Making My Blog Look More Professional

I’m only 18 days into this new blog, and I’m pleased to report that visitor stats and earnings are on track, but for a few days now I’ve been unhappy with the look and feel of the blog when compared to other sites. This feeling was compounded when someone commented that the site looked a little cluttered. So today I had a really good look at it and made the following changes:

• Blending Google Adsense adverts
• Signing up to a mailing list service provider
• Putting a sign up form on the site for the mailing list
• Adding a professional copyright notice
• Creating a “brand” for the site
• Designing a logo for the site and installing it in the template
• Writing a much more detailed “About” page

So, as you can see, I’ve been busy! I’m going to take you through each of these now, explain the reasons and the process I went through:

Blending Google Adsense adverts
This refers to making the adverts “blend” into the site. The perceived wisdom is that people are more likely to click them if they don’t scream ADVERT! In my case, the links on the site are orange, so it was simply a case of visiting the adsense page, hitting “manage ads” and then selecting the color box and choosing the closest match. I must say the ads look far less intrusive, so we’ll see how they work out.
Signing up to a mailing list provider

I already have a few people signed up to my site, but the process for contacting them through the Drupal system is cumbersome, and the options for producing really effective emails or newsletters are limited. I researched various companies who could provide mailing list management and in the end elected to go with Constant Contact for two reasons. Number one I have used them before and found the service excellent, and number two they offer a 60 day free trial without a credit card – something I need in my current financial situation. You can benefit from the free trial as well, have a look at www.constantcontact.com

Putting a Sign-Up form on the website for the mailing list
This is essential, and I’ve positioned it top right on the site, using a Drupal block and inserting the html. The form takes people to a sign up page I customized with logos and my own words, and they are then automatically added into the database held by Constant Contact. I also manually added my existing subscribers at this point. You can see the form over on the right – go on, add your name and see how it works!

Adding a professional copyright notice
This was easy – I simply added it to the footer of the page and remembered to add 2008-2009 and the copyright symbol © which you can get on a PC by holding Alt and typing 0169.

Creating a new brand for the site
So far I have been using a standard Drupal template, but I knew I need some kind of brand image for the blog, if I was to achieve my aim of mainstream recognition. Most personal blogger use their names and photos as their branding, but I can’t do that as I must remain anonymous for now, for reasons I have explained before.

Designing a logo for the site and installing it in the template
So I decided to go with a strong logo, which you can see the photo attached, and also at the head of the site. The logo is deliberately a reflection, as this site is a compilation of my verbal reflections! I also took the time to create a faveicon and a smaller version of the main one, just using the letters “M L” for use on other sites where I need something square.

With Drupal, it was easy to simply add the logo into the theme, uploading the Jpeg via the “administer site” page.

Writing a much more detailed “About” page
Reading so many other people’s blogs, it gradually dawned on me that the first place I tend to visit is the “About” page. If the content there is interesting or compelling, I tend to read more, if it isn’t I bounce back out. As I didn’t even have and about page, I realized this was a serious error and set about building one quickly. You can view it
Here

Please let me know via comments what you think.