Hello guys! For my first guest post here at Pro Blog Design, I’m going to show you how to sell more ad spaces by adding stats to your WordPress blog’s Advertise page.
Unless stated, the PHP codes here are going to go into your content itself. That means youl have to use WordPress Page Templates (They allow you to make a theme file specifically for your Advertise page).
Last week I put up a series of polls, and one of them asked if I should bring back the Design Review posts I used to write. The overwhelming response was yes, so here we go!
This site under review here is 21 Gun Studios, a web design firm run by Adam. He blogs about web development, and the layout is quite unique (Which is why I chose it!).
Thousands of blogs show avatars next to their user’s comments. The avatars are a great way to make things more personal and create some variety between the different comments.
But there are always people who don’t have an avatar. The result is usually a stack of default gray avatars. The same gray avatar you see on every other blog with Gravatars…
It only takes a few minutes to make your own, branded avatar.
Comments are one of the most important aspects of blogging, and something that all bloggers appreciate. And yet, comment areas are a typically boring affair.
By making commenting a more enjoyable experience, you will encourage more commenters to return to your blog to check up on previous comments, and to leave new ones.
The default comments field is boring, and quite limited. It is possible to write your own HTML tags in the comment, but that’s a nuisance that you won’t do often. It’s usually easier to just leave out the formatting, isn’t it?
NicEdit is just 30kb in size, and gives a full featured text editor. Check out the comments field of this post to see it in action. It’s much easier to format a comment this way.
For anyone; NicEdit.
Starfeeder is a fan site for the massively popular StarCraft series of sci-fi strategy games. Naturally, Starfeeder sports a very modern, techy, design to suit the series. Has it pulled it off?
Ajax is a great technology. It allows you to update various aspects of your page, without ever having to refresh.
The trouble with Ajax is that it is overused and abused. Many people try to do too much with it. If you’re building a web-app, fantastic, use it all you like! If you’re just building a blog though, remember your restraint.
Good use of Ajax comes in small doses, and only when it helps you achieve your goals. Can it save you the hassle of reloading the same page? Will it let you accomplish simple tasks quickly? If so, then you’re using Ajax well.
Trackbacks are the messages displayed in the comments list whenever another blog links back to one of your posts. Many blogs disable trackbacks, but not all.
If you use trackbacks on your blog, it is best if they are not mixed with the comments. The comments are a conversation between between real people. Having machine-generated links in the middle of that will only serve to disrupt the conversations.
The method described here will lift out all of the trackbacks, and then display them as a numbered list after the list of comments is finished. Once you have this done, customizing the trackbacks to appear however you want them to is simple.
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