You're going to want to subscribe to my RSS feed. It's the greatest thing since sliced bread - even better, in fact. You know you want to.
Too lazy to code another section or add a widget for 125×125 ads? Try these themes that already have them built in! Unlike other theme lists, this one is actually practical if you want to sell ads on your blog.
Simple Red - Download - Preview
Slick Blue - Download - Preview
Black And White - Download - Preview
WP-Polaroid - Download - Preview
True Blue - Download - Preview
WP Premium - Download - Preview
Blue Green Harmony - Download - Preview
UPDATE: For some odd reason, the images might not be displaying. I spent a good ten minutes screenshotting and cropping those babies! Grr!
Posted by Max Miroff |
6 Comments »
A whirlwind of wonderful works of Wordpress art.
Does your blog theme suck just not match up to your competitors? When you tell me your blog theme can beat up their blog theme, do you really mean it? Unless you actually wasted spent your hard-earned money on a professionally designed Wordpress theme, then you probably need a new one.
THE THEME DILEMMA
Despite the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of Wordpress themes out there and it’s amazingly easy to find good theme resources, you might need another blog post on discovering a new theme that is right for you.
THE LIST OF GREAT WORDPRESS THEME RESOURCES
Don’t worry - these aren’t crappy theme sites I stole from another resource, no sir - these are awesomely amazing Blog Badly certified* theme resource sites!
*Blog Badly certification does not mean anything.
Posted by Max Miroff |
3 Comments »
Wordpress.org > Blogger.com > Wordpress.com
Nothing more, nothing less.
Posted by Max Miroff |
3 Comments »
The Perfect Blog Design
Sure, everyone loves some good ol’ great content, but who cares about that when you’ve got a fancy picture of a car (shiny!) as your blog header? It’s critical to have great blog design because it’s arguably the biggest factor in whether a reader stays or goes.
BENEFITS OF GREAT BLOG DESIGN
Is your content crap? Add some pictures of fake checks from Google or sports cars and people will immediately love you (see: John Chow). Oh, and I guess it’s more pleasing to the eye. Anyway. Here are some tips I’ve garnered from top-tier blogs that you should combine in order to create a blogging design hybrid that will be so good readers eyes will literally bleed.
- Include pictures of desirable things. Cars, money, checks are the top contesters here. Try combining them all (perhaps a car made out of Franklins filled with $1000 Google checks? Just sayin’…
- Add lots of 125×125 ad buttons. When people see 125×125 ad buttons, they know that your blog is serious business. Because 125×125 is like that.
- Add lots of other ads. All of those big-name bloggers have plenty of ads. So should you.
- Get a custom logo. Your custom logo should combine the things mentioned in step #1. When John Cow came out with its cowcar logo, it asserted its authority over all things cowcar-ish.
- Publish RSS feeder counts. Even if your blog only has one subscriber (you, in an attempt to inflate your numbers), display it. If you have to, edit it and add some big number. Trust me, no one will notice that your tiny 10-visitor-per-day blog has 12,000 subscribers.
Does your blog have any of that? Hm?
That’s what I thought. Now get your Photoshop out and put it to good use.
Posted by Max Miroff |
2 Comments »
Everyone loves useless widgets! It’s a fact! Otherwise, why would so many blogs use them? Honestly, who hasn’t seen those weird clock widgets or BlogCatalog “recent visitor” badges? Hm? That’s right. They’re everywhere. Like the plague. Now that’s viral marketing (cue cheesy joke drumroll).
WHERE CAN I FIND USELESS CRAP TO PUT ON MY BLOG?
I’m glad you asked! Probably the most useless graphics are those used on MySpace profiles, so why not check on those sites? Here are a few of the top pizazz providers:
- MySpaceJunks.com - at least the title is truthful. It truly is junk.
- UselessGraphics.com - see above
- Gifs.net - Make no mistake - although the title does not include anything about trash, this website has a lot.
WHERE TO CRAM THE USELESS GLITTER AND GRAPHICS
Everywhere! Add them to posts! Add them to your sidebars! Replace your header with a picture of Bugs Bunny dancing! Turn your RSS feed button into a flaming skull! Anything is possible!
THE WORST OF THE WORST
Here are some examples of exactly the type of graphics you are looking for:
Note the red substance that your eyes are emitting? That is blood. When your eyes begin to bleed, you know that you have achieved a perfect combination of pizazz on your blog. Prolonged staring at these images may cause blindness and nightmares.
Posted by Max Miroff |
3 Comments »
When people look at your blog, they want to see something that appeals - something that looks nice. Pictures are an essential part of this, but it’s important to know how to effectively utilize them.
CHOOSING IMAGES
PICK ANY PICTURE - it doesn’t have to relate to the content whatsoever. Say you’re writing about something that’s not very exciting; extreme snowboarding, for example. Which of the below pictures would you choose?
OR
The correct answer is the picture of the camel. Why, you ask? Well, it’s more exciting. The snow in the snowboarding picture evokes coldness. As we all know, cold temperatures cause molecules to slow down and become less excited. This is not the desired effect you are looking for. The camel, on the other hand, spits globs of saliva at people. What could possibly be better than your reader envisioning this happening to them?
ALWAYS USE PICTURES
No matter how small a section is, pictures will always make it better. They’re just that good.
PICTURE ALIGNMENT
When you’re blogging, there are lots of complicated buttons that look like this: 
These, apparently, control the alignment of your blog images (right, left, center, conservative, liberal, chaotic evil, etc). What works for me is selecting the one that seems most attractive at the time. Feeling like compromise? Click the center alignment button! Is your seat broken and leaning towards the left? Pick the right option to get some equilibrium into your life! As you can see, endless possibilities are available (three, actually).
A FINAL NOTE ON BLOG IMAGES
If you pick good pictures, then your readers will be distracted from how dull your writing is. This is an added bonus.
Posted by Max Miroff |
No Comments »
Picking the font that’s right for your blog can be a daunting task. I mean, come on, just look at all of those fonts to the left. Seriously. Aren’t they scary? Especially Courier. It stares into my soul…
Lets get off of the topic of demonic fonts and back onto the process of choosing one:
FONT FALLACIES
Before we begin, it’s important to note a few things:
- Comic Sans is a GREAT font! Don’t listen to what everyone else says – they’re just jealous!
- Times New Roman, Verdana, and Arial are, in fact, not the only fonts out there.
- Using Wingdings is perfectly acceptable as long as you don’t expect people to read it.
FINDING FONTS
To find the perfect text type for you, you’re going to need to go through a very important series of steps that will culminate in glorious epiphany. Take some deep breaths, relax, dim the lights, and concentrate. Become one with your blog and th-
Hah. Who am I kidding. Getting a font is easy! Here are some simple steps that are sure to help you find the ideal font for your blog.
- Picking a font is as simple as opening up Microsoft Word, clicking on the tab where it asks for font, closing your eyes, smiling, and clicking. Remember this
- It is very important to consider font color when deciding upon one. Your text needs to either clash with your site theme so that it is painful to read OR blend in like a chameleon in a tub of chameleons. (more information about blog color here)
- If all else fails, don’t go with the generic look of fonts like Times New Roman or Verdana - that’s just boring. Just because millions of people use them to great success doesn’t mean they’re anything special.
Posted by Max Miroff |
4 Comments »
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BLOG COLOR
Color is arguably one of the most important things in choosing a blog design that’s right for you (and wrong for you readers). Bloggers that attract lots of traffic often have colors that are very pleasing to the eye and a text color that is easy to read. This in turn means that to BLOG BADLY you have to pick the absolute worst color scheme you can. If your eyes aren’t tearing, it’s not bad enough.
BLOG COLOR CHECKLIST
Picking a color for your blog can be a daunting task. If you don’t know where to start, here’s a handy list that should get some ideas flowing:
- Do you colors match? You can check out this very (un)handy website for some horrendously perfect color combinations. If your colors look good together, you’re not doing it right.
- How bright or dark are your colors? Make sure that the scheme you choose features either very mellow colors (for example, black background and black text) or amazingly bright ones (yellow background and pink text with purple polka dots). Sometimes even a mix will work.
- How many colors do you use? You need to put in at least 10 completely different colors in your blog design. I’m not talking about navy blue and blue - I’m talking red and green. Extreme contrast is very important because it hurts the eyes when used in excess.
FINAL PRODUCT
I whipped up a quick color palette that you can use for your blog. It follows the guidelines reasonably well and I’d
rate its annoyance factor at a 7 out of 10.
IN CONCLUSION
Color is one of the most basic and simplest things to implement in a bad blog design. More about the layout and various other aspects of design will be covered shortly. Just remember: when people look at your blog it should appear to them that an art student spattered cans of paint randomly onto their monitors.
Posted by Max Miroff |
5 Comments »
