First impression is the last impression. Most of us know it well. While there are people who value it seriously, some aren't such. The blogosphere has countless examples of those who fall into such groups, one which is ready to implement it to perfection and the other which has no time and interest for the same. I am talking about the design part...the design of your blog. Believe me, nothing fascinates me more than seeing a beautifully laid out design or layout of a blog. One of the reason for the same is that I am myself a web designer. Yes..I do it mostly as a hobby and I simply enjoy it though I still have to learn a lot in this area...to be an expert..!

Design does play a very big role. Anyone who misses it here, misses the most. You may have a great content on your blog but if it isn’t supported with a well laid out design or layout, I won’t visit it again..and perhaps you may end up witnessing the same from others. Honestly, are you ready for the same?? I guess not. So, how do you make sure your design stands out from the rest? How to find a better design for my blog? How to choose a design which supports my blog? This and many more questions may bother if you are considering an overhaul of your blog design..!

Well, very first from what I have known from my blogging experience, the design of the blog has to be in conjunction with the theme of your blog. You cannot put anything anywhere. The theme of the blog has to be picked up after having known the purpose of your blog and this can be further narrowed down to the targeted niche. Suppose your niche is about beauty products, you can further break it down to men’s beauty products/accessories or women beauty products and this way you have a higher chance of blog being read or visited..! One of the best things today is that you have ‘n’ number of available blog themes to choose from. The theme or say templates are available for all popular blogging platforms like Wordpress, Blogger, etc...

Before choosing a design for your blog, you need to know some basics - The design must be unique yet attract attention of many. The design has to be an eye catcher but not weird to scare away the visitors. The design has to be professional but not so plain. While it is easy to get away with the design thing if you are into personal blogging, it shouldn’t be the same case if you are into problogging. Choosing right color combination gets so important here and I have seen some bloggers completely messing up with the same. Designing is an art and if you know how to choose a better color to suit your blog theme, you are finished with half of your designing task. You can go with any color combination but finally it has to look appealing and aesthetic. The color of the text has to merge with the color of your background which needs to be neutral in nature with colors ranging in from white to black as these colors are more appropriate for the same. As from my own experience, color themes based on light blue color work out the best for professional blogs. Make sure you are not ignoring or overdoing the same as it may significantly affect your blog visibility.

Yet another vital thing with any blog design is having a right navigation menu. Now, when you look at this blog...you can see the navigation menu which is horizontal type like what you see on most of the sites. The navigation button is clearly visible on top of the page and all other related topics are covered under sub menus. Everything is well placed and the menu is properly linked to the related content. So, visibility and ease of use is what you must consider on priority while designing or choosing a navigation menu.

Another most important thing which often been overlooked - the page layout style. 1 column layout, 2 column layout, 3 column layout, etc...which works better?? The decision again has to be made by you but as far as what I have known, the two 2 column layout works best with blogs. Here is a post to let you decide more on the same - Best Blog Layout

Now, coming to few more but important things related to blog design. As I had stated the same earlier, it is all about the visibility plus the overall look and feel, I don’t get this why some blogs do not have their search button or search forms properly placed and even if it is there, why it isn’t visible in the first visit? Why have I to waste so much of my time in locating the same? As a blog designer, you should pay attention to each and every detail and the basics must be followed to maintain a balance between the available components of a blog layout. Search forms or say any other plugin or widget which has been used on your blog should be purposeful and if it is so then it should be visible enough to meet your purpose. There is no point in putting those on your blog if it has to remain hidden from your visitors...!

Last but not the least, design of any blog today looks ineffective without social bookmarking icons. Nearly every blog has it today. Services like addthis.com, addtoany.com...make it much more easier to place such icons on your blog which ultimately enhances the design of your blog. Doesn’t matter much if icons appear smaller or bigger, you just have to make sure that those are placed at right locations and are visible to your visitors without any problem. Social icons with counter are recommended from my side as it looks more compelling and effective. You can find the same thing with the floating button which has been placed on right side of the page near to the scrollbar.

Now apart from adding all those things which enhances the design of your blog, there are few things which should be taken care of or must be avoided. Using ad spaces on your blog is fine but having too much of ads on your blog goes negative from the design part. This has to avoided at any cost. Font selection must be done carefully and avoid using uncommon fonts on your blog. The basic and most common fonts should be used like Arial and Verdana.

Well, creativity and designing go side by side. Some are blessed with both and some are clueless on the same. Anyways, it is never too late to know the basics of a great design. What I have shared above are basics of an effective blog design. I may have missed out with a thing or two but I have tried to cover the most. Only thing I would like to say here - Whatever design you choose for your blog, never miss out with the purpose of your blogging. As finally, it is all about the same...!

guest article by S. Srinivasan

Someone has well said that commonsense is not so common. This is all the more true for our SEO community. Instead of doing what is simple and doable we go for tools and processes which are exotic and unworkable. What do I really mean by commonsense SEO?

Content is King

Google is looking for sites which offer great content. By great content I don’t mean philosophical text but content on subject relevant to the website or blog. For example, if your theme is Candida Symptoms , you must provide great information on the subject. You must cover all aspects of Candida Symptoms and give relevant facts and figures. If threelac reviews is a part of it, so be it. Is there a conflict between selling books on Candida and providing information? At first glance this may seem to be so but if you look at it from a commonsense perspective we are all there on the internet to sell something or other. Some are selling themselves; some are selling information while others are selling products and services. There is absolutely no shame in selling. But you must make sure that in addition you also provide extensive and exhaustive information. This will keep Google happy which in turn will benefit your SEO effort. I cannot emphasize this fact more. Content is king and if you keep this fact in mind you will never go wrong. Instead of doing this commonsense stuff we try and fool Google with all kinds of black hat tricks. I can tell you beforehand that it won’t work. Remember that Google keeps refining its search algorithm. Even if you can fool them for some time you cannot fool them forever. Take for example, article submission sites. They made merry for a while but the Panda came and finished them off. You can hear article submission directories sobbing and crying foul. But who do you think is at fault.

 

The backlinks commonsense approach

This is another process which requires a bit of commonsense. What is Google’s take on backlinks? They respect sites which are referred to from other sites – other authority sites must link to them. This is also called reputation. Where is the commonsense here? You must always get backlinks from reputed sites – not dubious, leaning towards the nefarious and disreputable sites. But what do we do? In our haste to build backlinks we ignore this commonsense logic. As a result Google blacklists you and then you curse Google. My advice is therefore simple – have a commonsense approach to building backlinks.

Using social media like Twitter

This is another thing which makes me aghast. Many SEO experts swear on Twitter to optimize a site. As a result they create marketing blitzkrieg in which they feverishly Tweet and retweet, till the entire group drops dead due to exhaustion. To me this approach is crazy. How can a frenzy created by tweeting ever help to optimize your website? Use your commonsense and avoid such behavior. SEO is not a quickie job. It’s slow and painstaking.

Conclusion

Commonsense is difficult to grasp but it’s not beyond your reach.

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S Srinivasan loves to write on various aspects of online marketing. He also promotes several businesses online and Candida Symptoms is one of them. You will find more information on it here at threelac

Schuetze, Christopher (2011, November 23). New York Times: Textbooks finally take a big lap to digital. Retrieved from www.nytimes.com/2011/11/24/world/americas/schoolwork-gets-swept-up-in-rush-to-go-digital.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

Here comes a pleasant surprise !! A giveaway for the visitors of this blog. Yes, this is for the very first time, I have come up with a giveaway for the readers of this blog. I don’t know why I couldn’t think on the same earlier but anyways, here is a great chance for you to be a part of the same and become a lucky winner..!

Now, what does the lucky winner get ? The lucky winner has a chance to grab the Binverse Usenet Account for free. You may be wondering what is this all about? Well, once you have the free account with Binverse Usenet, you can download as much content as possible from the same (50 GB). For those who are unaware of the term Usenet, please visit this Usenet page to know more on it. In short -

Highlights of the Binverse Usenet Account -

In short, Binverse provides you with the following benefits -

So, here you go. I know most of you are tempted to give it a try. Sure..why not?  Currently, I have two free binverse usent accounts with this giveaway. The free binverse account doesn't have any expiry date as long as the size of the total downloaded content remains below 50 GB..!

Now, the ultimate question - 

What kind of content do you download mostly and why ?? 

You simply need to answer the above question and wait till 6th feb when I will be out with 2 lucky winners of this contest. You can start answering to my question by posting it as a comment in the comment box located below this post. Also, it isn't required but I will appreciate if you can share this post on twitter and facebook. And please do not forget to leave your email ids in the comments.

Very easy....Isn't it ?? 

All the best..!!

“A picture is worth a thousand words”. This is a statement that has been quoted over and over again. But the question is, are images actually beneficial in engaging prospects and customers?

The following are some tips that could be useful in ensuring that your business is well represented visually. 

Brand awareness

You might want to consider watermarking your images so as to increase brand awareness as well as protect your brand. Some of the tools which you can use to do this include Photo Watermark and Fast Watermark.

Effects

To ensure that your images stand out, you should create interesting effects. There are numerous apps that can be used to create effects such as tiles, collages, sketches, vintage, interesting textures and range rendering.

Keywords

When it comes to searching for images using search engines, keywords are very important. You should use keywords related to topics, concepts, age, people, human emotions and sayings.

Link

Many web users tend to roll over images in the hope of being directed to a destination. Therefore, it is important to link images so as to enable users to navigate directly to a destination.

Movies

Images don’t have to be still images. There are many tools which can be used to produce short movies which can then be embedded on your site or blog. Such moving images can have a major impression on web users.

Quality of experience

When it comes to social media, there are several image formats that are effective. This includes flow charts, graphs/charts, maps, how-to’s, guides and screenshots. Such images should be comprehensive and easy to use. In addition, they should be well-designed as well as helpful. Good images have proven to be a very vital resources for my blog which features jupiter images coupons and istock photo discounts. 

User photos

Facebook allows users to tag pages in user’s photos. This can be very beneficial for brands which are aiming at expanding their reach. A tag of a popular personality or a brand shows a strong endorsement of that particular page. This will arouse curiosity among users and increase the possibility of them liking it.

Widgets

In most of the social networking sites, you will find widgets which can be embedded on blogs or sites. This is a very effective strategy for growing your online community. It offers your readers a wide range of options for connecting with you.

Adverts

Most social networks allow the posting of pictures which can be helpful in advertising your business. When using such pictures, make sure they include links to your site, descriptions and calls to action.

Google index

Contrary to popular belief, Google does not just index text. Your images also get indexed. Therefore, images can be very useful in enhancing your site’s ranking. If your images have been optimized by tagging them properly, you can significantly increase your website’s search ranking.

Screenshots

Screenshots can be very effective in getting a message across. They are frequently used to stress a point or to demonstrate how a certain task can be completed. Another advantage of screenshots is that they allow you to add annotating features.
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Charles writes for istockphoto.com coupon codes and jupiterimage promo code, and occasionally for Aksindiblog. He also blogs about special coupon and discount offers such as istock photo discounts and jupiter images coupons.

guest post by Nancy

Guest posting on blogs is a funny thing – you spend a lot of time and effort putting together a fantastic article only to give it away to someone else and let their blog readers benefit from it. At times it can be frustrating to let your best work go, as most web hosts don’t want you reposting the content on your own site or on other sites; as soon as you send it to them you immediately forfeit the article rights’ to it. So why do so many people guest post?

The Obvious Reasons

There are the reasons, of course, which everyone talks about, such as expanding your blog’s readership and forming new relationships with other bloggers. And those are great reasons on their own.

By guest posting for someone else you do expose your writing and your blog to a whole new audience that – hopefully – will make their way over to your blog and become regular readers. It makes perfect sense to provide well-written and well-thought out content because that is what will drive people to your site – no one will read it or want to continue to read your content over on your site if you provide a guest post that is poorly written and not cohesive.

In the same respect, providing great content will also help to solidify a positive relationship with the blogger you’re guest posting for because you’re giving them something of value. If they know that they can count on you for informative content you have the potential to guest post regularly for them and swap links – and building up links is something every blogger strives to do.

But what about the other side of guest posting? The reasons that people don’t talk about often, but are still just as true?

The Non-Obvious Reasons

Aside from the points that everyone focuses on, guest posting also allows you to do a couple unique things.
For one, it allows you to become a better editor. You’re much more likely to really pay attention to your grammar, spelling, punctuation, and overall cohesiveness when you’re writing for someone else then when you’re writing for yourself. The better you get at editing as you go, the more well-rounded and efficient of a writer you’ll become.

It also teaches you selflessness with your writing which may sound cheesy, but it’s true. When you’re guest posting for someone you’re attempting to win over their readers and bring them to your site. This means you have to come to terms with giving up your best works. The better the article you write the more people likely to convert to regular readers of your own site.

Gaining from Giving

Guest posting encompasses a broad range of benefits and will not only make you a better writer, but will also make you a more cognizant and balanced writer.
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Nancy Parker was a professional nanny and she loves to write about wide range of subjects like health, Parenting, Child Care, and Babysitting, find a nanny tips etc. You can reach her @ nancy.parker015 @ gmail.com.