest, let us know so we can check out your entries!

Tammy and I are weighing out these choices carefully. The process is made tougher when we see these really slick-looking sites with neat, flashy graphic things going on where the graphics just seem to burst to life on the computer screen and dazzle the imagination. We do so enjoy the creative talent that goes into designing these one-of-a-kind blogs. It grabs our attention and then we start blissfully spinning out of control.

Eventually, we come to our senses again and put our feet back on the ground and pull our thinking caps back onto our feeble and overwhelmed heads. So what are we actually considering when making these choices for our own individual blogs? I’ll share with you some of what we’re thinking about as we’re going through this process. This is, by no means, comprehensive, but it’s a place to start, especially when you’re just getting started. This post will cover some of the basics of blog design. First, I’ll talk about the marriage between your audience and the purpose of your blog. Who are the people you want to find your blog and what interest or need has brought them to your blog? Next, I’ll talk about visual communication. What is the unspoken message you want your blog to convey to your readers when they arrive? What is the first impression you want to create in the minds of your readers and how do you create it?  I’ll conclude by giving you a collection of great resources for more education and tools for help with blog design. So, let’s get started…

Audience and Purpose

Before you even think of starting your blog, you need to be extremely clear on why you are even starting the blog to begin with. If you’re just starting a blog because everybody is doing it, you’re in the wrong place…class dismissed! Likely, you’re reading this because you’re starting an Online business and you’re going to need a blog for your business. So before you start your blog, here are some questions that need to be answered.

• What product or service are you going to be providing to your customer?
• What is the niche that your product or service will fit into?
• Do people exist who want your product, service, or your information that you’re planning to provide?

Knowing your purpose comes first. Once you know why you’re starting a blog, you need to begin to think more about how your blog can meet the needs of your audience. For this you must do your due diligence in researching the needs of your audience; find out who, exactly, will be your typical reader and why they will come to your blog. But for now, we’ll make the assumption that you have a product that, in one form or another, your audience wants and your blog is going to be the way you promote and deliver it.

How do you achieve this using your blog? It’s a well-known fact that if you create your blog and constantly try to push your product or service on your readers, they will reject your site and services or products. Making the connection between your audience and your purpose requires a gentle touch. To put it simply, people trust friends and distrust complete strangers. Therefore, your purpose should include developing a relationship with your audience…become a trusted friend. Here are some ways to do this:

• Write at a level that is appropriate to your readers, but never talk down to them
• Give away valuable, free content that shows you know what you’re talking about
• Write what your target audience wants to read…not only what you want them to hear
• Ask for audience input and respond to it graciously — create a two-way conversation
• Never try to be something you’re not, people can spot a phony a mile away
• Always be respectful of your readers and commentors and thank them often

These are some of the ways to build trust and a sense of community. This takes time and cannot be forced. But let’s explore other ways to merge audience with purpose. For instance, let’s take a look at your delivery. Obviously, you’re going to be writing posts on a regular basis. You can post whatever you want, whenever you want. But sometimes, it helps to mix things up a bit to keep things fresh. You can do this by having specific features, like periodic interviews, mini posts that highlight tips, or resources on the Web, or perhaps include a video or audio with relevant information. Also, it’s important to think about what topics would attract your specific audience and write post titles that will attract readers’ attention while also concisely conveying what the post is about. This also helps with SEO (Search Engine Optimization). SEO is very important once you’re blog is up and running, but that’s a topic for another time.

I know that talking about your content may seem like I’m jumping ahead because you haven’t even designed your blog yet, but many of these things should be considered before you even start to deign your blog. Planning ahead will help you in ways that you can’t even guess at. So before we more on to the more specific details of blog design, there are a few more things to consider. Such as, the scope of your blog. If your blog is too broad and you’re trying to please too many people, you may eventually find cobwebs growing on your blog from lack of visitors. Not pretty, I assure you. The way to prevent this is to narrow your focus to a specific sub-genre or niche in your field in interest. For example, you can have a blog about all stringed instruments in a typical orchestra or you could further refine it to Great Cellists of the 20th Century. In the second example, who would your target audience be? Well, that would likely be cellists, conductors, and music aficionados with an appreciation of modern, classical cellists. That’s still broad…it includes all 20th century cellists of renown but is specifically about cellists, not all stringed instruments of all times in history.

The next question is, does anybody really care about your niche? If you share this passion, there are likely others. Certainly, there are plenty of cultured people out there who enjoy 20th century cello playing at its finest. Though that doesn’t guarantee that your blog will succeed, doing some research should give you an idea of how great you chance of success might be. So do your research to make sure you’ve selected a niche that anyone even cares about. If there are similar niche blogs out there, that’s another good indicator that there’s an audience out there for your blog too. And if there’s an audience for your specific niche, you should be able to find ways to offer something of value to them that they would be willing to pay for. People don’t mind parting with their money when they feel what they get in return is of equal or greater value. Your goal, as the saying goes, is to under promise and over deliver.

What appears on your blog–the content, topics, and usable knowledge–is what will inform the reader and from which he or she will decide whether or not to stay awhile and give your material a chance. You must be clear on the purpose of your blog, the niche into which your blog fits, and determine if there is an audience for your niche. You must plan your content and how you want to present it before you even begin to think about the pretty colors and flashy gewgaws which may appear on your businesses new blog. In the end, if your post titles are attractive enough and revolve around the purpose of your blog (in addition to your products or services), you will find a wonderful union (audience and purpose) that will last a help you build trust and a sense of community. But what about those pretty colors? Let’s turn, look at that next…

Your Blog’s First Impression

When an interested reader lands on your blog page, they will, in a matter of seconds, assess your blog and form an opinion. The first thing they will notice will be the colors and layout. Assuming they’re not repulsed by your design, they’ll read any bold titles or words that attract their attention, typically, this will be the phrase or keyword association that brought them to your site. As mentioned before, your post titles and your purpose must be clear and easy to identify to your readers as something meaningful to them. Now let’s take a closer look at design regarding color and layout by considering these questions:

• Have you chosen a colors scheme that is comfortable to look at?
• Should your site be spacious or tight?
• If you’re using ads on your site, where should you place them and how many should you use?
• How hard will the reader have to work to read each post?
• Should you choose two or three columns?
• Do you want your sidebar(s) on the right, the left, or both?

Your blog needs to cater to your readers. If your readers are young, the design, colors, and blog posts must reflect this. Therefore, you may use brighter colors and more of them. Also, use interesting fonts, but not too many…you mustn’t tire your reader’s eyes prematurely. You would want to consider presenting a more playful look and style the younger the reader. If your readers are young adults or perhaps “30-somethings”, then going with a more Web 2.0 look and feel might be more appropriate. Decisions on whether to have one or two sidebars, more or less empty space, and where to put adds have more to do with subtly persuading your reader into a frame of mind that increases trust and a mood that is appropriate for your purpose. Keep in mind that more empty space evokes a more tranquil mood, less empty space introduces tension; each serves a purpose depending on your intention. If your readers are into heavy metal music, for example, having an austere, sparse-looking blog with pastel colors and graceful fonts wouldn’t convey the rough-edged style that your readers will respond to.

I don’t know about you, but when I look at the art of Leonardo Da Vinci, I get all a-tingle and my mind goes awash with new ideas; great spires of creativity jut high into my mental stratosphere… And when I listen to the music of Mozart or Bach, my soul is renewed with possibility…my enthusiasm and creative impulses start throbbing and I…um…ahem. What I mean is, design elements are important to your blog in order to influence your reader’s experience and guide his interaction on your site. It’s the art of subtle persuasion…give to them what they came to your site for. Do this, and you’re inviting them to stick around for a while. And that’s a good thing.

Soon, I’ll post part 2 which will include a bunch of great resources that you’re going to want to check out. I hope you’ve found some useful ideas in this post. Any thoughts or questions? Leave a comment.

The links to each of our contests are below. When you get to the contest page you’ll see all the current entries. You can click on the button labeled “read the brief” to get an idea what we’re looking for. Feel free to leave comments in the general discussion area on the contest page. The artists love feedback. Or, you can come back here and proclaim your favorite design (they’re all numbered for easy reference). We can’t wait to hear what you think!

Click here to check out Scott’s 99Designs logo contest

Click here to check out  Tammy’s 99Designs logo Contest

So here’s what we got done: I set up my business PayPal account account this week and Tammy has spent a lot of time pursuing a work-from-home opportunity which she already reported about (see her LionBridge post). Aside from that, most of our activity has revolved around designing our blogs. I’ve spent a lot of time selecting what kind of widgets and plug-ins we plan to use on our business blogs. We continue to play around with Headway to learn how to use it to get the effects we want. Another big part of blog design for us is choosing our categories and tags as well as determining how our blogs will function.

Site Functionality

When looking at things like site functionality, the goal is to make it as easy as possible for a visitor to navigate your site. If a site is overly complicated, you risk the user moving on quickly rather than hanging around and reading. Having a well-functioning site that’s easy to find your way around is important for building trust with your audience. That’s why we’re paying a lot of attention to this.

Pages, Categories and Tags

I’ve been kind going crazy over this topic. Properly defining your pages, categories and tags increases your site’s visibility in search engines. Things like page and category names as well as post tags, formatting text using heading presets are all ways to code each post and your entire site so that specific keywords are properly emphasized for search engines. Knowing these things, I’ve been taking a lot of time trying to think like a visitor to my site so I can choose the right keywords, pages, categories, and tags. Though it seems like it’s much ado about nothing, taking the time to consider these things can, as I understand it, make a huge difference in page and site rankings. So we really want to get this right.

Marketing Your Ebook

I purchased an ebook last week that’s all about how to market an ebook. So far, I’m very impressed with it. I’m not ready to write a review, but stay tuned. I’ll probably try to write something about it in January. I don’t have a lot of time to work with the book but my time will free up after the holidays. However, I will still be working through the material, so I’ll write when I have something more substantial to report about it.

Next Week:

• More site design activities
• Hiring someone to create the logos for our sites
• Start setting up social networking accounts (time permitting)
• Start writing blog content (as time permits)
• A lot of holiday stuff totally unrelated to starting a business