Pro Blog Design

This blog is roughly 5 months old now, meaning that 2007 was both its best year ever, and its worst year ever. All in all though, I enjoyed it.

As a last tribute to the year, I’d like to share with you some stats from the blog, highlight the best posts incase you missed them, and then make a few resolutions for the next year.

In 5 months I’ve written 83 posts, which have gotten a grand total of 1877 comments. That rounds off to 23 comments per post; a fact that I’m immensely thankful to you all for!

What’s more is that if I included all of the nice comments left by those chatty wee spambots, it would be 83 comments per post. Wow. Thanks spammers Akismet!

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Pro Blog Design is finally offering professional blog design services.

To celebrate, I’ve got an offer for you; 5 pointers about your blog design, for free. And you don’t have to do anything to get them.

The Design Services

I’m offering two different services; the first is a complete blog design, which speaks for itself really.

The second is a design appraisal, where I will assess your current design, and suggest any improvements that could be made. This way you can perfect your theme, without all the expenses of getting a new design from scratch.

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Photo by Tonyelieh Today is Monday 15th October 2007, Blog Action Day. If you don’t know what that means right now, you will by the end of the day. Blog Action Day is one day a year when bloggers around the globe unite for a common goal.

This year, bloggers are dedicated to helping the environment. I’m not going to make a speech about our planet, what our shortcomings are doing to us, or what they will do to us. There are better, wiser bloggers who will do that much better than I.

I’m going to ask a single question; when it comes to our planet, have you done more harm than good, or more good than harm?

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Adblock Plus is an extension to the FireFox browser that let’s you selectively block adverts. It is a rather advanced plugin with many options, but is it moral to use? Or is it stealing from bloggers?

The New York Times have given some facts behind the extension. Between the details of what exactly ad blocking is, and how it relates to various business models on the internet, one quote in particular stands out, “300,000 to 400,000 new users each month.” Is that figure worrying or to be expected?

There are some strong opinions for both sides of the debate. For instance, one article says that ad blocking is not only moral, but needed, whilst another has replied back with the counter side.

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Blogging has become a huge industry these days, not just in terms of design and development, but of blogging advice too. There are hundreds of blogs out there on all aspects of blogging, from writing content, to making money. There are even some on blog design! Imagine that.

Although all of that advice may be available for free, it isn’t readily available. It will take you many hours of trawling to find those few gems that make it all worthwhile. Rather than wasting time sorting out the signal from the noise, you have the option of paying for some solid guidance and advice.

Anyone can pose as a consultant though, so this post is about the places where I personally would spend my money if I wanted blogging advice (No affiliate links anywhere. Just honest opinion).

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Minimalist blog design is all the rage these days. In the pursuit of usability and a better user experience, designers everywhere are stripping out the needless elements of their sites. The result? Clean, fast loading sites that a user can actually use.

As with any design trend, there are two questions you should ask yourself.

1. Why should I adopt a minimalist design?
2. How can I adopt a minimalist design?

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Pro Blog Design had its one month anniversary this week, and so instead of the usual weekly wrap-up post, I’m going to do something selfish. I’m going to write about Pro Blog Design’s first month. And what a month it has been!

The Milestones

I have a document on my computer, where I save a list of all the milestones Pro Blog Design has passed. I wish I could list them all, but there have been so many!

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