10 Design Tips to Make Your Blog Look Fabulous

10 Blog Design tips from the folks at TypePad.com -- and I agree wholeheartedly with them all!

You can also get a free e-copy of my Secrets of Successful Blogging: 101+ Tips for Blogging more Effectively, Efficiently, and Effectively  by subscribing to my newsletter in the upper right hand corner, and you'll get download info via email promptly (or send Amazon US$7 for a hardcopy).

And the 10 Blog Design Tips are:

1. Make your purpose clear.
2. Keep it simple.
3. Discover whitespace.
4. Use complimentary colors.
5. Place key information "above the fold."
6. Create a custom banner.
7. Check your copy size.
8. Add visual interest with photos.
9. Do a usability check.
10. Check your blog in several different browsers.

For details on these 10 tips, just click here.

Get More Done Online (and Offline)

So what determines how much important stuff you get done, stuff that matters, that moves you towards your goals be they business, personal, or whatever?

Is it your intelligence, your drive, your skills, your personality, or something else?

Or maybe it's not your strengths -- perhaps they simply determine potential? Maybe your success (actual success, not potential) is determined by your constraints, NOT your strengths?

So what worthwhile did you accomplish yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that?

I found a free report that has helped me already, in the last two days, accomplish more than in the previous two weeks! And I've fished a lot in the last two days as well :)

It's Operation: Uncertainly Syndrome, The Entreprenurial Emergency by Rich Schefren.

Here are some of my takeaways, which will/have already reduce my constraints and make me more successful in the end:

• Prime project days -- this is a big one. Entire days focused on completing a prime project. For example, today I finished my free ebooklet version of Secrets of Successful Blogging: 101+ Tips for Blogging more Effectively, Efficiently, and Effectively. It only took 3 hours, but would you believe I had this project crawling forward for about two months with no end in sight!
• I move too slowly because of fear of making mistakes. Mistakes can be fixed, but tortoises will always be slow. In fact some mistakes are absolutely OK!
• I have an inefficient workstyle, over-multitask, and emphasizing the wrong tasks. Instead of doing 10 things simultaneously, I try to do one or two at a time, concentrating on what's most important. For example, email is NOT usually most important, certainly not important enough to interrupt revenue producing tasks several times each hour!
• Similarly, I have too many ongoing projects, many of which I may never complete. I need to work on projects to completion before going on to the next project, rather than endless juggling (although some task/project juggling is no doubt necessary).

Great report from Rich Schefren, and I'm a big fan of his. I've gotten lots of value from his free reports over the past few years.

Click here for your copy, and I'd love your feedback!

Complimentary "Secrets of Successful Blogging"

I've gone through a few thousand copies of my booklet Secrets of Successful Blogging: 101+ Tips for Blogging more Effectively, Efficiently, and Effectively and decided to make a complimentary ebook version.

I've added links, some minor updates, as well as a number of other resources to this electronic edition.

If you subscribe to my newsletter, you should already have download information.

Otherwise, you can subscribe in the upper right hand corner, and you'll get download info via email promptly.

And of course I respect your privacy, no spam, no hate mail, no off color jokes, but lots of useful information, and not too frequently :)

Of course you can also send Amazon US$7 for a hardcopy.

An example of great writing

Simple. clear. Easy to follow. Speaks to you, the audience.

Stolen from Morty Schiller (who stole it, with credit, from A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner):

“Rabbit,” said Pooh to himself, “I like talking to Rabbit. He talks about sensible things. He doesn’t use long, difficult words like Owl does. He uses short, easy words like ‘what about lunch?’ and ‘Help yourself, Pooh.’ I suppose I really ought to go and see Rabbit.”

Now Morty is a man who can truly write well. he knows his words and how to use them.

Click here to check out an example of truly great writing by Morty: simple, clear, easy to follow, apt to horrify your uptight unpleasant English teacher :)

How to get 5 times as many posts from the same content

Want to get five times as many blog entries out of the same content?

Split it up into a list. Tips are a great way to segment content and they have the added benefit of being easy to divide into multiple entries.

So take your ideas for “How to Close the Sale” and make it “Five Tips for Closing the Sale.” Then post each tip on a different day. It’s easier to read, improves search engine performance and gives your readers a reason to come back!

Thanks to Paul Gillin for this tip (from his social media newsletter).

The New ".me" extension -- Is It Worthwhile?

I'm getting lots of questions about the new ".me" domain.

Is it worthwhile getting YourName.me ?

Good question, and the answer is "it depends."

First you can check at if it's available at Dotster, my preferred domain registrar.

I would certainly give preference to .com domains first, then probably .net and .org.

If you already have YourName.com or maybe .net or .org, then the answer is maybe. It won't hurt, and if you have a somewhat common name or a lot of competition it may be a good idea.

Since "Ted Demopoulos" is not common and my Internet presence is well established, I don't care about ".me".

However I think ".me" is a good choice for many people.

If your preferred name .com is not available, even if you have YourName.org or YourName.net, I'd consider YourName.me, especially if you don't have a very well established Internetpresence yet (like if you don't have most or all of the 1st page Google results).

If YourName.com, YourName.org or YourName.net, isn't available, then I would pounce quickly! Domain names,especially "Name" names are disappearing rapidly.

Even if you do nothing with YourName.me for a while, it may be a great investment.

Again, I use Dotster for most of my Domains. Click here to see if YourName.me is available. Their hosting is a good deal too.

Over and out!

Ted Demopoulos (.com)

Halloween Costumes, Blogs, and Authenticity

Halloween is coming up in a few weeks, and my kids are planning their Halloween costumes, which has me thinking about blogs and authenticity.

To be effective, you need to blog as your real self, transparently and authentically. If you try to "change" yourself for your blog, well, it just doesn't work long term. Writing in a conversational manner on a regular basis, as bloggers do, make it difficult to disguise your real self.

For example, I doubt I could pull off the "I'm a 100% serious business type with no sense of humor who confirms to established lines of thought" for very long -- it's just not me.

But can bloggers disguise their real selves for the occasional post, just like wearing a costume for Halloween or perhaps a costume party?

For example:

• Could I do a fake guest post as a female, just as I once wore a dress on Halloween(and I make an ugly woman!)?
• How about a satirical post about a topic you normally blog on?
• Maybe a mock post as Fred Flintstone? (famous cartoon character)

Well, I say why not? If it's fun and not harmful, who cares?

Just as on Halloween I might disguise myself for the fun of it, there is nothing wrong with an occasional non-authentic blog post. Even if it might be technically dishonest, as long as you are just "lying recreationally," as in a practical joke, I say it's OK.

Stand by for a string of posts by Hannah Montana next :)

Oh, and Halloween? My kids will be dressed as Jesters, and I'll either be a ghost (sheet over my head) or perhaps buy a great commercial Halloween costume.

Hmmm, maybe an un-authentic yet appropriate post on Halloween :)

5 Tips for Online (and Offline) Success

Dianna Huff has written a great, free, no registration required, ebook about on (and offline) success.
Click here to check it.

It contains advice applicable to any blogger as well as anyone with a professional or commercial Web site.

I paraphrase (and slightly modify to make more generic) her 5 tips below, which are focused at B2B but contain advice applicable everywhere.

This is well worth a read by everyone.

1. Figure out what your audience wants and then give it to them.
2. Figure out what you want BEFORE you start writing.
3. Integrate online and offline tactics -- they really aren't separate worlds anymore.
4. Build your online presence around what the people you want to attract  desire.
5. Focus on your audience/customer/prospect. Not yourself, your company, your stuff.

The ebook is called Five B2B MarCom Strategies to Increase Sales Now.

I've read it twice (in it's entirety) so far, and found lots to apply in many of my online areas, include B2B (business to business) and much more.

Google Chrome: New Google Browser

Google, in their never ending quest to control the world, is releasing Google Chrome imminently, their new browser.

Basically we use browsers for much more than even a couple of years ago, and it's time for a complete redesign. Looks like Google did a pretty good job, although of course the release in "beta."

More details on Google Chrome are here on the Official Google Blog, and much more details (semi technical, but very very well done) are here on the Google Chrome comic book.

Promoting anything via Press Releases, direct to the consumer/user/reader

Almost anything can be promoted, for example a web site, product, event, you name it, via a press release today.

Press releases, pretty easy to write one pagers with a simple format, used to be for the press. You could buy advertising, or try to persuade journalists to write about you or your product etc. with a press release.

Today, with the explosion of the Internet and online press releases, we can talk about "direct to consumer" press releases. Who cares if a journalist writes about the stuff in your press release, if it shows up in search engines results and other places your target audience will find it? Hey, no surprise but more and more people are finding things online rather than offline.

Pretty much the bible here is David Meerman Scott's The New Rules of Marketing and PR, a book I've read more than once and I'll read again.

Here's my latest example:
I want to promote my ebook, Effective Internet Presence: Now required for business and life as well as the related Web site. I'm writing a book proposal based on its contents, and bigger numbers, downloads as well as traffic and email addresses for my ezine, are important to publishers, very very important.

Why not write a press release announcing my new ebook? Even if I've had maybe 20,000 downloads, it's still relatively new, and a press releases could easily boost those numbers.

So, here's my press release, Online Personal Branding: Internet Guru Releases Free Guide.

I not only put it on my Web site, but more importantly released it via PRWeb.com for $80 which will get it FAR wider distribution. I usually pay PRWeb $80 but they have a bunch of different "contribution levels" with different levels of exposure.

Now I want the mainstream media to pick it up, but that's not my primary target. The main target is people who might benefit from or like my ebook.

Notice the title -- "Personal Branding" is a much more commonly searched for term than anything in the title of the ebook hence I put it in the title of the press release to attract search engine traffic. Also, I'm not vain, but "Internet Guru" sounds cool and pretty enticing.

We'll see how well it works!