thinkjayant
Treat your Blog like your Mother-in-Law
You love her, you hate her. But the truth is you just can’t ignore her. Let me repeat it again. YOU JUST CAN’T IGNORE HER. And moreover you don’t have to be married to just find that out (Since I am unmarried, my cousins helped me out here)…
Learn good blogging tactics and strategies from the game of Chess : Part II
Chess: Tactic vs. Strategy
“In chess, a tactic refers to a short sequence of moves which limits the opponent’s options and results in tangible gain. Tactics are usually contrasted to strategy, in which advantages take longer to be realized, and the opponent is less constrained in responding.” – cited from Wikipedia
It is important to understand that, tactics are short term moves while strategies are for long term gain. A number of tactics can be used to achieve…
Learn good blogging tactics and strategies from the game of Chess
Modern Chess is one of the most popular indoor games for young and old minds alike. It has a lot to do with exercising your mind, concentrating; planning moves to out bid your opponents, amongst others. Though it looks simple enough to pass on, it has a long list of advantages for which it continues to remain the numero uno whiz kid game for ages.
How does it related to blogging? And why should you care to read? Let’s begin asking yourself…
Eight simple and effective tips for blog design
“To me a recipe needs to look appealing to eat first. Taste comes second.”
The design of your Blog is a two edged sword. You have to maintain a fine balance between the looks and aesthetics versus the size and load times. A good design does not be heavy on graphics but rather be pleasing to the eyes. You can make your blog stand just by being creative. The point here is to grab your reader’s attention and hold it.
Today we are flooded with so many blogs. Just name a topic and you have a blog on it. But a lot of them are cluttered, ugly and sometimes even repulsive. You should be thankful to these blogs, because it gives you a chance to differentiate yourself.
It is understandable that not all are web designers here. But it does not give an excuse for them to make such bad looking blogs. It is disappointing because, they put all their work to go waste. Unable to grab visitor’s attention means losing out potential market.
With so many themes, plug-in, widgets, tutorials and other resources available for free on the web, you don’t need to have advance photoshop skills to design your blog. A simple task of deciding what components to use and where to place it would suffice.
1. KISS
Keep It Simple, Stupid – The golden rule of designing anything is keeping the focus on simplicity and ease of use. Present your audience with an appealing design, not necessary an eye catching one.
2. Designing the layout
Take a piece of paper and pencil, start designing the layout of the site on it. Make use of boxes to visualize the site components. Don’t go into much detail, just focus on where to place navigation menu, tags, title, ads, comments etc.
Once you are done, you have a rough estimate of how your site going to be structured. Now you can go by searching themes on the web for your Content Management System / Blogging Software or even start from scratch.
3. Focus on Topic Name and Content
Do understand that a reader comes to your blog for your post and not to see your graphic skills (Unless it’s a blog on graphic designing). Three most important things for the reader are: BLOGNAME, TOPIC TITLE and CONTENT.
Focus on these three things and your half job is done. BLOGNAME is generally placed at the top of the blog, so it is the first thing visible to your reader. TOPIC TITLE and CONTENT should be laid out well to make it easily readable.
