RosalindGardner.com

Learn Blogging & Affiliate Marketing with Rosalind Gardner

4 Ways to Give Your Blog a Makeover

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Although there are millions of ways to promote and tweak your blog in technical ways to ensure higher search ratings and better conversion rates, sometimes it helps to step back a bit and think of more general things you can do to give your blog a makeover.

If you've had a blog for awhile and feel as though you need to spice it up, here are some suggestions:

1. Give it a brand new look by refiguring the design and layout.

The easiest way to change something is to change an aspect of your appearance. Ever went to the salon to get a radically new haircut? Remember how great it felt those first few months when you almost actually felt like a different person? It works the same way with rearranging the furniture. And blogs are no different. If you feel as though your blog needs that new “something” consider radically redoing its look. If your current blog is littered with lots of “stuff”, try going the minimalist route. Work with the color scheme to make it easier on the eyes and more stylish. Change the font to something more fun or more readable.

2. Accept and actively recruit guest posters if you haven't yet done so.

In my experience blogging, taking on guest post writers was one of the best decisions I ever made. While we'd like to think that we can come up with fresh new material on a regular basis, the truth is that you'll eventually find yourself in a creative rut. And sometimes the only way to get out of it is to get a little help from your friends out in the blogosphere. Who knows? Maybe you'll publish a few guest posts that will inspire to come up with something equally new and fresh.

3. Write blog posts that are specifically suited to having a discussion among your readers.

One big reason that I fell into a rut with my blog was that I was getting bored by the lack of discussion among my readers. Even though my blog got quite a few hits, the comments sections were mostly empty. One day I realized that this was all my fault. In order to get reader feedback, it is absolutely essential that you write conversational pieces that ask lots of questions and frame something current or controversial. You'd be surprised by what a difference doing this makes.

4. Ask your biggest fans what they would like to see next.

The people that you, as a blogger, should be most grateful to are your regular readers–the readers who check your blog every day as they go about their business, or the ones who always leave a comment no matter what. Your “biggest fans” also happen to be a great resource for honest feedback. If you know the email addresses of people who post regularly on your blog, send them a very personal email in which you ask them what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong. Ask them for an honest assessment of where your blog should go next.

These are just a few general considerations if you feel as though your blog needs to be “flipped.”  It's always good to be open to new things, and, especially on the Internet—a climate in which rapid change is the only way to keep up and stay popular—if you don’t sniff out the “next thing” on a regular basis, you'll surely be left behind.

Of course, one of the BEST makeovers you can give your blog is a brand-new theme from StudioPress!!

Genesis Framework for WordPress

How to Fix Those “Squishy” Headlines

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Here the CSS trick for fixing those squished headlines on your blog such as the H1 Heading shown in the screenshot below.

Squished Headline

The original code in the CSS (cascading style sheet) for that H1 was as follows:

#content h1 {
font-size: 25px;
color:#036;
background: transparent;
font-family: Verdana, ‘Trebuchet MS', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-weight: bold;
margin: 0px 0px 5px 0px;
padding: 10px 0px 0px 0px;
}

To increase the height of the line, I added “line-height: 28px;” as shown in bold in the code below. Because the font size is 25px, I simply added 3 pixels to the line height to put some space in between the lines.

#content h1 {
font-size: 25px;
line-height: 28px;
color:#036;
background: transparent;
font-family: Verdana, ‘Trebuchet MS', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-weight: bold;
margin: 0px 0px 5px 0px;
padding: 10px 0px 0px 0px;
}

Alternatively, you can set the line height using a number value, e.g. “line-height: 1.2;” The standard line-height is 1, so 1.2 increases the line height. You can also shrink a line height by half as well by using the value 0.5… and so on and so forth.

Here's how the H1 Heading looked when I set the line height to 1.2.

Unsquished Headline

The other alternative is to use a percent value, i.e. 100% is standard line height and 200% would double the size.

OK, now go fix your headlines! 🙂

Designing the DinerDave Website

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So now I have a hosting service, I've done my market research, and I've written pertinent content based on that research for DinerDave.com. Now it's time to design the layout and look of the site. Once again I turn to Ros for recommendations on who could create a professional looking blog.

WHO Will Design DinerDave.com?

I reviewed dozens of WordPress template sites and became frustrated that I could not find the perfect “skin” for DinerDave.com. Then I read a case study on Doglirious.com in the latest revision of the Super Affiliate Handbook (Feb 2009). I was very impressed with the layout and functionality of this particular site and knew right then and there that I wanted the EXACT same layout for DinerDave.com! Well, as fate would have it, one month later Ros recommended Justin Parr, the creator of Doglirious.com, to create these beautiful StudioPress theme sites for her subscribers. After checking out Justin's portfolio of work on Juscott.com and the templates available on Studiopress.com I was hooked! I made up my mind that I would use Justin to create the Diner Dave website, rather than trying to spend hours trying to learn CSS, basic design and editing templates.

Selecting a Theme and Design Package

That afternoon I purchased the same StudioPress “Lifestyles” theme that Justin used to create Doglirious.com (with the bonus “Streamline” theme for free…I can use that for another website later). I uploaded this theme through NetProfitsToday link and selected the Gold Package from the design services page on NPT. I did so because I wanted a strong foundation for the Diner Dave site and that included all the advanced plug-ins and features included in the Gold Package for email marketing, social bookmarking, tag cloud, etc…

Ros said in her recommendation for Justin's design services, it is “preposterous to pay $5000 to have someone create a website” and then not know how to change links, upload pics, or perform any other simple updates. I agree! As someone who has actually spent thousands of dollars to create a static website I'm here to tell you that $999 for Justin's Gold Package I selected is a steal! It is possible to find web designers on Elance.com or Rentacoder.com to create WordPress sites for the same price or maybe a little lower, but I prefer to hire a person that is recommended by someone I trust (Ros) AND that guarantees their work.

Creating the Logo

Creating a logo was the only service offered by Justin that I did not select. I created the logo a few weeks before Ros' post on Justin's design services. I reviewed several logo creation sites like 99designs.com before selecting logoloft.com to create the Diner Dave logo. The main reason I selected them was because of their impressive portfolio of work AND they were running a $99 special on logo creation. I contacted them and described exactly what I wanted. After a few revisions, I received the finalized Diner Dave logo. I was very pleased with the results! Now it was time to get started on the site.

Justin Works his Magic!

After contacting Justin via email we set up a phone and online meeting (via Yugma.com) to discuss how I would like the design and layout of DinerDave.com to look. I already knew what content I would be adding to the site…it was just a matter of organizing it in a website for ease of use and arranging merchant offers on each of the pages. I started by creating a map of the home page on an Excel spreadsheet (because I couldn't email him a cocktail napkin!). Here is a copy of that spreadsheet:

dinerdave-spreadsheet

After discussing my vision of the layout and design of DinerDave.com, Justin had a checklist of items for us to cover before he started in on the design work. The list included:

  • Color scheme – I chose red, a color that invokes passion. Plus, I wanted to make sure the color scheme matched my logo. He matched the primary and secondary colors to those displayed on the site.
  • Layout – Obviously, I wanted to place the AWeber email / RSS opt-in collection form at the top right of every page. I know from experience that I will make 100x more money on merchant offers with my email subscribers than random visitors to the site. I also needed to make sure that my revenue producing merchant offers/reviews were featured close to the top of the page (ie the “Diner Dave Daily Deals”). I relied on Justin's recommendations to determine where to place the remaining content.
  • Google ads – There are several locations in the Lifestyles template where you can place Google ads, but I decided I only wanted one area in the right column for these ads. I really want the emphasis of Diner Dave to be content over ads.
  • Category and tag selection – Once again I chose the categories I selected based on my market research. The categories are based on what people are looking for on google and other search engines: restaurant coupons, restaurant gift certificates, restaurant reviews, etc… Moreover, I already had content for each of these major categories.
  • Navigation menus – I selected a 2 tier navigation menu to give visitors a broad overview of the dining out tips and advice featured on the site. The primary navigation bar contains broad topics: tips and advice, web discounts, the about us page, and contests to win a free lunch (a popular concept I started with DinerDeals.com). The secondary navigation bar lists the most popular categories with my merchant offers – THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT to monetize the site.
  • Pictures and graphics – Justin was a huge help when it came to selecting the perfect pictures for the featured article box on the home page! He also taught me how to find and download these pictures myself using sites like Dreamstime, iStockPhoto, and Stockxchange. Plus, he advised me on how to use tools like SnagIt and Picnik.com to capture and edit screen shots, photos, tables, etc..
  • Plug-ins – I added the SEO All-in-One pack and Ninja Affiliate Links to my admin section to optimize the site for search engines and to cloak affiliate links.

After my data dump, a few dozen emails back and forth, and a couple more phone conversations, here is the result of our collaberation (drumroll please…..):

DinerDaveHmPg

I can tell you that one of the great things about dealing with Justin is that he will patiently walk you through how to use WordPress to create and edit posts, create pages, optimize your site for search engines, create categories, and everything you need to know to become a self sufficient blogger. I HIGHLY recommend him to anyone that is looking to create a new website or transfer an existing website to WordPress!

Getting the Word Out

Now it's time to let my DinerDeals.com subscribers know about the NEW DinerDave.com! Look for the next post that deals with how to motivate existing subscribers to join my new list.

All New Blogs Could (and Should) Look this Good

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NOTE: Justin got too busy traveling around the world and writing books to maintain his site — but it's still a great story. 🙂

I found the Doglirious site through a link in our Forum and my first reaction was “WOW!”

SO impressed was I, that I emailed Justin (the webmaster) to find out if I could profile his site in the Super Affiliate Handbook as an example of how an affiliate site SHOULD be fleshed out.

When Justin replied with a little background about the site, I was even MORE impressed. Here's what he had to say:

Michelle (my girlfriend) and I adopted a dog from the Atlanta Humane Society about a year ago and ever since then, had been disappointed with the dog websites that existed. We were interested in reading product reviews from a website other than Amazon.com. Also, we were looking for reliable tips & advice that was fun to read (and sounded like it came from real dog owners). Finally, we wanted a central place to find online dog-product discounts from across the Web – but we just couldn't find a website that offered these elements in a user-friendly manner.

So, about two months ago, we began brainstorming about how to create a dog lover's website. One month ago, I bought your eBook, and with a lot of hard work, this project quickly blossomed due to our enthusiasm for the subject.

BRAVO!

Justin and Michelle started with exactly the right motivation and enthusiasm for building a business website. They saw the demand and went with the topic based on the fact that they're both completely ‘doglirious'.

LOVE that name – Doglirious.

The WordPress Theme

The theme Justin is using for the site is Brian Gardner's (Studio Press) Lifetyle theme. I asked him if they had an Elancer produce the graphics for the template or whether they designed them.

Other than Brian's theme and the WordPress plug-ins, we developed the entire site ourselves – the layout, content, and technical design. Michelle and I had a concept for how we wanted the website to look & feel. I then saw the Revolution Lifestyle theme and thought, “Yep, this is it!“

I thought pretty much the same thing when Brian released his new WordPress theme package — especially about the Lifestyle, Church and Chrome themes — so I bought the StudioPress multi-theme package right away and have it up on a few sites already including 101Date.com (Lifestyle theme) and MyEnergyPal.com (Church Theme), the latter of which was a combined venture with my friend, Ed who wanted to generate leads for his local energy assessment business.

The affiliate in me said “let's make money!” so I started that site on Sunday afternoon and pretty much had it the way it looks now by Monday afternoon — a total of about 12 hours which included time to collect and create some content as well as research and place a few offers. Now it's just waiting for that all-important content from Ed.

Granted, I have a ‘little bit' of experience with WordPress and WordPress themes but I wondered how much experience Justin had when he started working with the Lifestyle theme. Here's what Justin had to say about his own level of expertise prior to starting Doglirious…

I have been tinkering with Web design for years and also obtained a Masters degree in usability & information architecture. So with those skills and the very helpful people at the Revolution community forum I quickly grasped WordPress (which I've never used before). The Revolution forum admins – just like yours on NetProfitsToday – are prompt and extremely helpful with their feedback and advice.

Oh…if you are interested, I've attached our early drafts of the website layout to this email for your reference (see screenshot to the right). A $5 box of Crayola colored pencils was our very first business expense.

In addition to aesthetic appeal, Justin's educational background is likely what caused him to jump at the chance to work with this beautiful theme. The section layouts lead visitors down a natural path from Featured articles / posts near the top of the page to various sections of featured categories, and lastly to the sidebar navigation.

What sets the latest StudioPress themes apart however is the Featured Content Gallery plugin which allows you to attach those large pictures at the top of the page to specific articles, and add thumbnail pictures to the category sections — all of which increases the likelihood that a visitor will click a link and go deeper into the site.

For example, according to the Google Analytics report for MyEnergyPal (which hasn't even officially launched 'cause I still have tweaking to do), of the 40 unique visitors we've had so far, the landing page has a 0.00% bounce rate. Bounce rate is the average percentage of initial visitors who “bounce” to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site.

Pretty phenomenal!

But better yet, the average Pages/Visit is 16.50 and average time on the site is almost 24 minutes. Granted, that could have something to do with the fact that I count as one visitor and I had the site open in a browser for many, many, MANY hours. 🙂

Needless to say, when a theme makes a site that ‘sticky', I plan to covert each of my sites to one of the StudioPress themes as soon as possible.

Interested in a LifeStyle Change?

Join us at Affiliate Blogger PRO which features the use of StudioPress themes.

Where to Find Professional WordPress Themes

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Give your WordPress blog a professional look…

You can get free themes for your WordPress blog but truth be told, only a few of the free WordPress themes that I see are attractive, and none of them have any SEO components built into them.

So, I've resorted to buying themes for each of my WordPress blogs. Listed below are the design services where I've bought themes and templates.

  1. StudioPress

    StudioPress WordPress Themes

    I use Brian Gardner's StudioPress themes on this site, 101Date.com, RosalindGardner.com and my personal site at RosalindGardner.me.

    I started using his themes back in 2007 when he came out with Revolution News. You can read about how my average visitor duration increased after I started using his themes.

    The theme currently used on this site is called Eleven40Pro a theme that I've modified to my own liking.

    Studiopress ‘child' themes work on the Genesis framework, a powerful and flexible base upon which to create beautifully designed WordPress sites quickly. The themes are fast, lean, and SEO-optimized and come with lifetime updates and support. I like the fact that there is a StudioPress community to which I can refer any time I have a question that I need to be answered quickly.

    Visit Studiopress.

  2. Elegant Themes

    elegant-themes

    Elegant Themes has served more than a quarter million customers! Buy just one theme and get access to the entire collection of 87 beautiful themes.

    Visit Elegant Themes.

  3. Theme Forest

    Theme Forest WordPress Themes

    Visit Theme Forest.

Keep checking back as I add more professional themes for WordPress when I find them.

Are Slow Loading Web Pages Costing You Money?

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Slow loading web pages will cost you money.

Just look at the image on the right.slow loading web pages That's what I got to look at for 24 seconds while waiting for a popular blogger's site to load.

UGGGGGHHHHH!

And no, it's not a slow connection on my end — almost every other site I visit loads instantly. What's worse – every page on this blog takes as long or longer to load… every single time.

Now, the only reason that I bother waiting for this site to load is that I know and enjoy this blogger's work. He shares all manner of valuable tips, interesting anecdotes, and personal stories on his blog.

I don't mind the wait because I know it's coming. I do some other work on my computer and when I see his favicon come up on the tab in Explorer, I know that page has finally loaded and is available for viewing.

That works for me, but what about first-time visitors to his site? Do you think they bother waiting nearly half a minute for slow loading web pages? Some might, but MOST definitely will NOT… which means that he's not making nearly as much money from his blog as he could.

So why does his blog load SO painfully slow when others load instantly?

Well, in a nutshell… he's got too much ‘stuff' (that's put nicely) going on.

  • On a single page, you'll see ads, ads, and more ads. He's got Kontera, Chitika, ReviewMe, Peel away ads, top-of-page ad bars, one or more 468×60's banners, and at least ten 125 x 125 banner ads — many of which contain Flash.
  • His standard top-of-page navigation is heavily graphic-laden and takes up everything above the fold.
  • He obviously runs a ton of WordPress plugins and there is a TON of javascript code running on each page which is notorious for slowing sites down when scripts from different programs conflict.
  • Instead of linking to one primary stylesheet, the CSS code has been built into his header.php, which adds approximately 3000 unnecessary characters to each and every page.

UGGGGGHHHH again. Mostly unnecessary and a total waste of good traffic.

So, what can you do if your site is loading slower than you would prefer?

The answer is simple — lighten up!! Avoid slow loading web pages. Here are a few easy ways to do that:

  • Reduce the number of graphic images that you use on your blog and that includes banner ads.
  • Decrease the color depth of your own images to 256 and make them as small as possible.
  • Test your site for loading after installing any new plugin or javascript widget.
  • Consider whether you really need to put your Flickr album and broadcast all your Twitter tweets in your sidebar or whether having a link to those accounts would accomplish the same goal.

If those simple tweaks don't solve your page load issues, or you're not a geek / technically inclined, hire a programmer at RentaCoder to help solve the problem.

Bottom line — when people can't see your site due to slow page loads, you're killing your bottom line.

Did you find this post informative and useful? If so, please share it with others! If you have a comment, question, or suggestion, please leave a comment below!

Cheers,
sig-ros

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