Decision, Decision, Decision

Which theme to use?

This is the biggest deciding point when it comes to blogging. It is especially difficult when your a designer and you constantly change themes like you change, well you know what I mean.

A designer is never satisfied! I know because I am one. Until I got to the point in blogging and with my life that it was going to be simple. Simple, simple, simple.

Starting a blog is a planning process. You have the idea, its in your head and your wanting to find the best tools to tailor your fit. I love the expression K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid). I detest the word stupid, but I have yet to find a word I could replace that with. But what I am saying here is this, find a theme that you know you can work with and move around in easy. A theme that will allow your readers to find your content simple to get to. Don’t use a theme that is distracting and causes your words to get lost on the page. Its a blog! Not a design page.

Do not choose a theme that will disrupt or defer you from the purpose of the blog. Its a nightmare to have written tons of information and have a somewhat successful blog  to only decide half way through that you want a different design because your either bored with it, or it takes to much of your time to work with. If you do not plan this through to begin with you may find yourself never really getting a good start.

Choose a theme that you can plan for growth later. One that the code is not so much a nightmare that you have no idea what to do. I know most people tighten their lips when they think about having to look inside the code side of blogging. But I am here to tell you, unless you can afford to pay someone to make the simple little changes for you, you are going to have to learn some simple actions.

I operate a handful of blogs on a daily basis. The one thing that was the biggest aggravation for me was working with challenging themes. I would find a theme that I really liked only to find working with the coders, code, was very time consuming. So then I started designing and doing my own until I ran into Brian Gardner. I can’t say enough about how perfect his themes and his code work has been for me to work with.

Strive for a big win right off the bat by putting all the basic things in place before you get started. The real thing about blogging is to make sure you focus your energy where you can make a difference.

It Doesn’t Get Any Easier

It doesn’t get any easier folks. I have been blogging for a long long time and I can tell you I have gone through so many editors and nothing comes close to the simpleness and ease of using Scribefire. It works on PC’s it works on mac’s. It sits in the bottom toolbar and waits for me to click the button and post something. It moves half way up the screen so I can still see my site or if I am writing about something on the web I found both screens are there.
The one requirement is that you have to use Firefox. It is an installed extension. Its simple as pie to work and its great for posting something in a hurry.

Here is a short video of using it.

The New Theme

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I have taken down the old site and refreshed it with a new look and new content. The new look comes via Brian Gardner’s newest Revolution Theme. The idea of this site is to promote blog building tips to the new and faint at heart bloggers. I know, there are numerous sites out there that have an abundance of tips and tricks and how to, and not to blog.

I had this site up for sale a few months back but never really got an offer that I felt I could live with. So I let it sit, until I could come up with just the right solution. I knew I had a great domain name so that was a plus. But I could never really get comfortable with the design, no matter how much I recoded the theme I was working with. My thinking in life, if its not working, put it down back off and wait.

I did.

Months later, Brian pops out this new theme that would work perfect for what I was trying to do. I wanted simplicity. I thrive on simple things. The problem with the old site was it was getting out of hand and it was an overwhelming task to try and take care of. I mean how many categories does a blog need???

So I grabbed the theme and now I am taking the simple approach. And in doing so, this blog will showcase how to blog without being overloaded and stressed. It can be done!

So for the most part the site’s content will be especially for those beginning but it will also be for those who want to blog down that road of simplicity while blogging.

Thanks Brian for the creation of yet another terrific theme. I will put this one to good use…

The First Steps

Even though this subject has been beat to death all over the internet I found it necessary to create a section on this blog about the subject. Since I have changed the face and direction of “Blog Building Tips” and its new design its a must for guiding my readers through a step by step process. Keeping in mind that these articles are written towards the assumption that you use or will be using Wordpress.

Everything on this site will be dedicated to that same assumption.