Saturday, March 10, 2012

Effective Blogging-For Class

Blogging can be a daunting task for some, a pleasure for others. A blog’s design can do many things. It can catch your audience’s attention, it can set you apart from potential competition, it can make your blog easy or hard to read and much more.
According to the UK’s Kronik Media, there are 15 element to effective blog design. The first of which is good readability. Making your blog easy to read is the first step to effective design. “Large font size, contrasting colour against the background, sufficient line and paragraph spacing are some ways to ensure content is easy to read.” (http://www.kronikmedia.co.uk/blog/15-elements-of-great-blog-design/2133/)
The second element of great blog design is emphasizing content. The whole point of a blog is the content. One must make sure that the content is easily accessed and that it isn’t out-shined by other elements of the blog. Pictures are always nice to have, just make sure they aren’t over bearing and taking focus away from the actual blog. You do not want your background image to be so interesting that people are busy studying the background instead of reading your blog.
Comments can be another important part of your blog. Readers want to leave their feedback and want to know that they are being “heard”.  “Well designed comment section encourages readers to contribute by sharing their views.” As well as commenting, people like to be able to share what the read with others via social media. So, making you blog share-able is important also. Share buttons for Facebook, Twitter, and others are easily integrated on you blog page when you are creating your blog. Don’t leave home; rather, don’t create your blog, without it.
If your blog is a professional blog and there are many links to different pages or posts, headers and footers can be necessary. “A well designed logo will re-enforce your brand. On the other hand, an effective slogan or tagline that describes your blog informs readers what you blog is about…Footer can be used to supplement navigation and to display a range of useful information and widgets” The sidebar is also important as much of your blog elements are  found on the sidebar. It is a map to your blog posts. 
For professionals and those wanting to profit from their blogs, making sure that your HTML codes are clean and correct is important. Links offering a person to take a tour of a website, see customer's reviews, or see product pricing are important. If you want to monetize your blog, banner ads are a common and effective way to make money off your blog. Bloggers can advertise their own products or get paid by companies to have their ads posted to the blog. 
Subscribing is also an important option for bloggers. If you want followers, in other words, if you want regular readers, having a "Subscribe" button is important. This allows your readers to receive updates on new posts and happenings on your blog.  
For Doraliza’s blog, along with the school entries, I would like to see more entries that are personal. The first entry let potential readers step into her life and feel her frustration. While Doraliza is obviously stressed about the process of her home buying experience, the reader can tell that this is really something that she wants as they look at the photos and their captions.
Something I would like to see for Doraliza’s blog is a little more color. I feel like there is more to her, just from her first post, than just brown. I don’t think the brown suits her. Maybe if it was solely a spot to post her class writings as it is a professional looking background, the brown and world map would be alright.
Lori’s blog was one of the first I read for our class. She immediately caught my attention with her first entry, I can totally relate to the body not wanting to get out of bed. I loved her humorous remark about keeping the covers company for another thirty minutes. She won me over with her shoe entry, “a shame”. (What can I say?  I’m a woman!) Lori has a certain charm about her that captured me and had me waiting for more. One thing I would like to see in Lori’s blog, though, is editing. Two things that bug me to no end are: starting a sentence without a capital letter or capitalizing the word “I”.  I also think that she could find a better-suited background to her blog and that charming wit!
As for Stephanie’s blog, the title itself is what caught my attention from the get-go. “Life in the blender” immediately made me reminiscent of the summers I spent getting snocones, one of the flavors at my favorite stand was “frog in a blender”, so my curiosity was instantly piqued. When I read Stephanie’s first post, my curiosity and love for a good story, were satisfied. I would like to see a little more detail because that story was too short and too captivating! I was drawn into her life and felt as if I was only getting a snippet and was disappointed that I was not getting more! That’s what you get for being so interesting, Stephanie! I want more please!! The background fit this feeling perfectly as it is like looking through a fogged window.
I received some very good feedback for my own blog from my fellow students. I have already begun to make changes to my blog based on the ideas of my classmates. I had not thought much before on having photos as part of my blog, but I have realized that it adds character and can lend a visual to my sarcasm or humor.  I have also considered, and will continue to think on, adding banner ads to profit from my blog. I feel, though, that I do not have a steady topic of conversation, nor do I have a steady stream of followers, so I may not have a lot of exposure for brands to make money off my blog. 
If I were to make my blog a professional one, I would definitely consider the “15 Elements” from the Kronik Media article. I certainly agree that aesthetics are very important for any blog, though. Let’s face it folks, people are all about looks when it comes to catching interest. Looks grab a person’s attention and then content holds it.



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