Oct.11.2007
Video #1: Four WordPress and Blog Design Tips
- Filed under: Tips
- Don’t abuse tags. They’re meant to complement your main categories. They’re not cool. Tags are clutter. Too much tagging will make your blog lose focus.
- Don’t use big images in your blog posts. When you need to use big images or photos, link to them through thumbnails and text links. Not using their actual sizes will allow to easily re-design your blog later on.
- Put your content first, but also design your blog around ads. Make it easy for banners to look pretty and neat within your blog.
- You should be unique, but also generic. Logos, favicons, and graphic banners are all areas where you can be unique. However, layout and structure-wise, don’t feel like to you need to reinvent the wheel to separate yourself from millions of other blogs. By mimicking typical layouts, you allow your users to make an easy transition from browsing other blogs to browsing your blog.
Thoughts about the video:
It looks like I’m not totally comfortable in front of the camcorder yet, a bit stiff and mispronounced some words here and there. Also, I don’t know my way around the video editing program yet. In the next video, I’ll try to put together something more smooth and organized.
Sure, it’s not perfect, but I loved it, and I’m sure your other readers will too.
Great tips, but watch out for those bullies!
Liked it too! The lil intro and outro’s nice.
hi man, looks good. put in on more channels , on blip.tv, revver,.. to get more traffic to your blog
Good tips.
I’ve never expected that intro & outro. haha
Who’s she?
Haha SP it’s great. It’s not bad at all for your first real video. Video blogging is tough, but you’ll eventually master that skill. Good luck and great video as well! Keep up the good work.
It is a great idea to embed this (lovely starting and ending) video into your post. I loved it also (:
haha nice video
haha, funny stuff
well i got about 200 blogs i need to start modifying
thanks
@Daniel - Thanks for the tip!
@Nice - She’s my girlfriend.
Yo SP, great one, short & sweet and valuable info packaged in an entertaining way. We’re not interested in a CNN presenter style video presentation so don’t stress about it too much man, I enjoyed and learnt a bit s well. I think you should definitely keep adding little funny bits in your videos. The 2 finger thing could end up becoming a bit of a calling card. Super SP to the rescue … daa da da taaa daaaaa!!!
Aaah, it looks good. I’m enjoying it. BTW, which editing tool are you using to edit your video?
How much do you typically charge for a custom, premium WP theme?
@John Diep - I use the ImageMixer3 for Panasonic.
@Bryan - I’m not for hire
regarding no. 2, if you don’t use thumbnails, would you recommend using max-width: 100% ?
Militaru - IE (internet explorer) doesn’t recognize max-width.
right, forgot about that.
the intro and outro’s are hilarious.
keep up the awesome work!
Talk more about the video on the forums here!
[…] an interesting post, SP recommended not including big pictures in blog posts. Simply abandoning big pictures in your posts might not be feasible. Instead of avoiding big images […]
you’re cute ^_^
about using big images i’m used to it and I try to fit my blog post area in medium flickr size.
by the way try uploading your videos at vimeo.com its more faster and more on personal videos.
by the way, is there any way we can edit tags or removed some tags?
Hey man,
I just wanted to say thanks so much for the “how to create your own theme” series you did. It was an incredible help as I begin my life with wordpress.
I have started to dig into the design for my blog, which is really going to be a website for my music. Right now it’s at revolutionaryresponse.com/pat/ if you happen to want to take a look (if you don’t, I’m not offended in the least). Just thought you might like to see some of the fruits of your labour.
Anyways, thanks again so much. I can’t wait to release this site and it is hugely in thanks to you.
Cheers,
Pat
[…] that I try some videoblogging/screen casting. This one is really intriguing to me, especially since Small Potato started doing it recently. I’ll think about this one, and look into starting it up […]
respect, respect. I would never try it!
hey SP, thanks for the vice on the image editor - ImageMixer3. I wonder if this can be use on any none panasonic gadget. I have a sony cam.
Good overall but a bit kiddish at the start and i’m 17 lol
since you are just starting with the video blog here is a tip:
Your entire face does not need to fill the screen.
Many people film this way and it is generally bad practice. When was the last time you stood that close to a person and had a conversation? News stations or video interviews don’t fill an entire video frame with a face often do they?
It’s nice to see more of people because we communicate with our body and hands just as much as our words. Faces filling the frame (FFF) seems to be an internet phenomenon that evolved from the days of webcams. I would gladly see this phenomenon disappear.
Thanks for the tip Cawlin. I’ll try moving farther away from the cam
Great work Small!
Something I would never try doing personally so I can’t offer any tips - but your originality deserves appluading!
[…] sourced here […]
“Don’t abuse tags. They’re meant to compliment your main categories.”
Hello I’m a tag; you really are a great category! You’ll go far…
I think you mean ‘complement’. They’re two different word you know.
I am a pedant.
yes you care tom. it’s fixed. thanks.
oh… where is the video?? Why did you stop it? Should be fun to watch!! Please bring it up again~
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the intro and outro’s are hilarious.
keep up the awesome work!