WPDesigner.com

How do you separate your blog from the rest of the pack? Writing style, voice, and blog topics make you different, but those factors don’t matter to first time visitors. To them, yours is like every other blog.

So, how you do separate yourself from the pack? This fifth post, of a series called Wpdesigner Weekend Must Do (WWMD), will help you rise above the rest to make a more memorable first impression.

No Feedburner Chicklet - The Feedburner Chicklet, used to display your number of blog subscribers, is useful for attracting more readers, but browse enough blogs and you’ll begin to see why you really should remove it. Instead of an ugly little button to display your number of subscribers, opt for a text-based display of that number or completely do away with displaying your subscribers count. Try harder, don’t just slap a Feedburner Chicklet on your blog.

No Right Sidebars - I should practice what I preach, but I’m perfectly fine with my own right sidebar at this moment. But for you, if you have a small sidebar, consider moving it to the left. Someone should really run a test to find out the average number of blogs that use right sidebars.

Fluid / Elastic Width - Currently, only the unusually diligent developers have the patience to create a fluid or elastic design for their blogs - designs that fit in any resolution. Typically, if you take this route, you will instantly improve your readers’ browsing experience.

Irregular Advertisement Formats - Just because they’re advertisments, it doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with them. Don’t go for the boring 125×125 button banners like everyone else is doing. Using irregular ads sizes or formats will help you look unique. It’ll also help your sponsors get more clicks because irregular formats tend to yield better results.

Now you’re armed with four new ideas. Have fun tweaking your blog this weekend.

For this weekend, narrow down the number of categories that you use on your blog, unless it’s a general blog that covers a wide range of topics.

How does deleting categories benefit you? Plain and simple, your blog needs to stick to its niche, focused on its main topic(s), so your list of categories need to reflect that. A short list of categories makes it easier for wandering visitors to determine what your blog is about, just like the title, blog description, main navigation links, and etc.

Regardless of what it’s about, your blog needs to look the part, say the part, and most importantly be the part. Every little thing reinforces the fact that your blog is bout a certain niche. The more you make it clear that your blog is about a certain niche, the more likely visitors will come back for it.

While narrowing down my own set of categories, it was clear to me that I was wandering away from what my blog is about, WordPress themes. Instead of ignoring miscellaneous categories with few posts that didn’t have much to do with WordPress or WordPress themes, I moved the posts under those categories to the Uncategorized category and deleted the now empty miscellaneous categories.

Another benefit from shortening your category list is spotting your strengths. For some blogs, it’s easy to see what their strengths are. For example, you can clearly tell that Wpdesigner’s strengths are WordPress Themes and Tutorials. For some other blogs, it isn’t so easy to determine. Deleting miscellaneous categories will help you determine your strengths.

So, go through your blog to determine whether you need to re-focus and get back on track. If you can, delete miscellaneous categories.

Have a great weekend!

Welcome to another edition of Wpdesigner Weekend Must Do (WWMD). For this weekend, you must reduce your blog’s bounce rate.

Let’s say you’ve paid $100 to get 400 new visitors to your blog and 200 of them left without doing anything. How do you feel about that? Even if you’re getting free traffic, you should be worrying about reducing your bounce rate. You could be losing those visitors forever. (more…)

Last week, I started a new series on this blog called, Wpdesigner Weekend Must Do (WWMD) to help you improve your blog one weekend at a time. If you were here for last week’s WWMD then you should have uninstalled unnecessary plugins that you didn’t need, to speed up your blog’s loading time and decrease server load.

For this week’s WWMD, it’s very simple. Get me to review your blog. It’s free! And, getting someone, other than yourself, to review your blog is probably the best thing you can do to improve it. Go to the Wpdesigner forums; register for an account; wait for the email to activate your account; login and start a new topic under “Ask Small Potato” Reviews to make your review request.

If you have specific questions, be sure to include them. It’s best to go beyond making a general review request.

From design and speed, to SEO (search engine optimization) and making more room for your blog’s most popular content, I’ll give you the full break-down of your blog. Note: You should make review requests for blogs using unique themes only. I will not review blogs using free WordPress themes.

It’s first come first servered so don’t wait. Take advantage of this free review service!

No, WWMD doesn’t stand for Wimpy Weapons of Mass Destruction. It stands for Wpdesigner Weekend Must Do. WWMD is a new series of posts that I’m starting on this blog to help you improve your own blog, one weekend at a time.

Your first Wpdesigner-Weekend-Must-Do task is to review your installed plugins and uninstall the unnecessary ones to improve your blog’s performance.

For this blog, I’ve uninstalled the WP Download Monitor plugin, which I used to track how many times my themes and other files have been downloaded. Why did I uninstalled such a useful plugin? I didn’t need it and it was putting stress on my server, simple as that.

If you want a more complicated explanation, here it is; the WP Download Monitor plugin was making too many queries to the database. The more queries your blog makes, the more stress your server (web host) has to endure. In extreme cases like surviving a Digg-effect or a huge sudden increase in traffic, your host could shut down your blog for putting too much stress on the server, even if you haven’t used up the storage and bandwidth resources. (more…)